Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2

"Could have been a great game, instead of being Vegas 1.5"

Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 is a unique first person shooter. Having played Rainbow Six: Vegas 1, I took an interest to this game. Initially, I was skeptical, since most of the game looked almost exactly like Rainbow Six: Vegas 1 (with some minor graphical updates). I decided to try this game out hoping the co-op was supposedly improved. After a week or so of playing, I have gathered enough information from campaign, co-op, and online, to determine the overall worth and value of this game. While I enjoyed Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, I feel as though it did not improve significantly enough to be called a sequel. Instead, this game feels more like a "patch" to the first game. Nevertheless, it will be treated as a separate game with the first game as a reference point.

Presentation: 5/10
This game has an extremely high number of glitches and bugs. Interestingly enough, some glitches and bugs from the first game are still in the second. As a result, it is clear that not enough time was put into the development of this game. Graphics do not fully load when a game starts. There are numerous slowdowns and significant drops in frame rate, especially during firefights. There are a variety of weapons in this game, but only a handful more than the previous game. And strangely enough, it seems that the AI has been dumbed down from the first game. There were multiple times where I would be shooting with my allies from cover, and while I was shooting, my teammates would move into my bullets. I am not sure if this is poor AI coding, or poor level design. Other than the slowdowns and glitches, the over presentation of this game seems to be positive. The personal customization is well done (slightly more choices than the first game), and it is easy to access single player, co-op, or multiplayer gametypes.

Graphics: 6/10
The graphics in this game are descent at best. While it is an improvement over the first game, it is quite clear that detail was not in the minds of the developers. With the numerous slowdowns encountered in the game and the fact that this game uses the Unreal Engine, the graphics are a letdown. As a side note, there also were numerous in game advertisements. While these things are subtle and do not affect the game, I will leave it up to the viewer to decide whether this is a positive or negative entity.

Story: 6/10
The overall story of this game is inconsistent. Basically, as a special operations team, you go around killing terrorists and whatnot. Go to point A to kill Terrorist X, and then head to point B to kill terrorist Y. Most of the time, the player is left in the dark as to the story. I had no idea what was going on exactly, other than I needed to kill some bad guy. Granted, some parts of the story were somewhat interesting and compelling, but overall, it left much to be desired. After the first few levels, I had more interest in customizing my armor than the plot. As a side note, the storyline was less compelling than that of RS:V1.

Sound: 8/10
I was quite pleased with the sound that was emitted from my speakers. Bullets firing left and right, grenades and explosives going off, and the sound of scared terrorists, all give this game a descent atmosphere. It always is amusing to hear terrorists yell phrases such as "!@#$ owed me money!" or "You stay, while I go get backup." while you empty out bullets into their friends. The music within this game is standard, with no extraordinary quality that sets it apart from other first person shooters.

Gameplay: 7/10
Gameplay is probably the greatest strength of Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. Sadly, little is improved from the first game. As stated before, single player is not very interesting. Co-op on the other hand is quite fun. Even though there is only 2 player splitscreen, you can still have a relatively fun time in the campaign or terrorist hunt. Terrorist hunt is a specific gametype, in which you basically have to kill a set number of terrorists in under a time limit. There is now an experience system (A.C.E.S) which allows you to unlock new weapons based on the method used to kill a terrorist. I had a lot of fun during cooperative play, trying to unlock weapons faster than my friend did. All in all, it as entertaining to kill terrorists with another human player, though it would have been nice if there was 4 player splitscreen cooperative modes.

Multiplayer is supposedly the main reason why Rainbow Six Vegas is a great shooter. After playing some online games, I can safely say that the multiplayer is acceptable. Unlike most first person shooters, Rainbow Six Vegas requires the player to think before shooting. This is due to the slow nature of the game. This game encourages the use of cover and stealth, more so than running and gunning. Also, the weapons in Rainbow Six Vegas have strengths and weaknesses, giving each weapon a unique style. This is probably one of the subtle features that made the online more enjoyable. A major problem with the online portion of this game is the lack of servers, i.e. it is difficult to find a lag free friendly online game. This is due to the lack of popularity of this game, as well as a lot of people setting up servers with almost every weapon banned. These factors greatly downplay the online multiplayer, and forces many people, myself included, to stick to cooperative modes.

The gameplay featured by Rainbow Six Vegas is not suitable for everyone. The slower nature of the game is a downside to many first person shooter gamers. Also, since it encourages players to hide in cover, "camping" is an overused and abused tactic used in this game. The overall atmosphere of this game is quite different from standard first person shooters, such as Halo, Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament etc. It is recommended that you try this game before buying it.

Replay: 7/10
While the short campaign probably will not be revisited more than two or three times, there is a descent amount of replay. As stated, the campaign is short, and gives players little reason to replay it. Terrorist Hunt, while fun and frantic at first, becomes a chore and slightly monotonous to veteran players. A lot of the replay value comes from the online portion, and the amount of customization.

Customizing your character is one of the strengths of Rainbow Six Vegas. You can use the Xbox Live Vision camera to import your face (or any face for that matter) into the game. There are multiple pieces of armor and clothing, which further allows the player to create a unique character. There are multiple color schemes for the armor and clothing, as well as multiple headgears. Customizing your character was probably the one of the coolest and innovative part of the game. After setting up the appearance of your character, you can then customize your equipment and weapon. As stated before, there are many different weapons you can use in this game, and each weapon has its own play style, tailoring to multiple types of gamers.

Summary:
Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 is essentially a poorly patched version of Rainbow Six: Vegas 1. With little improvement in graphics, multiple glitches and bugs, and short single player, it is hard to recommend this game. If you have played the first game and are not a diehard Rainbow Six Vegas fan, I suggest that you pass up this game. If you are looking for a new game to play, and you have a tendency to play first person shooters, I suggest trying this game out. Overall, I feel that this is just a repackaged version of the first Rainbow Six Vegas. It brings nothing new to the genre, and does not improve on anything significantly enough to catch my attention. In short, this game was disappointing, even though I had low expectations already.

Overall Score:
7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/09/08

Game Release: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (US, 03/18/08)