Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas

"A Step In The Right Direction"

Rainbow Six Vegas is the latest iteration of the long-running Rainbow Six franchise. With so many ups and downs in this series, it was hard to know what to expect. Does it fail to stack up against the 360's considerable library of shooters, or is Vegas the reinvention it's claiming to be?

From the go, Rainbow Six is disappointing. The voice acting is terrible, the character models are unimpressive, and the textures are flat and lack detail. The environments—Vegas' selling point—are simple and bland. There is nothing visually impressive, or even innovative, to be found. The character customization is respectable, particularly the ability to map your face to your character by using the Xbox Live Vision Camera, but all of the customization in the world can't save this game from mediocre graphics.

Aurally, Vegas is satisfactory. The score, while not particularly standout, aids in pacing the firefights. The sounds of shooting and reloading are enjoyable, but that is due in part to the fact that just about every other aspect of combat isn't.

It isn't that Vegas is a particularly bad game, it simply isn't a particularly good game. Vegas is actually fundamentally sound, but it fails to stand out on a console that already has a wealth of shooters. Quite frankly, the whole game feels like a B-rated Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter in just about every respect. The graphics (which lack both innovation and polish), the controls (which are counter-intuitive), the HUD (which lacks even the ability to distinguish squad mates from terrorists), the AI (which has your enemies waiting around to be shot, and your team mates getting lost before you even get to combat), the squad control (which is clumsy and in most cases useless) and the plot (which is cliche and dragged down by poorly acted, uninspired characters) are all weaker versions of what was offered in GRAW a year ago. The only thing that isn't copied from GRAW is copied from Gears of War, and that's the cover system, which is also implemented poorly.

If you're in desperate need of a shooter fix, Vegas is adequate. If you need a flexible co-op shooter and for whatever reason you're not playing GOW, Vegas is here for you. If not, GRAW 2 is just around the corner, pick up something else in the meantime.

6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/07