Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
Happens in Vegas, but doesn’t stay there.
Tags: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas Categories: Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews
Posted by Mark "MadMup" Zwolanek on Jan 10th, 2007
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
Rainbow Six: Vegas
The Rat Pack. Ostentatious casinos. Celine Dion. Terrorists. Mention Las Vegas to someone and these are just a few of the things they’ll think of. Well, maybe not that last one, but if not, they should.
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Rainbow Six: Vegas has the Rainbow Six squad battling terrorists in Sin City—well, eventually, anyway. The game starts out in a squalid Mexican town, giving some backstory and setting in motion the events that get played out in Vegas and beyond. Yeah, “beyond,” as in “other places that aren’t technically in Vegas.” Players spend more time in not-Vegas than might seem likely, given the presence of “Vegas” in the title. Still, the game does eventually get to Vegas and the team spends a good amount of time shooting up slot machines and roulette tables.
As mentioned, there is a plot, but it really doesn’t matter. Terrorists have taken over and done some kidnapping and there are important people that need rescuing and … really, it doesn’t matter. The main point of the Rainbow Six games is to give players the chance to command a squad and shoot bad guys, and Rainbow Six: Vegas doesn’t disappoint.
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Players directly control one squad member throughout the game, but can issue commands to the other two squad members. The AI on these assistants is fairly impressive, to the point where, when commanded to “breach and clear” a room, they will many times do so without getting shot. Aside from a few times when they stopped following and had to be told to “group on me,” they did a great job of providing a realistic squadmate experience.
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Unfortunately, the AI for the enemies isn’t as impressive. Replaying a level will find the enemies in the exact same places every time. While it’s true that they will react to gunfire and will shoot from behind cover, they will also stand behind a column looking one way while the player sneaks right up on them from the other way without them ever looking. Still, enemies are challenging enough that figuring out a correct strategy of attack is the only way to defeat them.
The game has two difficulty settings: normal and realistic. Normal means players can take a few hits and a wounded soldier can be revived with a healing shot with no aftereffects. Realistic means one shot can kill.
Multiplayer options abound for Rainbow Six: Vegas. There are the standard deathmatches and teamplay attack and defend games, but players can also play through the story cooperatively via Xbox Live or go on terrorist hunts, with players needing to eliminate a set number of bad guys within a set amount of time.
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The most intriguing feature of the Rainbow Six: Vegas online experience is the Persistent Elite Creation: the player’s avatar in the online Rainbow Six universe. As more matches are played (and won), more experience is gained, and players can advance in rank from Private Second Class on up. Each new rank opens up new armor, weaponry, and accessories. Players with the Xbox Live Vision camera can take snapshots of themselves and see their faces mapped onto the virtual model with a surprising level of realism that almost gets into “creepy” territory.
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While Rainbow Six: Vegas looks and plays great, the sound needs to be mentioned. Oh, sure, the explosions and gunshots all sound realistic, but for some reason the developers felt the need to include huge amounts of gratuitous obscenities. Enemies and squadmates alike let fly, to the point where it becomes distracting. The developers probably thought it added a level of realism to the game, but none of the previous Rainbow Six games suffered from the lack of it, and the overwhelmingly ridiculous amounts of it in this game seem ill-considered.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Squadmate AI can actually be relied on to accomplish tasks + Las Vegas is a great setting, alive with lights, colors, and sounds + Online coop game modes |
9.1 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Enemy AI leaves something to be desired - Several not-Vegas levels - Ridiculous amounts of gratuitous obscenities |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| A must-buy for fans of the series. | |
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Tags: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
Posted by Mark "MadMup" Zwolanek on Jan 10th, 2007 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
