When Rainbow Six was released, it was a huge breath of fresh air and originality. Rainbow Six focused on realism, in which one shot will ultimately kill you off. This forced the player to think about where they are headed and how they go about it, since they also have a squad of other men following him or her around. One wrong move can result the in death of an entire group of infiltrates. The sequel, Rogue Spear, improves upon everything that made Rainbow Six popular.

The basic concept idea has stayed the same into the Rainbow Six sequel. You are part of a tactical group called Rainbow, who moves throughout the world attempting to take down the most dangerous terrorists. While the action segment is where most of the excitement takes place, there is actually quite a bit that goes on before you even enter that portion of the game. Beforehand, specific preparations have to be made in order to ensure that the mission is completed successfully. You’ll have to outfit your men with the right equipment (weapons, accessories, clothing, etc.), read up on the objectives and look into background information and plan specific way points for the men to follow Don’t feel like going through all that trouble? Sound too complicated? Don’t be intimidated, as it’s possible to use a already laid out plan that the developers have put together. This usually works just as good.

Realism is a central part of the game and stays true all over. Real life weapons such as the HK MP5A4, M4 Carbine, Walther WA20000, M16-A2 and SPAS-12. Each reacts differently and are better in certain situations than others. In a level where a lot of close combat is going to be taking place (i.e. the 747 airplane) a shotgun firearm might be a more useful than a long rage sniping weapon.

For being a game totally focused on being realistic, you’d think they would have an advanced engine to power the game so that it could pump out some great visual detail, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, Rogue Spear’s graphics haven’t changed all that much from the average ones found in the original Rainbow Six. To the game’s credit, though, the environmental effects and the level designs are impeccable. Rain falls down as you slowly tromp through an abandoned, run down foreign town, and snow prints follow as you lay down to take out terrorists on a roof top.

Although single player is a heck of a lot of fun, eventually that has to end. And it seems it comes all too quickly, really. Fortunately, Red Storm has also packed in a great multiplayer mode. Being able to fight against AI enemies in the single player mode is fun, but going up against a multitude of real human opponents is much better. A couple problems came up during my experiences though. One, it’s a bit annoying that after you’re shot and killed, you sometimes have to wait in excess of a few minutes of doing nothing. It would have been nice to be able to at least wander around without being able to shoot, or something. Two, Rogue Spear uses Mplayer and Microsoft’s The Zone to organize games. Mplayer and The Zone aren’t terrible, but annoying to navigate through. Being able to use a program similar to GameSpy would have made things considerably easier.