The terrorist return to Vegas again... for the first time.
Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Review
(The terrorists return to Vegas again…for the first time).
By Justin Reed
It’s been a long while coming, the game reviewer is up and
is back in commission (sort of), writing reviews once more in hopes to educate
the unwashed masses before they go out and buy their next game. Today we look
at a title even I was biased about at first, and almost looked over this gem.
The Rainbow Six series has existed since, well since I can
remember Tom Clancy had titles with the Rainbow Six trademark plastered on the
cover and they have always been known for the same heart pounding, tactical,
squad based play that many people have enjoyed. I, for one, never really got
into the past Rainbow Six games, which is why it’s such a surprise that I even liked
Vegas 2. I suppose I didn’t do it in order, skipping Vegas 1 and from what I
heard the story is part continuation part prequel, so my guess is some of the
things in Vegas would help me a bit now looking at Vegas 2 and trying to
understand the story. I know the main character has changed, now allowing you
to customize everything about him or her, from facial features to equipment and
armor. I always enjoy this feature in games these days because it allows
players to feel like they are actually in there doing all these cool tricks,
hanging upside down rappel lines doing your best Spiderman impression,
instead of a pre-made character that is just a name you respond to. Though the
customization options did have its limits very early on, only allowing certain
face models, and facial hair options putting a damper on making it look
somewhat close to your appearance. Not to mention the face models looked bad in
general, in game characters looked better than most the pre-made faces. And to
add to the let down, the number of weapons and gadgets seemed overdone when you
compare it to the character options, understandable that a militaristic team is
going to have an equipment stock of tons of weapons ranging from Sniper Rifles,
to Assault Rifles, from Frag grenades to smoke bombs in the gadget area, it was
great to have a variety to sneak into to or blast my way through a room, but if
they could do so much with weapon customization and not as much on character
creation seemed like they missed out on a great opportunity to immerse the
player better into the word of Vegas 2.
The game play is what anyone would expect from a Rainbow Six
game, controlling a team that walks beside you or behind you, ordering them
through doors, telling them to hide in cover, all this while trying to cover
your own backside. The teammate commands were simplistic and easy to use,
though most the time they got left behind and had to be ordered to come to me
while they may have been still at the starting point. A reason for this is the
interesting feature of co-op story mode, allowing a friend to customize their
own character and act as a fourth member of the team, which sometimes,
depending on the skills level of the two of you, makes the other team members
obsolete. This makes for a great time with friends, taking out waves and waves
of terrorists while taking cover in any location. Utilizing the cover system is
an important part of this, and I’m sure, any other Rainbow Six game, or else
you will pretty much get torn apart by bullet fire from all sides. Taking cover
is simple, narrowing it down to one button and the joystick, you can move along
walls, peak out and take out someone with precision or pull the trigger and
blind fire in hopes of landing a shot. Most the time the cover system worked great,
allowing you to avoid fire and also dish it, but other times it seems no matter
where you hid bullets would fly through objects they weren’t supposed to fly
through, or while moving along the wall, you’d get stuck on nothing what so
ever, forcing you to get out of cover just to correct the mistake. Though even
with good cover the enemies still had a high chance to catch you off guard and
take you down. The enemy A.I. is very intelligent but at the same time just
incredibly lucky, sometimes they’ll wait around the corner, listening to your
shots and not moving forward just yet, catching you as you move around their
hiding spot, other times you can see them clearly just standing there not
paying attention and open to attack. Sometimes you could even wonder across
their hiding spot and think you’ve got them, but right when you shoot they do
the same and, depending on the difficulty, will kill you in a heartbeat. It
came down to the simple idea that the A.I. was as unpredictable as you could
be, and sometimes that means they stand out in the open waiting for a headshot.
Though even with an intelligent A.I. the enemies apparently confuse genders,
when a female character attacks them, they yell out things like “We’ll find
him!”, and that made me laugh more than question their intelligence, but when
they did yell out things like “I found him” or something else that revealed
their location, I felt a bit disappointed because that gave away the challenge
of finding them, dropping my opinion on them once again. I felt challenged enough, though, by the sheer
number and power of most of the enemies, giving me a challenge is exactly what
I look for but at the same time it made me wonder if the game was worth trying
when the enemy became too easy all of a sudden. All in all the game mechanics
worked amazingly well together, advanced cover options, sometimes highly
trained enemies, multiple ways to make your way through a room, un-seen or
blasting through doors, it was impressive and I was able to over look the down
side, for the most part.
The graphics were sub par, the main missions and in game
cinematic looked up to speed with other amazing looking titles for the next-gen
consoles, but just playing in a regular room, or building didn’t look like it
made by the same group. The enemies looked realistic enough but when you
watched an enemy fire at you, you weren’t struck with awe at any outstanding
details. Admittedly the rooms did have some minor graphics tweaks done but the
only really outstanding thing was the lighting and the in game explosions or
water effects and even those weren’t pushed to the highest point you know the
game could reach, just watch the opening video and compare the rest of the
game, you know they could push it further. Explosions only look like dirt is
shot up from the ground and a tiny flash is held within the blast radius. When
doors were blown apart or shot to pieces, only fell in a dull way crumbling
into giant chunks that looks like you chopped at it with an axe and it didn’t
convey any realism, as if you really blew down a door with C4. The environment
and guns were detailed, very detailed, but it wasn’t impressive without great
graphics. They dropped the ball in this area, and it made me wonder what
happened, they did such a great job in other areas and just seemed to become
lax in graphics. The sound was fairly impressive, realistic gun fire, larger
than life explosive sounds, and convincing voice acting made the story
progress, even though sometimes you couldn’t hear the voices properly without
turning down the sound effect volume, even when it was on 100%.
The game housed a interesting point system and experience
mechanic, in which you basically leveled up, but instead of numbered levels it
was to the next rank (i.e. recruit, sergeant etc.) The more you go through the
game, the better rank you get, and it helps when it adds on a point system that
can give you tons of experience at times. A.C.E.S., at this point I’m not
entirely sure what it stands for but basically it holds up the point system
into three different categories, Marksman, Assault, and C.Q.B., close quarters
battle, in which you do certain things for each category to level them up. For
instance kill someone from far away for Marksman, blow up people with grenades
for Assault, and kill someone up close and personal for C.Q.B. As you level
each point up and rank up, you unlock weapons, equipment and even camo color,
to customize your character even further. I found this was an interesting way
to add in some bonuses, while at the same time showing how well someone is
doing with the rank system.
And finally the best section of the review, the multiplayer
side of things. I really enjoyed the multiplayer Terrorist Hunt option,
especially when it gives you the option of how many enemies you want, and how
tough they are. It’s just an enjoyable experience to team up with a partner or
3 and try to see who gets the most kills and how creative you can take someone
out. The same issues did exist from the campaign into the multiplayer, the sometimes
dim witted enemies, the lack luster graphics, the great cover option and gun
selection, just minus the extra members of the team if you’re only playing with
a partner. You can even pull the same weapon selection you had in the campaign
over into the section, in case you liked the set you had you can keep it and
never worry about having to pick the weapons over again. I spent more time
playing the multiplayer aspects of this game than the story, though I did play
through it. The maps were identical to the campaign locations, just edited in
different ways to cater to the multiplayer gamers, different area of the same
map essentially, which added variety to the scenery and added even more of a
challenge, being new to the map and all.
All in all, for this being my first willing venture into the
world that is Rainbow Six, it wasn’t that bad of a journey. I’m sure there is a
lot more that people who love the series would get out of it than I did, but I
sure do have a new favorite multiplayer game for a while now. With it’s
customization option, loads of guns, inventive game play, and intelligent enemy
A.I. it was enough to keep me going, but not over looking the sub par graphics
use, the sometimes clunky controls or actions, a real lack of balancing out customization
options as far as guns to character, and the normally intelligent A.I. doing
the occasional cheap or dumb thing, this game didn’t do all that bad for what
it was and what it has been. I have to give this game a 7.5 out of 10, coming
out to an above average game in some areas but really lacking in others. This
game will probably get the Torched Perceptions stamp of multiplayer game of
moment, if we had an awards show that is. Highly recommended even if all you do
is play multiplayer with friends, this is one of the best bets out there for
you.
And now with the review finished and the sunsetting, (wellactually it’s morning but who’s getting technical?) it’s time to retire to thenext gaming session, which could be anything really from new DS release PokemonPlatinum or not so new Fable 2. If you read this and want to throw yoursuggestion for a review you want to see, then shot me an email at gamerguy18@gmail.com and I’ll respond asquick as possible with an appropriate response. No Barbie Horse adventurerequests please. We mean it, we’ll track anyone down who asks for that one. ....
