Quick Links:
Posted link to the Urban Ops final v2.52 patch
Minor modifications to page layout
Fixed link to the Travis
Getz interview
| This
page last updated on: 2001 May 1 |
This
resource page already features what we think are the best links
to get information about Urban Operations. However, this particular
"Quick Links" section is here to give you rapid access to the links
that are the cream of the crop in our opinion. These references
provide the most comprehensive and essential information you need
to know about Urban Ops.
Official
Site:
Red Storm's Urban
Operations website
Download
the Urban Ops v2.52 final patch here
Previews:
SimHQ's
Urban
Ops preview
Interviews:
RS Retreat's
interview with Travis Getz, Urban Ops Lead Artist
As
the add-on pack to the award-winning Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear,
Tom Clancy's Rogue Spear Mission Pack: Urban Operations
is a counter-terrorist team's worst nightmare: an urban setting.
RAINBOW now faces its most dangerous missions ever with every
stray bullet putting innocent lives at risk. Due to the public
nature of these missions, the secrecy of the RAINBOW organization
is also at stake as the team fights against the most deadly
terrorists the world has ever seen. Luckily, John Clark and
newly appointed intelligence officer Kevin Sweeney will guide
the team through these intense situations. Experience the most
dangerous missions RAINBOW has ever faced ... once again, the
world depends on you.
Primary
Features:
Five action-packed new maps located in famous cities around
the world
Five classic levels from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six
Eight new multiplayer spaces that can also be played as single
player using six different game types
New weapon type: The light machine gun
New game type: Defend
New Custom Mission option for increased replayablility
New reward system that tracks and awards you medals depending
on difficulty setting
Improved terrorist AI
Improved support for mods
January 10, 2001:
The UK, French, and German v2.52 Urban Ops patches are made
available for download here.
December 12, 2000:
The v2.52 final Urban Ops patch is made available
for download by RSE. This will be the last patch to be released,
and represents the final code for the Rogue Spear engine. Find out
what revisions have been made and download the patch here.
December 4, 2000:
European Rogue Spear fans can finally get their
hands on Urban Ops as Ubi Soft releases UK, French, and German versions
of Urban Ops.
November 23, 2000:
More news is coming out about Urban Ops being ported
to other non-PC platforms. The Rogue Spear ports for both the Mac
(by MacSoft) and Dreamcast (by Majesco) will have full versions
of Urban Ops, while the PlayStation1 version of RS (by Saffire)
will only include a few selected UO maps.
August 29, 2000:
Red
Storm issues this press
release that announces France's Ubi Soft Entertainment has aquired
RSE. This is good news for European Rainbow Six fans as the release
of Urban Ops has been long delayed in Europe with Take-Two Interactive
no longer being RSE's European distributor.
Also check out the Ubi
Soft site to read more about the details of the Red Storm purchase.
July 31, 2000:
Greg
Stelmack, RSE engineer, confirms that the upcoming v2.52 patch for
Urban Ops will be the final one and will share the same code as
the executable for Covert Operations Essentials.
June 27, 2000:
Greg
Stelmack, RSE engineer, posts the following in the RSE Forums about
how the missions in Covert Ops will install as a mod with those
who already have Urban Ops:
"[Covert Ops] comes with its own .exe and all the supporting
data necessary to run stand-alone. If you run the Covert Ops executable,
all you will get is the Covert Ops mod to play. If you run Urban
Operations, you will see the Covert Ops mod available as an optional
mod that you can choose to activate or not activate.
June 5, 2000:
Red
Storm releases the v2.51 beta patch to fix several issues with Urban
Operations. Read about all the proposed fixes and download the patch
here.
May 25, 2000:
Kama
Entertainment, the distributor of Red Storm products in South Korea,
releases a special Korean edition of Urban Operations. Kama officially
obtained a license from RSE to develop two exclusive maps that will
only appear in the Korean version of UO. The maps are the Seoul
City Hall subway station and a Korean soccer stadium. There are
also two new operatives, both South Korean: a female sniper (Lee,
Yoon-Jung) and a male assault (Kim, Jae-Ho); and one new weapon
(the K-2 Republic of Korea assault rifle). The official Kama
Urban Ops site has screenshots of the new levels. It is very
unlikely that these two exclusive Korean maps will be officially
distributed outside of South Korea.
May 4, 2000:
Travis
Getz, Lead Artist for Urban Ops, personally provides some tactical
tips for the Chemical Compound map he designed. The tip appears
at Pie's Tactics at this direct link here.
April 5, 2000:
Urban
Operations hits the store shelves in the US and Canada one full
week before the originally announced release date of April 12, 2000.
April 4, 2000:
The
RS Retreat publishes a three-part
interview with Travis Getz, Urban Ops Lead Artist. This in-depth
interview focuses on the creative process behind Urban Ops, and
also gives an insider's look on what it takes to be a lead artist
in the game industry.
March 31, 2000:
John
"Spoons" Sponauer of SimHQ brings us a fantastic
interview with Gary Stelmack, RSE QA Analyst. He also lets us
in on news that the Urban Ops intro movie features the Rainbow team
arriving in a MH-60 helicopter!
March 23, 2000:
IGN64
releases what we at the RS Retreat later find out is a promotional
video to showcase proposed future technology to develop video
games. Created by Nintendo 64 developer Saffire, this Quicktime
4 movie features Rainbow in action inside a subway station similar
to a scenario that occurs in Urban Ops.
March 22, 2000:
Prima
Games has posts their preview
of Urban Ops. Prima announces that they will be publishing a guide
entitled Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Rogue Spear Platinum Edition:
Prima's Official Strategy Guide which includes strategies for
the Urban Ops missions. This is the first hint that Urban Ops will
likely be combined with Rogue Spear in a bundle pack in the future
similar to how the Rainbow Six Gold Pack included Eagle Watch.
March 13, 2000:
RSE's
announces that Urban Ops has gone gold! This means the gold master
version of Urban Ops has been sent for duplication and should be
in stores on schedule.
March 9, 2000:
Travis Getz,
Lead Artist for Urban Ops, updated his designer
log to cover a lot of interview type questions he is being asked.
Questions covered include:
- What does being Lead Artist involve?
- Where did you work before you got into the gaming industry?
- What is the story behind the tangos in the HK level that are dressed
in green military fatigues?
March
8, 2000:
Joe
Sauder, Lead Engineer for Urban Ops, updated his designer
log to mention that proximity mines have been cut from the final
version of Urban Ops:
"One important decision that we've had to make, after doing this
kind of testing, is to remove proximity mines from the game. [...]
Camping is always a concern in multiplayer games, because it can
grind down the flow of gameplay to a halt. [...] With prox mines,
you could simply put down a few of them, and go hide in a corner
somewhere. If you killed someone with your mine, you'd probably
never know it, and it sure wouldn't have been due to any skill on
your part! Also, the person who got killed was typically left with
a rather frustrated feeling, since they were killed by this automatic
device, rather than by another player. So there you have it, prox
mines are history."
However, Joe says that sharp mod authors could easily add the proximity
mines feature back in.
March 5, 2000:
With
the introduction of light machine guns (LMGs) in Urban Ops, some
fans are worried that these guns may be too powerful and upset the
balance of the game. Gary Stelmack, Lead QA Analyst on UO, posted
this in the RSE Forums:
"That was one of our fears as well. So, when we were creating
the statistics for them, we made sure that they performed well in
their intended role (laying down fire from a stationary position
to keep your opponents head down, while your buddy moves around
with a SMG [submachine gun], for effective movement). The result
was that while moving, you spray bullets everywhere, but can lay
down effective fire if you are stationary, crouched, and firing
short bursts. We have a lot of people here playing it, and only
a couple of people regularly take the LMG's. Many prefer the precision
control you get with an assault rifle or SMG, so we feel we have
their in-game use balanced pretty well."
Greg Stelmack, Urban Ops Engineer, also shared a bit about the disadvantages
of one of the new LMGs, the HK21E: "The only thing the 21E3 has
going for it is lots of ammo. You can't get anything more than a
short burst off before your reticule is HUGE, and it takes a second
to settle down."
March 4, 2000:
- A fourth previously unannounced weapon, the AW
Covert sniper rifle, which is the first silenced sniper rifle
in the Rainbow arsenal.
- A
reward system that keeps track of missions you've won and awards
medals accordingly.
- The inclusion of thunder in the weather effects.
Minimum
hard drive space required for installing Urban Ops is 300MB.
February
26, 2000:
Gary
Stelmack, QA Analyst at RSE, posted this in the RSE forums in response
to concerns about whether or not there is any background story in
Urban Ops:
"There are full mission briefings for the missions. There is
not a contiguous plotline however for the two campaigns we are providing
[...] There is the Urban Operations Campaign, and the Classic Missions
Campaign. The Classic Missions is not the full Rainbow Six campaign,
but it is the 5 missions strung together in their proper order."
February 11, 2000:
Greg
Stelmack hints about more eye candy in Urban Ops: "Flying brass
[casings] was one of the first things Joe [Sauder, Urban Ops engineer]
got working for UO. It looks really cool, too ;-)"
February 7, 2000:
Greg
Stelmack confirms that there is no Rogue Spear patch included in
Urban Ops:
"Urban Operations will be a separate executable much like Eagle
Watch was. There is no patch being released inside Urban Operations
for the original Rogue Spear, rather the fixes are going into the
Urban Operations executable (along with all the other cool stuff
in the mission pack). If you buy and install the mission pack, you
still have Rogue Spear 2.05 and can play with non-mission pack people
through it, or play with Urban Operations and get all the fixes
and cool stuff."
"So no, the people who buy the mission pack are not getting a Rogue
Spear patch in addition to their mission pack. There is no Rogue
Spear patch. And that's what I mean in the explanation by the resources
involved; to split the fixes out from all the Urban Operations features
to build the separate patch [for RS] is not a small task. You will
be able to play all Rogue Spear maps in Urban Operations in addition
to all the new maps."
February 1, 2000:
RSE
officially announces Urban Operations in a press
release which also confirms the mission pack release is April
2000.
December 29, 1999:
PC
Gamer has announced the following Urban Ops facts in their Feb 2000
issue:
Urban
Ops will now have proximity mines for multiplayer as well as single
player.
- Three new light machine guns are included in your arsenal: The
HK21E, M249 SAW, and RPD.
-
Urban Ops will have a mission generator to further extend the game.
-
Terrorists will have the ability to throw grenades.
December
1, 1999:
RS
Retreat has exclusive info from RSE about the first map of the five
Rainbow Six maps being ported to the RS engine in Urban Ops: the
R6 map is "Amazon"
November 8, 1999:
GameProWorld.com
publishes exclusive screenshots
of Urban Ops concept art.
November 5, 1999:
Pie4Foo
of Pie's Tactics writes an article
about his visit to RSE headquarters and mentions the existence
of "Team Patton", the code-name for the development team
of the yet unnamed Rogue Spear mission pack.
August 12, 1999:
The
first mention of a mission pack for Rogue Spear is in an interview
done by SimHQ with Carl Schnurr:
SimHQ:
Can you tell us anything about plans for an add-on pack or mission
disk to Rogue Spear?
Carl Schnurr: Aztech is creating a mission pack for Rogue
Spear which should be out around Christmas. Other than that, we
still haven't really decided.
However, this
third party developer, Aztech New Media, soon went bankrupt before
they could produce an add-on pack for RS.
Urban Ops will
have a total of 20 maps (18 new maps plus 2 re-textured maps from
Rogue Spear). Here is a summary of what we know so far about the 18
new maps that will appear in the Urban Ops mission pack. This is going
to be one loaded add-on pack! Click on the location titles to see
a representative screenshot of each location.
A. New Single Player Missions
- The missions in the new Urban Ops single player campaign will occur
in the following order:
1. Istanbul - Turkish Bazaar
(Feb 2, 2003 - Operation: Iron Comet)
- The Feb 2000 issue of PC Gamer originally reported
that "Cairo" was to be a location of one of the new maps. However,
it appears that this Street Bazaar location actually takes place in
Istanbul.
2. London - Subway Station
(Apr 3, 2003 - Operation: Virgin Moon)
- We originally figured out the location of this
map when a couple astute readers confirmed to us that they had been
in a London Underground subway station similar in appearance to the
one seen in the screenshot.
3. Venice - Canals of Venice
(Jun 20, 2003 - Operation: Aztec Palace)
- This was the last new map that was finally revealed
in the GamesMania preview.
4. Mexico
City - Warehouse District
(Aug 18, 2003 - Operation: Infinite Seven)
- This level was one of the first revealed
in PC Gamer magazine.
5. Hong
Kong - Hotel & Crashed Bus
(Oct 6, 2003 - Operation: Jade Key)
- Steve Cotton, producer for Urban
Ops, told PC Gamer in their Feb 2000 issue that "Terrorists have smashed
a bus into the front of a hotel lobby in Hong Kong [...] and you have
to storm the hotel through the crashed bus!"
B. New Multiplayer Spaces
- These maps can also be played as single player using six different
game types (Assault, Hostage Rescue, Recon, Terrorist Hunt, Lone Wolf,
Defend).
1. Bunkers
(Jan 22, 2003 - Osajek, Bosnia)
- This map was originally included in the RS v2.04 patch, but the
Urban Ops version appears to take place at
night!
2. Chemical
Compound
(Jun 20, 2003 - Smolensk, Russia)
- A medium sized daytime map that takes place in winter.
3. Graveyard
(Oct 2, 2003 - Pennsylvania, US)
- This is a night map with adverse weather conditions - rain and thunder.
Night vision (something not often used in previous multiplayer maps)
seems to be a critical part of gameplay here.
4. Old
Train Tracks
(Mar 15, 2003 - Nevada, US)
- This is an outdoor map very reminiscent of Road
Ambush in R6. "Road" fans can rejoice!
5. Snow
Base
(Jun 25, 2003 - Minsk, Russia)
- This is another winter map, but unlike Chemical Compound,
it takes place at night instead. It is similar to Rogue Spear's Siberian
Base II, but only about half the size.
6. Storage
Depot
(Feb 15, 2003 - North Carolina, US)
- A larger outdoor daytime map
7. Training
Maze
(Jul 19, 2003 - Hereford, England)
- A small indoor map which should be good for close quarters
battle with a small number of players.
8. Underwater
Habitat
(Dec 30, 2003 - Pacific Ocean, Japan)
- An intriguing environment set in a sub-surface laboratory.
Check out the screenshot for a picture of the mini-sub!
NOTE: Urban Ops also includes two older multiplayer maps from Rogue
Spear which have been re-textured to occur at night. They are City
Street Large and Killhouse Double.
C. Classic Rainbow Six Maps Ported to the RS Engine
- These maps give fans the opportunity to experience five of the original
Rainbow Six levels with Rogue Spear's weapons and gameplay dynamics.
These "classic" maps can be played contiguously as a single player
campaign.
1. Hacienda
- This map has been modified from the original R6 incarnation to feature
a rock ledge that overlooks the front gate (perfect for sniping).
There is also a tunnel that players can run down through from the
top of the rock face, and it exits near the wood shed outside of the
main Hacienda building.
2. Bio
Lab - Now called "Hotzone" in multiplayer Urban Ops.
3. Estate
- The famous first recon mission.
4. Skyscraper
- A recon mission into Horizon's headquarters in San Francisco. Check
out the incredible skyline here!
5. Amazon
- The map that R6 artist John Sonedecker calls his "crowning achievement!"
Following
in the footsteps of Rogue Spear's introduction of the sniper rifle,
Urban Ops is introducing a new class of weaponry for Rainbow to
use: the light machine gun. It's intended role is for laying down
suppressive fire from a stationary position to the enemy at bay,
while your teammates move forward with their submachine guns and
assault rifles.
Click on the links to find out the real-life specs of each of these
four new weapons featured in Urban Ops:
M249
Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW)
This
US Army developed weapon was issued as a one-for-one replacement
for the designated "automatic rifle" (M16A1) in the 1980's. In
this regard, the SAW filled the void created by the retirement
of the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) during the 1950s because
interim automatic weapons (e.g. M-14E2/M16A1) had failed as viable
"base of fire" weapons. Currently, the M249 SAW is used as a support
weapon complementing the M16A2/M4 (which is still the primary
assault rifle in the US Army).
HK21E
The HK21E is Heckler & Koch's mainstay belt fed machine gun. It has
undergone several product improvements over the past 35 years.
It began life as the HK21, then the HK21A1, and now the current
HK21E where "E" stands simply for Export. Here's another link
with more pics and info.
RPD
This Russian squad level support machine gun is an older version of the RPK (Ruchnoi
Pulement Kalashnikova) featured in this link. It appears that Red
Storm decided to go with the older weapon as it's likely easier
for terrorists to get a hold of.
AW
Covert
This is not
a light machine gun, but rather a sniper rifle. It will serve as
the only suppressed sniper rifle in Rainbow's arsenal. The AW Covert
is manufactured by Accuracy International, and is essentially an
AWS with a folding stock. The AWS
is specifically designed for use with subsonic ammunition and is
fitted with a special barrel and an integral suppressor.
Under the Custom
Mission menu, you can chose to play each of Urban Op's 18 levels
six different ways. The opportunities for replayablility with this
game are incredible. You could play it for months and not do the
same mission twice! The following are the six game types available
with descriptions by Gary and Greg Stelmack:
Assault - This is a simple straight forward assault.
There are no hostages to worry about, but the terrorists are waiting
for you.
Hostage
Rescue - The terrorists have taken hostages, and you must
get them out safely.
Recon
- This is where you must complete an objective, or objectives without
being detected.
Terrorist
Hunt
- You (and your team, if you like) must neutralize all the terrorists
on a given level.
Lone
Wolf - You must take a single operative from the insertion
zone to the extraction zone.
Defend
- The newest game type introduced in Urban Ops. This can be played
as multiplayer co-op or single player solo. Defend is where you
are in a specific location, and the terrorists are coming after
you. You must prevent them from completing a specific task.
This is what Steve Cotton, Producer of Urban Ops, has to say about
the Custom Mission section:
"The Custom Mission section dynamically searches the player's
Rogue Spear directory for any legitimate mission files & then lists
them according to game type. There are 6 types now with different
extensions for each so they can be categorized easily. What this
does for mod makers is make it very easy to implement & distribute
new missions to anyone with Urban Operations to play in this new
section. It also contains with it a reward system that keeps track
of which mission you've won & on what difficulty setting. The more
missions you win, the more medals you get, letting your friends
that happen to catch a glance of your screen know exactly how good
you are ... consequently, I hope you never see my screen."
RS
Retreat's interview with Urban Ops Producer, Steve Cotton
(Jan 24, 2000)
RS
Retreat's Interactive Interview for UO with John Sonedecker
and Joe Sauder (Jan 28, 2000)
RS
Recon's interview with Urban Ops Producer, Steve Cotton
(Mar 1, 2000)
SimHQ's
interview with Urban Ops QA Analyst, Gary Stelmack (Mar
31, 2000)
RS
Retreat's interview with Urban Ops Lead Artist, Travis Getz
(Apr 4, 2000)
GameSpot
Asia's interview with Urban Ops Engineer, Greg Stelmack
(Apr 13, 2000)
Pie's
Tactics interview with Urban Ops QA Analyst, Gary Stelmack
(Apr 14, 2000)
The
Mushroom's "20 Questions" interview with Urban Ops QA Analyst,
Gary Stelmack (June 5, 2000)
GameProWorld.com
preview with UO concept art
(Nov 8, 1999)
GamesMania
preview (Feb 1, 2000)
CNET
Gamecenter preview (Feb 25, 2000)
SimHQ
Screenshots Part 1: Single Player preview (Mar 4, 2000)
SimHQ
Screenshots Part 2: Multiplayer preview (Mar 6, 2000)
CombatSim.com
Single Player preview (Mar 4, 2000)
CombatSim.com
Multiplayer preview (Mar 6, 2000)
IGN.PC
Urban Ops preview (Mar 13, 2000)
SimHQ
Urban Ops preview (Mar 16, 2000)
Prima
Games UO preview (Mar 22, 2000)
Pie's
Tactics commentary on the UO beta (Mar 23, 2000)
Pie's
Tactics article about "classic" R6 maps in UO (Apr 2, 2000)
Gone
Gold.com - Gone Gold has done a great
job collecting a comprehensive list of all the Rogue Spear/Urban
Ops reviews that have been done by the major gaming news sites.
Pie's
Tactics Walkthrough for Urban Ops
Prima
FastTrack Guide for Urban Ops
Visit our screenshots
section to check out some Urban Ops Screenshots.
Requires a
copy of Rogue Spear
OS: Windows 95 or later with DirectX 6.0 or better installed
Without Hardware Acceleration: Pentium II 266 or equivalent
With Hardware Acceleration: Pentium 233 MMX or equivalent
RAM: 32MB minimum
Video: 16-bit SVGA or better
Audio: Sound Blaster 16 or compatible
3D Video: Direct 3D acceleration recommended
Hard Disk: 300MB free required
CD-ROM: 4x or faster
Network Play: TCP/IP connection 28.8 kbps or faster, 500 ms latency
or less
Input Devices: Mouse and keyboard
Content on
this page maintained by CR6
|
