Fantastic multiplayer is the focus point of this title, but the campaign is still fun and exciting.
The single player campaign is more of a diversion when compared to the deep multi-player experience partly because it is rather short. You will start off, playing as Logan Keller, by yourself in the currently hostile streets of Mexico near the border. You will rally with your team in a clear area to try and capture Irena Morales, alive. Of course when the 3 elite Rainbow members have her pinned down, she shows that she has a few tricks up her sleeve. An explosion allows her to escape and capture Michael and Jung and leaving Keller with just a pistol to rescue them. The story increasingly gets more exciting as you head through the casinos. The actual storyline is actually pretty cliche as far as Tom Clancy goes, but its still fun to engage in. Each section is split into 4 separate levels, and there are small loading pauses between each one. Each time you hit one of these points, you will likely let out a breath of relief that you have completed another section as there are very few checkpoints within levels throughout the campaign. Many terrorists will try to stop you while you make progress. Since the game uses a real-life damage system, you will definitely want to stick behind cover as much as possible; you do so by holding LT near a wall or car etc. Once you get hit you recover health by staying out of the battle for a few seconds. Using cover, you can blind shoot or pop out for a more accurate shot. As you would expect blind shooting yields very few hits. Its used more for suppressing or cover fire. You can also use flash bangs, incendiary grenades and regular frag grenades the same way. There are other gadgets at your disposal throughout the game including breaching charges, C4, night vision and thermal vision, all of which are actually pretty useful when used in the right situations. Another piece of equipment is the snake cam used to look under closed doors to detect any threats on the other side. When you are looking through the view of the snake cam you can tag enemies by pressing select and this makes it possible to track enemy movement in the next room so you can plan an attack. Of course, the single player campaign is squad based and this is one of the most interesting things about the game. As Keller, you control two other Rainbow counter-terrorists. The simple direction commands are obviously present, but during their movement you can tell them to either only shoot back, or shoot on sight. The best part about the squad commands is the fact that you can send your team to a door and coordinate an attack on the enemy’s inside. Different options are available at this time including clearing the room, fragging and clearing, smoking and clearing and so on. These attacks are often very necessary for flanking a hoard of enemies. There are various multi-player modes, each available co-operatively online or on the same console. Two to four players can play through the same single player levels with a variable amount of terrorists littering the level, however you are forced to sit through some pretty eventless helicopter rides. Another downside is you do not get to hear the dialogue of the single player campaign, but the missions are still a blast to play, especially with friends. Terrorist hunt is another mode available for two to four players and it really is a challenge. Basically, you just sent the terrorist concentration to low, medium or high and the difficulty to either Normal or Realistic. And then depending on the level a varying amount of terrorists litter the level, seemingly at random. This mode is tough, especially on the realistic difficulty because there are no respawns. When playing online (including some of the traditional modes) you earn experience for winning a match or completing a T-Hunt or story mission, the more difficult the mode, the more experience you earn. You gain ranks by gaining experience and that unlocks new equipment and weapons. Disappointingly, if you just want to gain ranks, it boils down to playing on Realistic difficulty with three other people in LVU in the T-Hunt mode. All in all, Rainbow Six Vegas is a great game, with an exciting campaign though slightly disappointing storyline. The multiplayer modes are really fun, even more so with friends. The game is challenging and often very rewarding. It really is recommendable to any Xbox 360 owner.