I'll have to assume that none of you know anything about Rogue Ops and start from the basics here, as I had little idea of what the game was until today. Rogue Ops is a third person stealth action game with a hint of Bullet time and some rather fantastic-looking special moves. The player takes control of Niki (correct me guys...), that typical woman who leaves the military, loses her family to a car bomb, finds out about her husband's secret life, and joins the secret faction "Phoenix" (CIA style) in order to try and uncover her husband's mysterious past. The storyline does sound a little... cliché to an extent, but I don't think it's been used in a computer game yet, and it should lead to some interesting storyline activity.

Initially the game looks a little like Tomb Raider, and by this I mean a girl with a gun moving around in positions that often show off her "features", so I was a little unimpressed during the first 5 minutes or so of the presentation... and then the demonstrator creeps up behind one of the guards and a bar above the guard's head starts filling up. Click, a circle pops up on screen, and directional buttons are pressed completing the requested button combo. click SNAP! The character breaks the guard's arm and the game snaps into an X-ray view to show the bone actually snapping. Then it's back to normal view and SNAP, she breaks his leg with similiar X-ray effects. KERSNAP, she cracks his neck, and he falls lifeless to the ground. "That's known as a dry kill", the demonstrator says. "Why kill them once when you can kill them 3 times?" I was beginning to like this guy and, more importantly, love his game.

Rogue Ops is taking the stealth idea to pretty much a new level. If you shoot someone, not only do you have to move the body, but the body will bleed, leaving bloodstains which other guards can see and trace back to the body. Kills where you shoot your enemy are therefore known as "blood kills". The game takes place in a fictional world slightly more advanced than ours, and so some of the gizmos are all futuristic... mainly, her goggles allow her to see through walls and see people as well as laser grids and underground powerlines. This produces a very nice effect when being used: everything is green and heat trails seep off character outlines.

We were shown a mixture of action and stealth sections of the game and all looked above par. Other nice gizmos include a spy fly (camera that flies), a grappling hook which looked like an integral part of the game, and ninja stars which automatically pull themselves out of walls so you can pick them back up.

Another factor in particular that makes this game appealing to me is the amount of choice available to the player. You CAN run in all guns blazing or you can seek higher ground and snipe out people below. You can even steal people's retinal identity with a gizmo and use their ID later on. You can pickpocket people... the possibilities for completing each level go on and on, all leaving me very excited indeed about when this game will be available.

You can bet that I'll review it as soon as a copy arrives :)

- Matt Plummer

Stay tuned for some exclusive footage of Rogue Ops right here at Cube-Europe, later today!