Boys and Girls, this game ain't your typical Rainbow Six tactical shooter.
If you've played the previous games, you may recall from the terrorist-killing Rainbow days of yore, that if you were pitted against, say, twenty or more tangos in a mission, you had your work cut out for you. Each enemy had the potential to wipe out your entire team all by their lonesome if you hatched a poor plan for infiltration; or, if you just happened to turn the wrong corner at the wrong time. In R6 Vegas, the name of the game is numbers. Terrorists are abundant. They will attack you in droves. I can say, in all truth, that the enemies in Vegas will come at you like waves at a shoreline, you can rest assured that the roots of the Rainbow franchise have safely taken a backseat to the trends of the future - trends like duck-and-cover.
Duck-and-cover, or Cover-is-King or whatever you like to call pressing your back against boxes to avoid getting shot in a videogame, is a cool idea that's been around in games for quite a while. I remember it quite fondly in oldies such as Winback on my trusty old Nintendo 64. It is, however, quickly becoming the "new thing," and as such most games that are hoping to achieve blockbuster status will most likely now try to employ it in one way or another.
Rainbow does do an exceedingly good job of handling the mechanics of hiding and popping up for opportune shots. Normally, the game is played through a first person perspective, but when you take cover against an object, the camera will switch to a third person view so that you can see around your cover and try to spot the baddies. The animation is fluid and kills are fullfilling. Being able to sweep your gun, raised to eye level for that perfect head-shot, 360 degrees as you enter a room is pretty damn satisfying, especially if you knock the terrorists down a few numbers with that sweep. Using the 'L' trigger to keep your character stuck to whatever makeshift shield you've got is both pleasing and simple. There's just a little problem with the AI. Enemies will hunker down in groups and exhibit good (but not great) AI when it comes to fending off you and your squadmates. They rarely move from their cover. They pop their heads out fairly predictably. If you shoot one in the arm while he's hiding from you, he won't move so that you can't do it again. I just don't feel threatened by these guys. Maybe that's why there's so many of them- to make up for their non-threatening attitudes towards lethal firefights.
The tactics that Rainbow has always had at the core of its gameplay are, by and large, completely removed from R6 Vegas . The tactics are watered down worse than the Coke at Cineplex Odeon. Sure, your squadmates will tell you that you're being flanked every now and again, but that doesn't make up for the fact that I can no longer outfit my entire team (I can only outfit myself; and even in then, I can only outfit my guns and grenades-no options for my armor or tech that I bring with me). I can no longer choose my squadmates based upon their aptitudes for the mission at hand; I can no longer escort the hostages I just saved (I can merely leave them waiting "safe" in a still hostile area); I can't even split my squad up into two separate entities in order to move more effectively through an area. Sure, I can make them enter a room through a different door than me, but that's the biggest concession I'm going to get. The squad tactics are hardly there and my teammates leave me feeling more like they're just stealing my kills than helping me complete a mission.
Now that all that Doom and Gloom is out of the way I'd like to outline exactly what I can do with this crazy new take on the Rainbow universe. First and best of all, I can take cover. Like I said, it works fantastically and it has completely changed the way Rainbow Six plays. The game now plays more as a "tactics in the moment" kind of game rather than what it used to be: a "tactics for an hour before execution of the mission with high probability for failure." Despite the fact that I do actually miss the extreme customizability that the older option offered, when I'm actually playing the game for the sake of enjoyment, this new model works much better. I like the fact that it's easy to hop into a mission and that I can have it hit the fan within seconds. I like, too, that Rainbow seems to have finally found a sense of humor. Some of the exchanges you can eavesdrop in on between the baddies are classics. Not to mention that when one yells "Cover me!" in a firefight only have his partner respond "F**k you! Cover me! " makes you feel like you're a force to be reckoned with, for sure.
And boy howdy, are you ever! I know I said the Doom & Gloom was out of the way, but there are some serious inconsistencies between this Rainbow and its predecessors. The name "Rambo Six" came to mind more than a few times during my play sessions. The new health system works well, enough - you just have to take cover for a few seconds to regain full health (similar to both the Halo and Gears of War health systems) but it definitely keeps me from being too worried about my character's well-being. What happened to Tom Clancy games being grounded in reality? When did it ever take eight-hundred expendable terrorists to take over one casino? And past that, when could three (albeit highly trained) SWAT guys kill eight-hundred terrorists all by themselves? Without running out of ammo? Questionable logic like this stuff just kept pulling me out of the experience. I miss my old Rainbow.
These are just my bigger concerns with the game. If I'm going to get nit-picky I'd tell you that making a Rainbow Six game without having Domingo Chavez as a playable character is just wrong. I'd also go on to tell you that the fact that the guy you do play as, Logan Keller, is voice-acted by George Bush Jr. sound-alike is insufferable.
The online offering that R6 Vegas shows up with doesn't fare too much better. Sure, on paper, you've got tons of options. There's plenty of gametypes: deathmatch, team deathmatch, co-operative all the standards for Rainbow, and there's even some cool takes on the attack and defend style of play that make good use of the new cover system. You can outfit your anti-terrorist (or terrorist) with anything you choose from a plethora of gear that can be unlocked as you play and you can even put your own grizzly mug on him or her so that your opponents can see your real-life war-face. All these options are pretty cool, but - and it's a big but - none of it really matters once you start hitting the servers.
This is because of the underwhelming treatment the online play has received. Jump into a quick co-op match and what do you get? Certainly not a briefing of the mission ahead while you're being flown in by helicopter (a load screen cover-up) like you do in single player. If you intend to figure out what you're doing in co-operative mode, you'd better have played the mission in single player already, or be playing with someone who has. As for the versus side of the online buffet, you'll find thrown together maps that don't ask players to use the new cover system and instead promote run-and-gunning. And that's exactly what you'll get if you do try to skulk around being sneaky. Nearly every time I propped myself up against a doorway with the intention of swinging out and popping one in my opponent's face, he had already run around the corner holding down the trigger on his fully-automatic, covering me with tiny death kisses. I bet that guy doesn't even know what the 'L' trigger does in the game. The multiplayer's maps are poorly textured and lack all of the pristine detail that the single player is able to boast with its environments, leaving them feeling unfinished and uncared for.
Sadly, I'm not going to be telling anyone to snag a copy of Rainbow Six Vegas . If you've read lots of other reviews on the game (which I already know are all glowing, no need to point that out to me), you might just say to hell with me and grab the game anyways. The only people I would truly urge to stay away from this game for fear of having an old favorite ruined are the long-time franchise fans. This isn't your old LAN party Rainbow Six.
If, somehow, a fusion of the two ideas that are Rainbow Six , the great cover system and the old-school super tactics, could be achieved, then I would be pleased. But, as I have come to learn through some harsh lessons, not everyone believes that pleasing me is the ultimate goal.