Summary
Solid strategy FPS with a few minor problems
The Good
Rogue Spear featured a strategic counter-terrorist single player campaign and incredible multiplayer action! The 3D graphics were up-to-date, and the level designs were both exciting to play and attractive visually. Authentic weapons and their sound effects rounded the package out, although it would have been nice to hear bullets whizzing by in 3D.
The actual gameplay seemed realistic, giving the player more movement options than usual, but not so many that made it overwhelming. Although I wasn't interested in the single player game as much as the multiplayer side of things, it did offer additional challenges in strategy, requiring the player to control a team of operatives.
The Bad
The multiplayer had technical problems. It required that EVERYONE playing have a good connection to the server, or everyone would suffer severe skipping around, bullets firing in the wrong direction, and so on.
To make matters worse, there were no dedicated multiplayer servers. Rogue Spear required having a server operator playing to run the game at all times! This left the players to associate with groups or friends and hope they would be around to play.
To add insult, when I tried to play RS on publicly listed servers after taking over a year off, I was cursed out and kicked off of three servers in a row for unknown reasons; I had a good connection, and was polite. One server operator seemed to have a problem with the fact that I really crushed his team, which seems like a sportsmanship difficulty. On another, I may not have spoken the native language. I hope this was just bad luck and not a feature of the community, but nevertheless, I uninstalled the game because I didn't have enough people to play with.
Still, RS's multiplayer is fine on a LAN or with a group of regulars on the net.
The Bottom Line
Despite my long rant, Rogue Spear has more good things going for it than bad. It may not be entirely worth playing as a classic unless you want to try the levels, as it has been superseded by similar games from Red Storm.
