by: Steve Simons

April 02, 2008

Rainbow Six series has left its mark in the tactical shooting genre since its debut, and the past “Vegas” title did so as well. It had some of the best graphics for its time and the game play was finely tuned with few missteps. Vegas 2 follows in the originals footsteps closely, sometimes too close in fact. UBI has improved some areas and simply tweaked others. Vegas 2 starts 18 months after the original ended in a cliffhanger.

Gamers have waited patiently since that time all while dreaming up all the improvements UBI could make to the game. This sequel feels more like an expansion, with the best new feature is the persistent character creation. All modes of game play earn you points in three categories which contribute to your overall rank. The higher you go in each the more items you can unlock. It’s a great way to extend game play and it feels natural. My first play through for example, was multiple hours just so I could unlock a certain gun.
The Rainbow Six series has always been about tactical shooting. The major issue with the game is the AI on both sides of the battle. Your team mates are mindless; they will run into fire and stand out in the open. They will sometimes ignore your commands for seemingly no reason at all and in the process get shot. The enemy AI is better but not by much, standing out in the open sometimes, but usually staying in cover refusing to budge. Other imbalances, such as their superior aim and only moving when there is an overwhelming of enemies are a bad point also. You could be hiding around a corner; the AI has no clue you are there. You will have no time to react and chances are their first shot will be right to your head. Vegas 2 has the same unfortunate design choice of the first one, with enemies spawning in front of you as well. Again it just cheapens the experience. How are you supposed to be tactical if the game itself is cheating? I couldn’t stand that about the original and I hate it even more in Vegas 2.

On the flipside, level design has improved quite a bit. In Vegas 1 you would often find points in the map where you had no way of seeing an enemy and no way of getting a good shot because there was no cover, all of that is gone now. Difficulty is instead increased with a higher density of enemies and their slightly better AI. Due to the larger and sometimes more open environments UBI has added the ability to sprint. Some might complain, but when you are in a rock and a hard place, you need to haul ass and find some cover.
The story mode is only about 4-5 hours long even on your first play. The game seems to end when you least expect it.

Multiplayer seems to have been the main focus this time around. There is co-op which takes place during the main story missions. It’s a nice mode and it really is true that every shooter should have this feature. It’s much better to play with a friend, but they had cut four-player co-op in the process as well. Hopefully it will be addressed with a patch sometime down the road. You have a far easier time playing using real tactics because you aren’t issuing basic commands to an AI that really doesn’t want to follow them. This brings me to another problem. The host of the match is in total charge of the AI. The second player cannot issue any commands. If the host dies the second player has no choice but to wait for them to respawn if they need support from the AI. Why can’t each player have command over one of the AI team mates?

There are 12 total pure multiplayer maps. Some maps are new and some were taken from past games and expansions. Many may be turned off by replaying old maps with a new coat of paint. I for one was happy to see a couple of my favorites return tuned and harder than ever. They do however all seem to be tweak mostly towards Terrorist Hunt. That’s fine by me because it’s my personal favorite game play mode. The design makes death match more methodical which isn’t a bad thing but it may put some off with its slower deliberate pace.

The original Vegas was one of the first games to use Unreal 3 but that was almost 2 years ago. Vegas 2 makes almost no visual improvements over its predecessor. The character models are more detailed and the animation is slightly improved but the environments are lacking the punch of the first in the series. The frame rate is also not as solid which makes little sense when you compare the two games side by side.

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Don’t get me wrong, Vegas 2 is a great game but it truly feels like an expansion pack. The core mechanics are unchanged aside from being able to run. No real improvements were made to the AI on either side of the battlefield and the story still isn’t exactly movie caliber. If you are coming into this game looking to be blown away all over again you can forget it. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth your time and money. The multiplayer modes are what make this game worth your money. It’s still a solid shooter in almost every respect and as long as you know what you’re getting into you won’t be disappointed.

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