Do you ever have those kinds of days when there is nothing out there to play? When you have to go outside for something to occupy your mind? Well everyone, brace yourselves because we have reached that point in the industry. I remember the days of old when buying a game meant countless hours of mind-engrossing happiness. I remember the days of when games like Knight of The Old Republic, Psychonauts, Half Life 2, and countless other intresting, ground-breaking new titles were being released every month. However, my friends in the gaming community, the developers have since then become lazy and more importantly, greedy over the last couple of years that we have given them time to rest. Releasing remakes and sequels almost everyday, it seems as if the community has become less about creating a better and more intresting storyline along with intuitive gameplay and more about milking every single well-established franchise for every single dollar while trying to do the least amount of work as possible (other wise known as the EA strategy). I mean, if your going to make a sequel or remake, at least change up the gameplay and maybe add something new into the entire mix. Lets take Ubisoft Montreal's latest release, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 for the Xbox 360, PS3, and sometime in the distant future, the PC. Now, I've played most of the Rainbow Six series (give or take one or two) and I've found most of them somewhat intresting, including Rainbow Six: Vegas (which I would have to say, far far beats most of the Rainbow Six series) which was phenominal. So obviously, as history has taught me, I was very excited to see that Vegas was going to recieve a sequel, especially after the cliff-hanger left at the end of RSV. So the day came, and the I went to my respective store and picked up what I had thought was going to blow my minds. And what did I find? I found out that you should never trust the French when it comes to following up good games. Now, don't get me wrong, Vegas 2 isn't what I would call bad, and definitly what I wouldn't call great, but this game is literally the SAME game that I had bought about a year ago. The game plays EXACTLY as the first had, with the storyline pulling the same exact idiotic tasks that you were given in the first Vegas. And here they are in order. (1. Big Room with Hostages. 2. Small Room with Hostages. 3. Big Room with bomb guarded by Terrorists. 4. Disarm the Bomb 5. Escort the NPC and 6. Save the F--KING unsavable hostage in the same small F--KING room.) The single player feels less like an expansion, and more like the same exact sequence of situations going on over and over and OVER again. The only thing notable about this game over the first is the addition of a better interface which allows you to unlock new guns through gaining points for certain tasks, such as, shooting an enemy from a given distance, or nailing a guy right between the blues, and achievements that try to keep people from boosting. While this new interface is great and all, it is glitchy as hell. For instance, there are was to max out your entire skill sets by simplying killing three or four enemies and then dying, and then repeating this process again. If your going to create a skill system, you should at LEAST, tax the player for dying instead of just letting the player continue to degrade themselves by boosting even more. Plus, on a more personal note... Who the f--k designed the Assult Skill class in this game. Its almost damn impossible to get these damn points WITHOUT either boosting or whoring yourself to your grenades. But, I guess that they needed something to give those damn whores a reason to justify their stupidity.
However, there is no doubt in my mind that this game is completely based on the multiplayer aspect of gaming. And that is exactly why this game is so much of a cock slap to the face. The developers added absolutely ZERO new additions to this system except for the reallocation of point values to game types, (Realistic Terrorist Hunt no longer gives you 800 points.) and the fact that now the game actually gives you points and rewards for playing ACTUAL games against ACTUAL people. However, despite this the only thing added was the Total Conquest game type (which I'm not actually sure was in the original Vegas or not) and they removed the stupidiest game type ever constructed known as Assasination (No more Dr. Phil look alikes!). And for this I can full heartedly give Vegas 2 one gold star. But, that star is almost completely ripped off, burned, and thrown into the bottom of a river with the addition of Vegas 2's supposedly groundbreaking new gametype, Team Leader! Which by the way is Assasination MINUS the comical relief of Dr. Phil as the Team Leader *cough* VIP *cough* has now been given guns and armor, taking all of the tactics that might have been required to win one of these matches, and putting them into an incinerator. And if that wasn't enough to piss me off, Ubisoft Montreal wasn't even willing throw us some new maps. At least 3 or 4 of the maps in this game have either been in Vegas 1 or have made their own appearences somewhere in the past 3 or 4 Rainbow Six games. Plus, for an added bonus Ubisoft Montreal has given us the pleasure of downloading a free, complementary map for all those special people with Ubisoft accounts (or enough brain power to figure out that you can sign up for one for free). By the way, its everyone's favorite snipe-fest known as STREETS. Not only was this map in Vegas and REMAKE of a map from a previous game, but Ubisoft Montreal was so lazy, that they decided to make a DOUBLE remake of this map and call it special.
Overall, I'd call Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (New York 0) a game for lazy people. The game moves so slow it dulls the senses, the gamers literally all think they're African American gangsters, the developers put absolutely NO thought into inovation or anytype of intuitive gameplay elements, and that the game is simply an expansion pack (like GRAW 2) with only a couple of new maps and only three or four new guns. Oh yeah and Team Leader, because everyone hates Dr. Phil.
Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
Rating: 7/10
Pros: The gameplay is still outstanding despite being the same thing as RSV. The Online is great, and Terrorist Hunt never gets old.
Cons: The Online matchmaking system for ranked is so difficult, its not even worth playing. Online can get boring with spawn camping, and sniping whores. Not many new maps or guns. Too much like what a Rainbow Six: Vegas Director's Cut or Developer's Cut would be like as opposed to being an actual expansion or sequel. Ranking up to Elite is still hard as ever. Co-Op has been crippled down to only a two player, and two AI system which is a let down. Plus, Realistic isn't too hard as all of the AI in this game have some sort of genetic disorder. On a personal note, I bought this game simply because I had already sold off Vegas 1 and had thus, had no Rainbow Six games so I needed one to take its place.
Achievement Rating: 6/10
Considering the fact that you now need at least six people in a room to get achievements, you are required to get some of the achievements through either one, boosting or two, boosting. However, most of the story based and terrorist hunt achievements are very fun and can all be done in co-op.
Hardest Achievement: Elite - 50G - Well that one was obvious