'Vegas 2': Rolling the dice
Sin City is a funny place for a game that doesn't like to gamble. Like a stingy blackjack player that stays on 16, "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2" is a safe, straightforward sequel in almost every way. "Vegas 2" recycles the tone, technology, mechanics, modes and other content of its predecessor, but with all these odds stacked against it, Ubisoft manages to roll out a dependable experience that shines thanks to consistency and great co-op modes.
"Vegas 2" follows the first entry of Ubisoft's strategic shooter series by a year and a half, but its story takes place before, during, and following the first game. In short: terrorism that happened in Vegas continues to terrorize the town, and it's up to the talented tactics of the Rainbow counterterrorist unit to rescue hostages, dismantle bombs, and save America's neon capital from becoming little more than a glitzy crater. Players don the night-vision goggles of Bishop, a veteran special forces leader tasked to hunt down a pair of Central American bad guys that have hopped the border with a chemical bomb.
As always, the emphasis is on slow-paced but tense tactical gunfighting; a formula that pays dividends for players that prefer semirealistic strategy over trigger-mashing shootouts. With two capable squadmates and C4, silencers and smoke grenades among your arsenal, most of the single-player amounts to sneaking room to room within multilevel complexes, carefully directing your teammates to flank or attack individual targets. Some stages set the table nicely, letting your partners breach the lower level of a room while you snipe through a skylight above, but most set pieces opt for a linear layout over this kind of complexity.
Still, the tame level design complements "Vegas 2's" spec ops style well. Utilizing cover is at the center of the experience, and the game provides plenty of long hallways, columns and flat areas to lean against.Stylistically, the Strip's showy, slot-machine-lined casinos are swapped in favor of more industrial zones. Bishop's team is insertedinto aconvention center, villa, theater and recreational complex, and the gameuses every window, escalator, office and nook it can topour armed mercenaries forth.The pacing's pretty segmented and symmetrical throughout these scenes, with the exception of a later level that ramps up the difficulty by air-dropping Bishop into an oil refinery for a solo stealth mission.
With role-playing systems finding their way into other game genres of late, "Vegas 2" adopts "A.C.E.S.," a template that earns players experience points for performing long-range kills, headshots, or taking out terrorists in close-quarters. A.C.E.S. isn't terribly robust -- accruing EXP is easy and only unlocks additional weapons, but it succeeds because it's strung through every mode of the game -- competitive multiplayer, co-op and the single-player campaign. Adding this sense of persistence to your avatar was a great move on Ubisoft's part, and a little metagaming goes a long way in boosting the title's replay value.
Speaking of "Vegas 2's" other modes, adversarial and cooperative sections return mostly untouched, with the exception of new maps and the ability for players to join co-op games in progress online. The game's tactical style still seems somewhat shoehorned into competitive multiplayer, even with the addition of a sprint button to make combat more mobile. Where "Vegas 2" shines is cooperatively -- online within the campaign or in "Terrorist Hunt," a scenario mode that finds four players dropped into a map against 25 or more randomly positioned enemies. Coordinating with teammates online to patiently, systematically eliminate foes is an absolute thrill, and it's one of the rare environments where authentic teamwork and individual execution combine for a tense, infinitely replayable experience.
Other than being more of the same, "Vegas 2"'s visuals are the only sour point to protest. The game's engine is nearly identical to its predecessor's, which boasted a washed-out color palette, mild details and glitchy textures that pop into view as they load. Minor amounts of slowdown are another annoyance, but product placement for a telephone company, vehicles and a handful of films might be more of a culprit. Like many sequels, "Rainbow Six: Vegas 2" doesn't raise the stakes with a stack of new features or renovated gameplay, but the title plays very well with the cards it's dealt.A cross-mode EXP system connects the game's individual parts while a handful of new maps and weapons build upon what you've played before -- a careful, strategic shooter that'll have you making military hand signals to your friends in no time. Even as a recycled, mildly enhanced version of the original, "Vegas 2" is a standout jackpot of tactical combat.
"Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2"
Genre: Tactical shooter Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
3 stars
Fun: Fantastic co-op offerings online and via split-screen, refined tactical gunplay, EXP system adds replayability, neat voice-recognized commands for computer-controlled teammates.i71r>Unfun: Aging engine dulls graphical detail, challenging but predictable enemies, modest versus modes, recycled storyline, decent, but rigid friendly AI.eln2>m7qy>
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