Review: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Three: Vegas 2

Format: Xbox 360

Category: FPS
Players: 1-16 (1-4 Co-Op)
Publisher: Ubisoft

Vegas, baby!


A while back, in my review of Ghost Recon 2, I made constant reference to the 2006 hit, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Three: Vegas. The original Vegas was a decent, tactical, and reasonably realistic FPS. I digged it for the well implemented cover system, cinematic combat, and impressive multiplayer. Also worthy of praise was the unique customisation options you had at your disposal. Not only could you select your primary and secondary weapons, you could fully customise your avatar’s appearance. For an FPS game, this level of customisation was simply unprecedented. It felt more like a Sims game and was awesome. Although this was really just a glossy feature the actual gameplay of the original was also solid. The story mode was good fun and reasonably interesting to follow. The classic Terrorist Hunt mode was great fun and also very challenging. And then there was the adversarial multiplayer; as good as anything that was on offer all those years ago. So, here we go again with Vegas 2.

Being a sequel, Vegas 2 promotes itself as a vast improvement over the original. It boasts smarter A.I, a much more dramatic campaign mode, deeper customisation options, and vastly improved graphics. It was released as part of Ubisoft’s 10 years of Rainbow Six celebration. Everyone was eager to play and primed for the latest Clancy instalment. I’ll admit I was excited. Very few games have ever captured the level of tactical realism seen in Clancy titles. From the hype it sounded like Vegas 2 was going to be tight and firing on all cylinders. Well, turns out it isn't.

Like so many sequels nowadays, this game suffers from being arguably inferior to its original. Vegas 2 advances very little here. It transfers most of the features that were good about the original and places them neatly into its body of code. The problem is it simply fails to implement anything particularly new. What is new is the ‘persistent elite creation’ system. This is essentially a very awkward way of describing what is in essence an old idea; transferring your single player character across to multiplayer. It’s certainly good to see and clearly better than having no persistent character system. However, it has allowed for a system that can be easily exploited. Players are able to max out their weapons-based skill sets very quickly offline. This simply then means you’ll have access to every weapon in the game. Separate to this is the actual ranking system, which is also persistent. The problem is even this mode is now exploited by players finding ways to reach Elite status very quickly via campaign mode bugs and A.I respawning glitches on a particular level.

I’m not going to dwell on the exploits because it’s not entirely fair to rate a game negatively based on such obscure bugs. Unfortunately, many gamers have too much time on their hands and factors like this are often a problem with online worlds. The ranking system is basically a slightly improved version of the original version. It suffers from starting off fast and then turning into a painful slog through the vast number of Sergeant ranks. However, if it ain't broke don't fix it springs to mind. It was always a cool system and remains so here.

The game itself is basically just a very bog standard affair. It feels dated and in many ways inferior to Vegas. Firstly, the campaign mode is dull… oh so dull. In Vegas, one minute you were in Mexico battling through caves. Another minute you were fighting through neon lit streets surrounded by SUVs, and then all of a sudden you found yourself tackling a mighty dam facility. Vegas 2 offers a variety of warehouses, dark alley ways, abandoned convention centres, and bizarre private estates to do battle in. Every half decent location is a homage and remake of a stage from a former Clancy game. Most of them come from the classic Raven Shield. Any segment that is new to Vegas 2 is boring, uninspired, and downright tedious to play through.

The weak level design could have been forgotten about if it were not for the major flaws of Vegas 2. The big screw up comes with the popular Terrorist Hunt mode. For a start the maps, being based on the story mode, are really bad. They are just boring and lifeless. Terrorist Hunt was always about knowing the map in other Rainbow Six games. Maps in the original Vegas such as the Campus stage were a prime example of tight design. In Vegas 2, the few maps that are any good are from former games (such as the downloadable Streets) and are, as a result, played to death by everyone.

The real problem with Terrorist Hunt mode though is not the lacklustre selection of maps. It’s the awful way the A.I terrorists now spawn in the most frustrating of ways. Now in the classic PC Clancy titles this never happened. The enemy were placed randomly and the skill was in sweeping room to room and hunting them down. In Vegas, this was the case with slight alterations. In Vegas 2, it goes Star Trek style. You’ll find yourself isolated and convinced a room is clear only to then receive an AK-47 round in the face once an enemy spawns directly behind you. You will also constantly get sniped by seemingly omnipresent SPAS 12 snipers. Shotgun buck will claim you nine times of out ten in Vegas 2.

This bug/console compromise/downgrade to any other Rainbow Six games' Terrorist Hunt mode is utterly unforgivable. As a Rainbow Six veteran, I was shocked and deeply frustrated by this ridiculous issue. It essentially ruins the most popular mode and, topped with the lack of good maps, means that many players have already switched back to the original.

I don’t really have much more to say about Vegas 2. Not only is it a prime example of a 1.5 title trying to pretend it’s a fully fledged sequel, it's a disappointing one at that. Vegas 2 is a weak expansion pack of ideas. Graphically, it actually seems worse than the 2006 game of the same name. There is no evidence of it looking any better, that’s for sure. The sounds are identical to the original, as is the questionable adversarial mode. In truth, the bar has been considerably raised for online FPS games ever since the release of Call of Duty 4. However, this is no excuse for half-baked attempts.

Vegas 2 has no party system – meaning you can’t play with friends without the hassle and sheer stress of trying to either host a room and send invites or just hope you will all find a public server with enough free slots. If you do manage to clamber into a public room (hosted by a stranger) then be prepared to get booted for no reason, lagged out to the lobby, and forever waiting for a host to launch. Fortunately, we have generally moved on from the days of gaming when this was all too common. Unfortunately, Vegas 2 still insists on doing things the old way. The game needed a party mode alongside this host/join system. It's that simple.

My last comment is probably a criticism that about sums this game up. Unlike in Vegas, this game only supports two player co-op for the story mode. This is because the developers seem to think people would prefer poor HUD-based cutscenes over having three other friends playing alongside them. Laughably, it was also hyped that the two A.I operatives will now stay with you even if another player joins. This system works badly as the A.I will ignore the second player and treat them like an underling; constantly barging by them and stealing cover.

Ubisoft seem to think people care about the story… they don’t. The story is just a framework for the action. It is nothing more. They have sacrificed four player co-op for cutscenes that are viewable for any potential second player and the inclusion of the A.I when this someone else joins. They also claimed that the levels were simply not designed for four players. As far as I was concerned they were hardly designed for one player. This game needed four player co-op. End of discussion.

Vegas 2 isn’t worth the full retail price. If you can, pick it up when it’s cheaper or perhaps rent it. It really isn’t sequel material. It’s just Vegas with a few new features minus four player co-op and a workable Terrorist Hunt. The golden standard of Rogue Spear and Raven Shield has demonstrably vanished and this apple has fallen very far from the tree made by that great original development team, Red Storm Entertainment.

by The Critical Alien
© 2008