Rainbow Six Vegas 2 PS3 Review

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 happened to be my first introduction to the Tom Clancy series of games.  After playing many shooters on the PS3 this year Rainbow Six Vegas 2 seemed to be one of the best. It is well crafted using the indispensable Unreal engine.

You begin in a single player story mode. This is one of the few shooters where you can customize your character. It is unique to find a shooter game where you can select a playable female avatar. Someone must be into chess because the characters names are “Bishop” and “Knight”. The graphics are very sharp and clear. It’s very well done for a shooting game. Most of them give the backgrounds a very careless treatment. This game has a higher frame - rate giving it smoother images. The backgrounds go from the exteriors and interiors of “New Vegas” where terrorists have infiltrated. You’ll see hotel rooms and casinos, malls and even a gaming convention where the advertising for MLG, Comcast and other software companies is plastered all over. It’s kind of dull like a LAN room rather than a flashy E3. Too bad it would have been fun shooting up all that neon. It does look like they put some time into the details like the armor for the players, which is upgradable.

I found the dialog in the game to be hilarious. Even though it is meant to be serious the voice acting just seemed so ludicrous that it only succeeded in making me laugh. In one sequence where you hear a guy supposedly getting tortured, the screams were so funny that I kept getting distracted and killed.

The music is terrible. One monotonous loop goes on and on. It happens to be the same “music” as on the public service announcement to buckle up your seat belts from the state troopers.

The game pairs you up with two henchmen to assist you on missions. Part of the challenge of the game is figuring out how the game wants you to best use these pawns and try to prevent them from doing dumb things. And they will do dumb things too. They don’t always interpret objects to use as cover correctly. Like they don’t always know enough to duck behind an object, they will get behind something that is too short, or they will get on the wrong side of it. There is a solo level in the game where you have to stealth. Which was a relief to get away from the stupid ass henchies. Another problem is that you can’t shut them off or go without them if you decide top play with a friend at home. Once again you have to deal with a split screen in the co-op mode. It doesn’t make sense to me to have a split screen in a game that is supposed to be all about team work and using the best skill sets to solve problems. The best way to accomplish the missions is to be in the game in real time and place.

The pattern seemed to be take cover stealth up, kill, take cover again. You can peek under doors with a cam, there is a heat sensing camera, and map features. Once you take the hints from the dialogs you hear things go better. After a while you’ll realize that each mission is more like a puzzle about how to get into each room, rather than running and gunning. The game is more linear than it may lead you to believe. It rewards you for solving the rooms the way that it expects you to. If you don’t, then the enemy AI will hide itself inside walls and ceilings and just pop out at you from no where.

There are plenty of weapons all over the place. This new version has 11 new weapons.  There are also flash and frag, grenades or smoke bombs. There’s a night cam and a heat sensing mode too. There is a little snake camera that can go under doors. With it you can assign the team to shoot whoever you want first. The customization applies to all of the weapons, camo, clothing and gear. The outfitting menu comes up with a background loading screen that looks like you are riding in a helicopter to the next mission.

The set up in the beginning of the multiplayer oddly does not let you see your character. You can choose outfitting, and whatever you were wearing and stats from single player carry over. You can also carry over the experience earned in single player to multiplayer. In the multiplayer Vegas 2 has terrorist hunt which where you find and kill a bunch of guys in a time limit. It’s sort of like Unreal 3. But not as elaborate. It has co-op play online which allows you to play through the story mode of a game with a friend. the whole point of this as a tactical shooter is to play with others and strategies. There have been a few complaints about slow down and stutter in multiplayer. Along the way there have been intermittent service issues with both the Playstation Network and XBOX Live.

If you are interested in a shooter with tactics and you like team AI play then this game is for you. It is an impressively well executed shooter even as a stand alone volume even without being familiar with the franchise. If what you are after is simplicity and you like to run and gun without much thinking then I’d suggest you look elsewhere. Unless you are a fan of the series there are better shooters and online multiplayer shooters, like Unreal 3. This game is definitely a fun rental.
I give Rainbow Six Vegas 2, 8 poker chips our of 10.

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