Tom Clancy has made a real name for his line of tactical shooter video games. Though the names have changed (Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell), the format itself hasn't changed that much. That's a good thing, though, as Clancy's games are nearly unique in a field of Halo clones with no emphasis on strategy or teamwork. And in this, the sequel in the Vegas line of Rainbow Six games, that emphasis is more present than ever.
First things first: The Story. Don't worry, this won't take long. You play Bishop, team lead and part-time instructor at the Rainbow Six academy. Think Indiana Jones for SWAT, but with less personality. The game begins 5 years before the present, with your team meeting in the Pyrenees Mountains, sent to address a hostage situation. You, of course, are successful, but at the cost of letting the villain escape. Back in the present, you face a group of terrorists, apparently backed by a radical Mexican named Alvarez Cabreros, as they try to wrestle the heart of Las Vegas from the hands of social order. As you progress, though, you discover that someone else is pulling the strings, and the entire story concludes with an elaborate betrayal and ambush for Bishop, and of course an earth-shaking conclusion for the team as a whole.
But that's not to say your team doesn't contribute. The majority of the game relies on you working with your team to orchestrate efficient take downs and get out of messy tie ups. With a fairly simple command system (press 'A' to direct your team to where you're pointing), you set up ambushes, door breaches, and covering fire with which you execute your strategies. One thing is for sure; playing this game alone would be a difficult undertaking.
Rainbow Six Vegas 2
If there's a hole in the canoe of teamwork, it's that your colleagues didn't exactly graduate on the honour roll. Your teammates AI isn't horrible, but twice in the course of the game I had trouble getting them to move to my waypoints. "I can't do that, sir!" Really?? It's a wide open parking lot! You can operate a grenade, but you can't walk 10 meters to the south? In battle, this logical occlusion becomes more concerning. More than once, my teammates decided that standing upright beside a perfectly good concrete flower pot was the correct course of action when a man with an AK-47 standing in broad daylight is shooting at you.
Like your teammates AI, controlling your Bishop requires a little leg work. Using the default unconventional control scheme ('B' to throw grenades?), you'll find yourself reminiscing the more intuitive controls of Gears of War, or Halo. But asides from a few strange control choices, some functions become very easy to get used to. Holding the left trigger makes you snap to whatever cover you're nearest provides a number of very useful button combinations to the player. While snapping to a wall, you can blind fire around the corner (ala Gears of War), or lean out to shoot with accuracy (also similar to Gears, but with more sophistication.) If you are crouched in front of a window, a quick tap on the right trigger (normally assigned to firing your weapon) will break the glass. This is useful when trying to draw the attention of nearby terrorists.
As with many games these days, things get more interesting once you go online. When playing cooperatively (online or split screen), the new player takes control of a character named Knight. This is a great feature of this game, though it left me wanting. For one, I wish that while playing in story mode, we could disable the two AI teammates. Instead, my friend and I would consistently command our troops to hang out a half kilometer back while he and I teamed alone up on the enemy. On a more technical note, I also wish players could switch the split screen orientation when playing on one television. I really find how the split screen splits the two players to the left and right side of the screen. I definitely prefer the wider horizontal split mode of other games.
Rainbow Six Vegas 2
As a final thought: There is a mode in the game called 'Terrorist Hunt.' This, simply, is a game mode that involves killing 30 terrorists in an area without being killed yourself. There are no respawns. My beef with this mode is that the terrorists hide so well that they almost always ambush you until you know precisely where to look to find them. On top of that, once you make any noise at all (or they do), the other 29 terrorists are all over you. And despite having 5.1 surround sound, I wasn't able to hear 5 of them approach me from behind me and to the right, until they were literally standing beside me firing! It becomes a game of memory, and patience and repetition rather than skill.
All in all, this is a great single player game, with only a few flaws which are mostly minor, and an almost-well-thought-out multiplayer mode marred by control issues, lag, and some service issues with both the Playstation Network and XBOX Live (though I experienced neither of which). This game is worth the purchase; It is easily deserving of 4 out of 5 stars.
Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (XBOX 360, PS3) **** (out of 5)
Ubisoft
Related Links: Official site, Ubisoft
Review by Dave Leggett
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