Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Review
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I have played many first person shooter games, but I’ve never played one like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2. I haven’t played the other Rainbow Six games, so I can’t make comparisons (I do believe that this has altered my opinion of the game - if you’ve played older games in the series it will probably be less impressive to you). I will simply highlight the games unique points as an FPS: the cover system, varying game types, and the experience system.
On the surface, Vegas 2 plays like a combination of Gears of War, Counterstrike, and Call of Duty 4. I despise third-person view, so I don’t play Gears of War (I don’t deny that it’s a great game if you can tolerate that view). As such, I haven’t played a game with a cover system yet. It’s spectacular. You can hide behind things, walk along them, pop up, blind fire, rappel up and down walls (while firing a pistol), breach/open/close doors, and more! The possibilities are endless. As if this weren’t enough, there are three major modes of play - Story, Terrorist Hunt, and Versus. Before I explain how everything works, perhaps you’d like a look?
Story mode is exactly what you’d expect: the campaign. You lead a squad of three men through various missions, which to me sounded painful. Computer-controlled allies have never been my friends. Vegas 2 hasn’t perfected the allies’ AI yet, but it is a far cry from the unplayable ones we’ve had to deal with in other FPS games featuring allied troops. The AI would be great, except that they have to survive, and they don’t seem to care if they get shot. You can order your men around, but they seem to have no brains of their own except when to pop out and shoot, and when they are executing an order (such as breaching a room) they are fairly autonomous. Other times it’s really up to you to make sure they don’t get owned. You are capable of “reviving” the teammates, which is silly, and impossible. If a guy dies, you’re not going to be able to clear the room and revive him before he conks out for good - unless perhaps you play on one of the easier game modes. Other than the allies, the story mode is spectacular. I haven’t played through the entire thing (due to frustration with the allies, and the availabilty of the other modes), but it has provided a challenge for me. This says a lot, as I typically throw myself at any given shooter and beat it within a day or two. The only AI opponents comparable in difficulty for me were those of Call of Duty 4, which adapted to every tactic I came up with and learned to be unstoppable. Let’s move on, shall we?
Terrorist Hunt - I bet you can figure out how this works. This variant comes in both single and multiplayer (up to four players), but in both the objective is simple - clear the area of terrorists. You have three variables to control here:
- Enemy Density - Self-explainatory, really makes the game hard when you’re on a small map or one with lots of cover, as the enemies are everywhere. If the map is small enough, they will even stumble across you without you having blown your cover.
- Difficulty - As in the story mode, you’ve these three levels of difficulty: Casual, Normal, and Realistic. I don’t play easy modes, so I jumped straight into realistic, and let me tell you - it’s pretty damn difficult. I’ve cleared the map of terrorists in singleplayer maybe two or three times out of ten or fifteen tries. Online I’ve done more, but the difficulty ramps up if the people you’re playing with don’t know how to remain stealthy and keep cover properly.
- Lone Wolf - This setting is only available in singleplayer. This controls the presence of allies. They are gone gone when the setting is set to “On”. I recommend playing without them, as they tend to just provide another way to lose the game, or at least your stealth.
Guru Tips - Though lame, or “cheap”, to some, the machine guns are surprisingly effective in Terrorist Hunt. I’d estimate your chances of completing one with my settings (below) to increase tenfold when using an MG. My strategy (for winning, not pure fun) is to find a good spot with no entrances that I can’t view and fire at while remaining covered (or as close to that as possible). I then make noise (unsilenced guns, grenades), and let them come to me until the number remaining has been significantly reduced.
Let me mention that in this mode the map influences the difficulty greatly, as the AI is more coordinated on certain terrains, and you will be better with certain terrains. For me “Oil Refinery”, “Presidio”, and “Villa” are the most difficult. CQB Training is the easiest (though I specialize in CQB). You’ll find out soon enough what you’re good at. Keep in mind that I play on realistic with high density, and lone wolf on when I play alone. This can be a combination of frustrating and fun, but is a real achievement when you win one. Sick of AIs? Let’s talk about Versus…
Versus mode is great. It comes in a number of flavors, and the combination of options and game modes make for unlimited gameplay and fun. The versus modes are as follows:
- Deathmatch - Your standard free-for-all, for some reason fairly rare online. At the time of this writing there are no dedicated Deathmatch servers up, but if you host a game, or wait long enough, one will crop up for you to try. It’s quite fun, and depending on the settings (primarily respawns) can be hectic.
- Team Deathmatch - This is the most popular mode, and as you may have guessed, it pits two teams against each other. Again the gameplay varies by the settings, but typically you are allotted one life, with tactics, stealth, and teamwork being key.
- Attack and Defend - This mode is a verbatim copy of Counterstrike. The most common types of tihs mode are the bomb mode and the hostage mode, in which you plant/defuse the bomb at sites A or B, and rescue/prevent rescue of hostages, respectively. There is also a mode where you capture the intelligence briefcase (ala Team Fortress 2), but that is rarely seen online. This can be fun, provided you get a pair of somewhat-coordinated teams.
- Team Leader - In this mode, you must escort your team’s “Leader” to an extraction point, while simultaneously stopping the enemy form killing him and extracting theirs. This mode seems to end within a few seconds every time a round starts, and I don’t play it because of this. If anyone has more information to offer up on how it plays out, feel free to comment.
- Total Conquest - I’ve been too preoccupied with TDM to try this, but the way it works is the two teams fight over control of satellite transmitters. This mode is akin to Unreal Tournament’s Warfare/Onslaught, or one of the battlefield games, except on a smaller, squad-based scale.
As you can see, there are many things to do here. I find myself primarily playing Terrorist Hunt and Team Deathmatch, as I enjoy these the most. No matter what you like, however, you will get experience and points for the level-up system, which adds a great incentive to keep playing. The system is similar to Call of Duty 4, but much more extensive. It has four dimensions:
- Rank - This is similar to Call of Duty 4, and is your main indicator of skill. This increases with “XP”, which is allotted to every kill you make. You also get this for allied kills in Terrorist Hunt (and perhaps Versus, I’m unsure). This basically increases with time, regardless of what modes you play. This unlocks primarily the clothing, armor, and camoflauge.
- Assault - One of the three combat levels, this one involves things like grenade kills, kills through cover, and more. This unlocks assault rifles (you might have guessed), as well as other weapons, such as a few pistols and the shield (which is paired with a pistol, and can be devastating).
- CQB - I’m unsure what it stands for (perhaps the ‘B’ is for battle), as the term “CQC” or close quarters combat is typically used. It’s effectively the same thing though. You gain these points by killing from behind, up close, and using blind fire. I maxed this out twice as fast as the other two types of combat levels. This unlocks SMGs and Shotguns, primarily.
- Marksman - This involves headshots, kills from a rope, and kills on a rope. It unlocks sniper rifles primarily.
All of this makes for a diverse player-base, all of whom have unlocked different sections faster than others. Even the “Elite” (top-rank) players aren’t all maxed out, so you may find an Elite Marksman that is terrible at CQB, or vice versa. It takes a long time to get points in sections you aren’t good at, so not everyone has simply blown through every level-up). I find that this provides a nice incentive to play.
Finally, the negative points:
- The graphics aren’t terrible, but they aren’t good. The textures aren’t great, the shaders aren’t triggered by enough light sources (guns are matte instead of shiny too often), yet the game has motion blur and great animations. Go figure.
- There are only 12 versus/terrorist hunt maps. Needless to say I’ve seen them all too many times. This hasn’t stopped me from playing the game for hours a day, however, even after a month or so.
Overall, I’d say that this is an excellent game. It’s available on Steam, retail, and also on consoles - if you pick up a copy on the PC, look for “EyesOfARaven”. If you enjoyed CoD4, or previous Rainbow Six games, this is probably a good FPS for you. If you’re looking for a run in the park with every player on equal footing, ala Team Fortress 2, then steer away from Vegas 2.
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