Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas was the first tactical shooter to make it upon the next gen consoles. Vegas was then critically acclaimed to be the best shooter of 2006 or perhaps of this gen for its fantastic tactical shooting appeal often now overlooked as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has changed online gaming forever, Rainbow Six Vegas still remains today as one of the best tactical shooters out there. Vegas 2 continues that formula in providing absolutely nothing new except a rehash of all your equipment and multiplayer maps from the previous game. In saying, anyone who hated the original won't find anything new here.

Ironically, what Tom Clancy was known for in his novels, Vegas 2 falls flat on its face. The plot is standard and devices have been seen before. Given that the plot is seen in a visual presentation instead of imagining through the novels, the story just doesn't deliver the cinematics you'd expect. Unfortunately this alone made me lose interest in the single-player alone, the story follows the original five years later where you gain the role of squad leader, Bishop.

The level design is fairly decent but it lacks any imagination, set-piece battles aren't as fun as they should be. Some will limit you to the first piece of cover you come across and you'll have to stay there and let your AI rack up the kills. Having said that, the AI aren't invincible and they'll require medical assistance in the heat of battle. To avoid this you'll need to direct your AI using the direct commands as used in the original. You can command them to breach, move (silently), shoot and throw grenades. So there's a blend of shooting but also strategy in aiding your squad when your donations are only to get you killed in some of the fire fights. Strategising your squad isn't half as fun as shooting because like you, you'll also have to limit your squad's contributions in fights as well.

Although there is one thing that Vegas 2 absolutely nails and that's the stealth set-pieces. When you're in a situation with several terrorists interrogating a hostage, it's only better to co-operate with a friend where you and your buddy are on either side of the door ready to breach, then within a split-second, take out all of the hostiles. Using direct commands to your AI partners also works but it's better to play with a human player or if not, a friend better still.

In doing so, Vegas 2 may warrant multiple playthroughs in some respects through its local, online two player co-op, though there's also one issue with this and that's the fact the host, and the host only can use direct commands on your AI controlled squad meaning the second player has a distinct disadvantage and is limited to shooting rather than tactical shooting as Vegas is renowned for.

The AI is well designed but they are also programmed harshly too. In Terrorist Hunt, if you leave your controller for a minute you'll be dead. So even when you are silent and rooms afar, they'll still somehow notice you. Better still, you can go up to the side of them and they'll still not notice you yet when you leave the controller at the start you're hunted down within the first minute. Sometimes you're about to shoot, then the AI punishes you by turning around and shooting within half the time it took you to pull the trigger which results in a fickle and terrible selection of AI.

However they are designed in using cover professionally as when they hear the first gun wound they'll be knocking at your door within a few seconds. In being that they'll only reveal their heads when they have to and only in rare cases will they come out of cover all guns blazing. Further, if you conserve your health for a dozen seconds, they won't be at the door but inside your house! They'll take every opportunity to take you out whether from afar or from up close.

Vegas 2 also features a fantastic levelling system, where each and every type of game mode you play, you'll be somehow rewarded whether it's through the campaign, terrorist hunt or the multiplayer mode itself, something that the original didn't have and which now allows you to play through the story and still gain experience. 
 
Having said that, XP is never given generously, the single player applies you XP for killing terrorists but depending on the difficulty you'll get higher experience points per kill. The same applies to Terrorist Hunt and where multiplayer exists; kills will happen alot less frequently because of a humans skill compared to the AI. For that reason, you'll be rewarded more experience per kill. It's a well balanced and rewarding system so that no matter what type of mode you're playing, you'll gain experience accordingly. 
 
The ranks in Vegas 2 are also a big incentive. As the original featured, there were dozens and dozens of sets of parallel to collect through ranking up amongst a ton of guns as well. Vegas 2 is no different and to say the least, bigger still. There are around 50 ranks and even after, you'll gain a star icon to not just signify top status but with a number next to it to show how many levels you've progressed there after top rank. 
 
But then there's even more depth to the core levelling such as A.C.E.S; again not featured in the original. This is where there are three categories to which your playing style is defined. Assault is progressed by explosives, CQC is levelled by close quarter kills and marksmanship will be finished faster through long ranged, headshot kills. Whatever kill you make, you can safely presume one of your kills will fall into one of the three buckets. 

Once you've reached top rank you'll have probably unlocked everything as you went along except remaining Medals and Ribbons. Medals and Ribbons are critical for you if you want to move up the leader boards fast. They start from your first win to killing hundreds of enemies with pistols. But because ranking up is alot rarer than similar shooters, Rainbow Six quite possibly allows plenty more hours than your ten prestiges in Modern Warfare thanks to its time consuming ranking system which still never feels tedious.

The game play is just the same as the first ever was; tactical shooting at its best, with some refinements. The game play engine itself has now been tweaked to be handled slightly more tightly and with some more precision. Though, little has changed it all adds up. The most obvious of changes is that you can now sprint which makes the game feel more action-packed and give a better start to objective based matches. The control scheme now features several accustomed layouts to which would make any shooter feel at home. Though there are some flaws, holding L1 all the time to stick in cover intercepts your shooting and a face button to stick in and then again to stick out of cover would've been much more appreciated.

What's more irritating is that the game play holds up less than a mere 30 frames per second. Sprinting will make the environments move like a slide show and even without, the game play will still feel like a Power Point presentation. This also makes the game play alot slower and while some tactical shooters are known for being clunky and unresponsive in certain aspects it somehow forgives this element despite the inexcusable flaw where sequels are supposed to improve upon bugs, flaws and visual glitches.

Of course visual glitches are present here as well. When you reload, your magazine will go half way through the slot rather than completely. There are tons of clipping problems, and pop-in is complementary as well. What's most astonishing is that Vegas 2 is compact on a Blu-Ray disc yet it still asks for a mandatory 3GB install worth of data. Even more surprising is that the PS3 port is shockingly inferior to the 360 version meaning a much smoother experience is to be had if you have a choice of consoles with either the 360 or PC. Of course this is a Playstation 3 review but I know that the frames were running faster and the engine was better textured on the 360 from what I briefly played (Disclaimer: Never played the PC Version). Still problems aside, Rainbow Six is still a fairly good looking game, the presentational side is widely scattered through casinos, imports and subways giving the player the much more needed variety that the original lacked.

The sound department is solid in most respects. The dialogue is fairly good and will always explain the situation with detail and reasoning behind the plot. But for the fact, the voice acting is mainly heard through your headset, it often makes the voice acting less distinctive, emotional and persuasive as it should've been which further hurts the storytelling. The guns themselves sound fantastic but only as far as the different guns categories go where different gun specs within a category sound more or less the same.

The multiplayer itself offers little you haven't seen from current games on the market like Modern Warfare but the real mode that stands out as did the last title is Terrorist Hunt where up to four players take on up to 50 terrorists on one of the 16 or so maps. What makes this as fun as it was on the first was the fact that enemies are cleverly placed, sandbox experimentations are to be had and you can do it on all multi player maps with lots of density and difficulty customizations to play around with. Vegas changes little things but the same successful formula remains intact. Perhaps, most of my time spent playing Rainbow Six was by playing Terrorist Hunt.

The multiplayer modes are confined but fun. You have your death match and team death match offering as well as the reappearance of your "Attack and Defend" and "Protect and Escort" missions. Despite the limited multiplayer, each one suits almost every map and the level design offers many approaches, especially on the more objective focused modes. Spending a considerable time with Rainbow Six made me appreciate how well designed the maps are but not just the variety of locations but how strategic variety was implemented so well.

Pros
+ Gameplay now allows you to sprint.
+ Great tactical gameplay remains intact.
+ Plethora of equipment, gadgets, guns and parallel.
+ Several different control schemes.
+ Terrorist Hunt is as good as it has always been.
+ Tons of changes to levelling system, full of depth. 

Cons
- Game engine is filled with clipping, frame-rate and pop-in issues.
- Familiar, less distinct voice acting.
- Fickle, harsh selection of AI.  
- Boring and uninteresting plot.
- Often, unimaginative level design.

Vegas 2 offers plenty of bang for your buck for fans but others should look elsewhere and at the cheaper and barely different original. Further, the 360 version has a slightly better running speed with some better textured detail. Regardless, Vegas 2 is still a blast and it doesn't need to reinvent the wheel of the best tactical shooter. It just needs to add some much needed refinements and variety to the best tactical shooter of this gen and that's what Vegas 2 defines.