Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear

"The thinking man's Guerilla War"

Back in the NES days there was a game called Guerilla War. The game involved playing as a Rambo-ish soldier killing everything in sight. There were infinite lives, no shortage of targets, and the option of co-op, which was the best feature. However, it was just mindless shooting. Hostages were an after-thought. So what if they get caught in the crossfire? That's just a few hundred points that won't be added to the score. Rogue Spear takes this basic premise and adds a level of sophistication to make it an excellent game.

If you haven't heard the story of R6 before, well, Rainbow is an anti-terrorist operation run out of NATO. A new terrorist organization has reared its head and the decapitation honors are given to you and your team.

The Good News

The graphics are fine. There's nothing you'll be rushing to tell someone about, but they're also not so bad that they deter from playing the game.

The sounds are good, too. The opening theme is great, the voices are done superbly, and the guns sound like their real-life counterparts.

The gameplay is top-notch. You control four team members (all of whom you get to pick prior to a mission) that each have their advantages and disadvantages for certain situations depending on which troop-class they are. These advantages and disadvantages are anywhere from what type of gun they use, to secondary weapons, to technical know-how, to stealthiness, or to heart-monitors. Needless to say, there are many things to consider before heading off into a mission.

During single play, you can switch between characters and also give others orders, but they're not complex orders mind you. And since there is a limit on ammo, you have to make your shots count. The enemy isn't yet another stupid AI, either. The AI is fairly intuitive for a game today, but considering this is put on SNES-era stuff, it's pretty amazing.

You can use any style of play you want. If you want to run-and-gun, you can do that. If you want to snipe bad guys, you can do that. If you want to lure enemies, you can do that. If you want to toss in a flash grenade then bum-rush a room, you can do that. There's lots of options.

However, before you start running around guns a-blazing, the important objective is that hostages are safe. If one hostage dies, mission failed.

The Bad News

--A few times as I was switching between men during a mission, one of the characters starting walking off by himself. Unless ordered to stay-put, the men will only follow the character you are controlling. The enemy spotted the guy and killed him. While a rare occurrence, it really can mess up your mission if it happens, especially in the much longer stages.

--Something I like to call ''the Charlie's Angels'' pose. If your men are following you and you stop, the rest of the team bunches up next to you must in the way the bases in baseball are laid out. You being ''second base'' the others line up accordingly. If you happen to stop next to a hallway and someone is in that hallway, a team member will expose himself to fire. And they won't move unless you begin going again. It's another irritating quirk.

Conclusion

If you have a GBA, you should have Rogue Spear. There's a lot to do with this game: campaign mode with three difficulty levels, lone wolf mode (like campaign mode, only one character is used), two-player co-op (this also activates the fourth and highest difficulty level), and deathmatch. Buy this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/02, Updated 06/25/02