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Rogue Spear: Urban Operations
By Chris "Pie4foo" AbeleIntroductionReviewer's System:
- Pentium III 550
- 128 megabytes of memory
- 13.6 gigabyte Maxtor hard drive, 7200 rpm
- 16 megabyte NVidia TNT 3D Accelerator
- DirectX 7.0
- Landline (T1) Connection
FeaturesIn December of 1994, GIGN (the French counter terrorist unit) stormed an Air France airliner which was parked on the Marseille Airport tarmac. In the end, the GIGN forces suffered no causalities, killed all four terrorists, and rescued the hostages from the airplane. This remarkable feat brought the GIGN forces international attention, and also highlighted one of the most challenging arenas of counter terrorism in the modern day world: close quarter combat. Based on these CQB (close quarters battle) environments, Redstorm modeled its Rogue Spear mission pack, Urban Operations. And as I found out soon enough, Urban Operations is one of the best mission packs to be released for the PC market in quite some time.
Urban Operations, as the name implies, is a mission pack whose missions are based entirely in real-world cities. The missions take place in the very hearts of the city, emphasizing the tight quarters and tense environments of block-to-block fighting. All told, there are five new single player missions on three different difficult levels. This is about typical of a mission pack, but the rest of Urban Operations is entirely atypical.
Fig. 1. Thrown back from gunfireFor Rainbow Six fans, it's probably easiest just to compare Eagle Watch with Urban Operations. Like Eagle Watch, Urban Operations adds five new levels, a few new guns, and some necessary bug fixes. But where Eagle Watch ends, Urban Operations is only really just beginning. Urban Operations adds a total of ten new multiplayer spaces, including five so-called multiplayer spaces. Furthermore, more efficient coding helps to make this mission pack feel just a tad smoother than Rogue Spear. Finally, two new modes of play and smarter terrorists round out this excellent mission pack.
Urban Operations biggest accomplishment is the creation of five new missions. Each of these missions takes place in real-world locations, including Mexico City, Hong Kong, Venice, London, and Istanbul. The first mission, located in Istanbul, adds another element of confusion in that civilians are dressed nearly identically to the terrorists. Players will really need to stay focused in order to spot the baddies. The other missions feature hostage rescues, bomb diffusions, and a romp through the London subway system. Each of these new levels was meticulous designed, as evidenced with the London subway level's attention to detail.
Fig. 2. Using the light stand for cover
