Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear
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| Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear | |
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| Developer(s) | Red Storm Entertainment |
| Publisher(s) | Red Storm Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | September 22, 1999 (PC) 2000 (Mac, DC) 2001 (PS) 2002 (GBA) |
| Genre(s) | Tactical shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen (T) |
| Platform(s) | PC, Mac OS, Dreamcast, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance |
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear is a tactical first-person shooter computer game developed and published by Red Storm Entertainment. It is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Rainbow Six game based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name.
Rogue Spear is based on the same game-engine and features gameplay and presentation similar to that of the original Rainbow Six. The game pits the counter-terrorist unit, RAINBOW, against global terrorist organizations that in some cases have taken hostages or have armed themselves with weapons of mass destruction. Rogue Spear, like its predecessor, puts focus on realism, planning, strategy, and teamwork rather than arcade-style shoot-em-ups such as Doom. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear was released for the PC on September 22, 1999, with versions for the Mac OS (2000), Dreamcast (2000), PlayStation (2001) and Game Boy Advance (2002) released later.
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[edit] Multiplayer
Rogue Spear's multiplayer mode consisted of three main playing fields: GameSpy Arcade , MSN Gaming Zone and MPlayer.com. MPlayer.com was later purchased by Gamespy. The mulitplayer game achieved a certain degree of success boasting several thousand players playing at once. After the acquisition of MPlayer.com by GameSpy Arcade, MSN Gaming Zone became the more popular of the two until Microsoft shut down the MSN Gaming Zone's CD-ROM match-making service on June 19th 2006.
As well as pick up games, a higher level of play was reached by players who participated in ladder play. Several websites throughout the game's lifespan provided this service with the two most notable being Clanladder (CL) and Xtreme Gaming Network (XGN). While both of these websites provided a ranking system, they also provided anti-cheat applications. As is true in most online video games, cheating was a consistent problem. The main cheat programmer was a person with the alias of VeRTigO. Later on in the game's lifespan he began creating anti-cheat patches for his own cheats known as the Ice anti-cheat patches. He would then sell the cracks, or cheats to his own patches for cash on both an individual basis as well as in group packages for clans. Eventually the rampant cheating and corruption of the ladder services as well as the release of newer games ended the popularity of Rogue Spear multiplayer ladder play. Although, a small core group of about 200 people still play as of Oct. 2006 , connecting through Gamespy or Xfire.
These ladder systems provided both one on one deathmatch as well as team deathmatch where players banded together in clans and fought matches which ranged anywhere from two-on-two to eight-on-eight. However, eight-on-eight often posed lag problems due to the way game hosting worked. One player would act as the host of the game (rather than a designated third party server) and all others would connect to the host's one computer over a specified port. This format of multiplayer setup caused two problems. Firstly, it was prone to causing lag, a delay in the sending and receiving of packets, which caused for time and spatial distortion in game physics. Secondly, in the opinion of many players, the host had an advantage because of this. Many times a player would be shot and killed without ever seeing his enemy due to high latency times. It was noticed that the hosts of the game were much more prone to do this. This was referred to as "hosting" or "getting hosted." Often, teams would take turns, allowing a member from each team to host their team's map. Sometimes, especially during tournament matches, a neutral host would be called upon to host the entirety of the match. A neutral host would be a person hosting the game with a good connection and this person would not be a player in the match, when the round began the neutral host would kill themselves using a grenade.
[edit] Add-Ons
[edit] Urban Operations
Rogue Spear: Urban Operations, released on April 4, 2000, was the first expansion for Rogue Spear. It was developed and published by Red Storm Entertainment. It added 8 new maps and 5 classic Rainbow Six maps from the original Rainbow Six game.
[edit] Covert Ops
Rainbow Six: Covert Ops, is a stand-alone expansion pack for Rogue Spear. Developed and published by Red Storm Entertainment, it was released on September 28, 2000. It included only 3 new missions, due to the fact that the product was primarily developed as an educational program on real life counter-terrorism history and tactics.
[edit] Black Thorn
Rogue Spear: Black Thorn was developed by Red Storm Entertainment, published by Ubisoft, and released as a stand-alone Add-On on September 15, 2001. Black Thorn featured 9 new single-player maps (originally it'd have been 10 but one was cut after the September 11, 2001 attacks), 6 new multiplayer maps, 10 new weapons, and a new multiplayer variation on the "Lone Wolf" game type in which one player takes on everyone else; the winner of the round then becomes the new "Lone Wolf".
[edit] Trivia
ROGUE SPEAR is a term invented for the game, and is supposedly a U.S. military reporting term for incidents in which nuclear weapons come under the control of non-governmental groups. The correct term would be PINNACLE — EMPTY QUIVER.
[edit] External links
- Rainbow Six official website
- Rainbow Six Retreat
- Planet Rainbow Six
- Rainbow Six Series fan site
- WikiTechia article for tech support
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear at MobyGames
| Rainbow Six: | Rainbow Six • Rogue Spear • Raven Shield (Black Arrow) • Lockdown • Critical Hour • Vegas |
|---|---|
| Ghost Recon: | Ghost Recon (Island Thunder) • Ghost Recon 2 (Summit Strike) • Advanced Warfighter • Advanced Warfighter 2 |
| Splinter Cell: | Splinter Cell • Pandora Tomorrow • Chaos Theory • Essentials • Double Agent • Conviction |
| Other: | The Hunt for Red October • SSN • Politika • ruthless.com • Shadow Watch • The Sum of All Fears |
