Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear introduced slightly improved visuals and an expanded weapons pool, but beyond that it simply introduced a new set of world spanning scenarios for fans of the previous tactical first-person shooter to sink their teeth into. At this point Red Storm has released their first expansion pack for R6:RS that changes the pace of the series with some high profile, and slightly more action packed, missions.

Nothing about Rogue Spear: Urban Ops should catch you by surprise. The expansion pack is essentially more of the same heavily detailed tactical missions many of us have come to respect. All of the planning stages are still included and very little of the interface has changed. The true difference between the previous R6 outings and Urban Ops are the mission environments. While these missions follow the same pattern of room clearing and well-coordinated assaults, there are a few new variables introduced into the mix. Entering the first mission a player will realize it’s a completely different ball game. The areas are crawling with civilians, all wearing different color clothes, yet still resembling would-be assailants. Gunfire erupts from the crowd but the source of these shots is now far more complicated to locate.

This kind of situation easily evokes a far different response than a bulk of the older missions found in Rogue Spear. As the game moves on the second mission illustrates another change in the R6 style. The player is sent in to take back a subway station that is being occupied by terrorists. This mission can easily turn into a fierce firefight as the place is simply crawling with armed goons that would like nothing better than to plug your whole team. Tactics need to be adjusted on the fly in this particular mission as the action may hit a frantic pace and be forced to a halt as threat from an unknown sniper becomes apparent.

It’s this type of variety in mission tactics that makes Urban Ops’ campaign such a worthwhile one. One of my gripes with the original R6 was that a lot of the missions seemed to play too similar, this was improved in Rogue Spear, and it seems to have been improved even further in this expansion.

Along with the new missions Red Storm has added four new weapons that are acclimated to the urban environments. They also increased the flexibility with custom missions. This allows the player more control over terrorist placement, room layout, and situation specific goals. The options and support for the custom missions is enough to add a considerable amount of replay to the title. Multiplayer functions are still one of the most important aspects of the R6 series, and I don’t think that will change anytime soon.

On a side note I do feel the expansion pack does raise the system requirements a little more than what may have been stated for R6: Rogue Spear. There is an apparent increase in texture usage and non-player character models throughout the game, which will lend itself to crippling the framerate on some PC setups. It would have been nice to see a few more weapons added in the expansion pack, as four just seems like such a small number for an R6 title. Yet I can’t help enjoying this expansion pack as it simply gives the player more of the same excellent mission flexibility and execution of the original.