Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2

"Tango spotted!"

Rainbow Six: Vegas took me by surprise when I actually found myself enjoying it a couple of years ago. The game definitely had its problems, including the very poor textures, the gimped co-op mode, the lack of local support, and some camera issues marred it, but it was still a very fun tactical shooter. For once, a video game with squad mechanics actually got everything right, but unfortunately, Ubisoft doesn't continue their winning streak with the Tom Clancy series with Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

But before I get into everything that is horribly wrong about Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, I will first talk about the plus side of things. For one, the co-op mode is actually worth it, and you can actually enjoy the story in co-op, plus the checkpoints are actually reasonable and won't cause you to throw your controller through your TV. So, they at least listened to the reception of their first game and fixed this problem.

The cover system has also been fixed to allow for less camera issues, but I didn't find nearly as much of a need to even use cover. Sure, there are definitely moments where it came in handy, but seriously, this game felt more like a weird third-person/first-person shooter hybrid than a tactical shooter.

That's one of the problems that Vegas 2 has, and that's the fact that it just doesn't feel like a Rainbow Six game anymore. While the first game got the squad mechanics down to a science, Vegas 2 completely forgets everything the first title did right by not even giving you a reason to use your squad. Pretty much all of your objectives involve going room to room shooting people, meaning that thinking tactically is more or less a complete waste of time. In co-op mode, the second player is not allowed control over any members of the squad, so this makes the tactical decisions even less appealing while playing in co-op. Honestly, this game probably could have passed as a new IP since it feels so disconnected from the rest of the games in the series.

The major new feature in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 is the ability to gain experience points and level up as you play through the online multiplayer modes, the entertaining Terrorist Hunt mode, and even the main storyline. Obviously, they got this idea from Call of Duty 4, but there's no shame in that. If something's not broke, don't fix it, right? Ubisoft really nailed the leveling system by separating it into three subcategories that you can level up individually by killing enemies in a variety of ways, but you are still filling up an experience bar that sits at the bottom of the screen. This light RPG element allows you access to more kinds of armor and weapons, and your rank for online matches also increases. Essentially, if you're somehow really bad at this game, you could technically level grind to earn better equipment that could give you a chance to live longer.

The online versus modes are fun to play, as is Terrorist Hunt, but the lack of local support for these features really brings down the point. Sure, they will keep you busy for a while, but they don't have the power that games like Gears of War 2 or Call of Duty 4 have in the multiplayer department.

I remember another area where the first Rainbow Six: Vegas surprised me, and that was with its entertaining and enthralling storyline that actually had a pretty big twist at the end. I had been use to games in the series delivering sub-par storylines at best, but Vegas really proved to me that Ubisoft realizes what flaws their games have and strive to mend those flaws. Unfortunately, Vegas 2 also takes a few steps back here, as the storyline is dreadful. You are thrown right into the middle of everything without much explanation (Gears of War anyone?), and things just keep happening without you having any chance to care about anything that's going on. There are terrorists in Las Vegas and you have to disarm bombs. That's what the storyline is, but you won't care about the characters, and you won't even care whether you'll save the day or watch sin city get blown into bits. That's just sad.

Once again, the textures are terrible here, but they are even uglier than in the first game. I didn't like how the original game was so shiny, but it's way better than all of the gray dullness that is everywhere in Vegas 2. The level design is also considerably worse, providing for some of the most uninspired levels in ages, and if you have played any previous game in the series, you should know exactly what to expect. Everything is just uglier, there is some pretty bad lag, and the screen tears constantly. Character models are a little bit better, but they don't improve over the first game, and the lip-synching is awful. Hell, some characters don't even open their mouths when they talk! The explosions are done well though and there are some nice set pieces, but they are not enough to make up for the terrible graphical presentation in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

On top of that, the co-op mode is a little annoying to play sometimes because when little messages pop up on the screen (what a terrible way to try to tell the story), they cover up half of the second player's screen in split-screen mode. Playing online fixes this problem, but honestly, what was the point of obscuring half of the player's vision with a pointless message that's almost impossible to pay attention to anyway? Weird design choices like this abound in Vegas 2, unfortunately. When you pause the game, you don't really “pause” it per say. Everything still goes on, so if you need to pause the game for whatever reason, you are out of luck. There are also invisible walls that cost me a couple of squad members more than once. I would lean out from behind cover to toss a grenade, only to have the grenade literally bounce off of thin air and right back at me! I guess that's a little bit better than things going through other things and guns floating in the middle of the air, though.

The special effects have been stepped up a notch. Like I said, the explosions look great, but that's not all. Night vision doesn't hurt your eyes like in most titles, and the infrared goggles are great and while wearing these goggles, you won't even see how inexcusably terrible the textures are. Sometimes I made myself get blinded by a flashbang grenade on purpose just to see the awesome black and white cel-shading that flashes on the screen. It reminds me a lot of the upcoming Wii game MadWorld. Still, while these are cool, the game does also suffer from more serious technical issues, including an abundance of bugs, annoying glitches, and there were multiple times where the game would crash on me or just not boot up at all.

Vegas 2 has a pretty average audio experience. Everything is sort of just there, and the dialogue is pretty pointless as there is too much shooting going on most of the time listen to anyone trying to talk to you on your little headset thing. The music is unmemorable but not necessarily bad. I really feel as though Ubisoft didn't really put forth much effort here, but at least they didn't completely tarnish the sound.

Clocking in at about eight to ten hours, Vegas 2 is a decently lengthy game, but the gameplay will wear thin at about the halfway mark. The multiplayer is great fun online, but the lack of local options limits its appeal, but it's still loads of fun earning experience points and leveling up to earn new weapons. Achievements are a way to inject some replayability, but Vegas 2 doesn't have achievements that are necessarily all that fun to get and seem recycled from a ton of other shooters on the market.

Ubisoft really screwed up the Rainbow Six series with this installment. Not only did they fail to fix the graphical problems found in the first game, they actually achieved in making the game look uglier, totally ruined the story, and still didn't support local multiplayer. The online function is nice, but seriously, local multiplayer would be ideal. The next game in the series needs to make major changes from Vegas 2 in order to succeed, so hopefully Ubisoft takes the good things from Vegas 2 and fixes all of the bad things for the next title in the series.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/26/09

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