vegas, baby! or is it?
Ok, so I love the original R6:V. It's great. Period. Not only is the single player engaging, but the multiplayer rocks, too. The best part about it? You can play the entire single player experience in co-op, a la Gears of War.
So when Vegas 2 was announced, we all lost our collective minds. More Vegas? More Logan? More killer co-op? Yippee, someone hand me my pants!
Gamefly delivery, pop it in the 360, settle in for a long session (baby just went to sleep, so there will be at least 20 minutes of free time, yes!!!). Great, the new Pyrenees-themed casino... um, 5 years ago... France... Bishop...?
What the hell did you do to my Vegas! You made it into France!
See, I don't understand when reviewers give games great reviews when they clearly don't deserve it. This game is more of the same. More of the same, but not as interesting. Not only is the gameplay not an improvement (or much of a change at all) but the story is inscrutable. When I have to check Wikipedia for the plot of a game I'm currently in the middle of, there's a problem. It took me 3/4 of the game to realize who the main antagonist was. Which is sad. And when the title is "Rainbow Six: Vegas 2" and the majority of the action takes place outside of Sin City (part of what made the original exciting), then I just lose interest.
Not to say that it is a bad game. It's not, it's just not worth the Metacritic 82 to the original's 89. The main change they made was to allow single-player experience to effect your multiplayer experience – essentially they are one in the same. But unless you play multiplayer, it doesn't help you much at all – there's not enough of an opportunity to gain enough XP throughout the game to unlock useful weaponry.
To be fair, I didn't play the multiplayer. The reason? If the change to multiplayer is as slight as the change to single player, I know it would be great. It would be fun. But it wouldn't be enough to make me devote the time I've already spent in the original Vegas.
