Rainbow Six Vegas produces a stellar experience with plenty of new content and an enthralling multiplayer.
Rainbow Six Vegas puts you in control of Logan Keller and his teammates. Just like it's title, Rainbow Six Vegas positions you in Sin City to take out an international terrorist that is holding the beloved city of Las Vegas to it's knees. Your straightforward, but perilous mission is to take down these terrorists before they incapacitate the city of Vegas. If you have played any of the previous Rainbow Six games, you will feel right at home with the gameplay, but there are quite a few new changes that you must know about before moving on.
Rainbow Six Vegas should feel like Rainbow Six to you when you first begin playing. If you've played the XBOX versions of Rainbow Six, most buttons on the XBOX 360 controller are still mapped to the same buttons that were on the XBOX controller. With that said, issuing squad commands to your fellow teammates is a lot more easier than the other Rainbow Six games. You don't have to worry with the menus anymore, because all you are basically set to do is to send your team to a location, such as behind a door, and then issue the command of action with the Directional Pad. Sounds easy? It is.
To make Rainbow Six Vegas more tactical than it already is, you have the option of looking under the crack beneath a door to analyze the room behind the door, such as locating any terrorist movement and the like. Now, no longer will you have to just barge through any door and hope that there isn't a crapload of terrorists in the room. One of the newer features that will come to use is the ability to take cover against something by merely holding the left trigger. This allows for a good method to take out enemies that are closing in on you. It's one of those very nice and useful touches.
Rainbow Six Vegas features a much more gripping single player campaign than ever before. Unlike other Rainbow Six games, Rainbow Six Vegas allows you the freedom of how to handle situations. Some levels are wide open environments, while others are indoors, in tight, enclosed spaces. Most of Rainbow Six Vegas does not feature a straightforward path that you are inclined to take, so now you have some options in figuring out which road to take. It's not completely open-ended, but at least it does provide a few more possible options.
The A.I. in Rainbow Six Vegas does have a couple of flaws, but other than that, you'll be challenged against your enemies. Enemies will hide for cover, try to ambush you, as well as use most other tactics you have seen in other games. At times, enemies do stand out in the open, but maybe it's because terrorists were never really smart. Either way, beside that fact, the terrorists are quite smart in Rainbow Six Vegas, and as far as your team's A.I. goes, most of the time they have higher intelligence than the enemy, but there were a couple of instances where one of my teammates was crashing through the doors, and I had to open the door to get them back on track.
Online multiplayer has always been entrancing in the Rainbow Six series, and Rainbow Six Vegas does not disappoint. In fact, Rainbow Six Vegas probably has the best online multiplayer in the series. One of the best online multiplayer features is online co-op. If you enjoyed the single player campaign by yourself, you would feel ten times more enjoyed when you play it online with three of your buddies. If all of you have about the same experience with Rainbow Six Vegas, the co-op campaign should eat into much of your time.
If co-op isn't in your jar of goodies, you will be more than welcomed to play other multiplayer modes. Team Survival, Sharpshooter, Retrieval, as well as newer multiplayer modes such as Attack & Defend have been added to the mix. Each of these modes require teamwork to get the objective done, so you can't just run out on your own and expect to take matters into your own hands. This is how tactical multiplayer should be played - with effort from you and your teammates.
This is the first time I felt that a Rainbow Six game looked as realistic as possible. This could be partly due to the fact that the setting is in Vegas, and in real life Vegas has a bunch of neon signs on during the night. Rainbow Six Vegas certainly isn't the best looking game on the XBOX 360, even if you do count in those little neon signs in Vegas, but you can still find a lot right in the graphic department.
All the character models look amazing and believable, and you can count the great looking smoke and fog effects in as well. The environment of Las Vegas looks fascinating, especially from the top of a large building. Every thing your bullet hits puts in some kind of reaction of the thing you hit, so everything feels like it can be destroyed or at least destructible. The weapon models look real, just like they have throughout all the Rainbow Six series. Some problems would include quite a few framerate troubles and some rather bland designs that felt they were just thrown into the level.
In the audio department, Rainbow Six Vegas offers an adorning soundtrack, which definitely fits the mood of the game. Bullet sounds are well-done, and hearing bullets crunch right through or into something such as glass and casino slots are splendid. As far as voice acting goes, the actors have a serious and grim tone, almost as good as it would sound in a real life situation. If you have access to surround sound like I do, play Rainbow Six Vegas in surround sound to enjoy the audio in a full-fledged version.
Rainbow Six Vegas offers an alluring single player campaign that tops all the other campaigns in the series. To extend the value even further, Rainbow Six Vegas offers addictive multiplayer action, with plenty of modes to choose from over XBOX Live. Online multiplayer allows up to 16 players to join the fun fest, with tons of customizable options. You can customize what weapons will or will not be available in a mode, as well as customizing respawn options such as how much respawns a player can receive. There are a wide amount of options you can choose from in online multiplayer, and Rainbow Six multiplayer fanatics will not be displeased.
When the dust has been settled, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas stands tall for the first time in quite a while. If you have been disappointed with recent Rainbow Six games, I can guarantee you that Rainbow Six Vegas delivers the punches and uppercuts to knock out other competitors. The single player campaign is more than enough to satisfy your hunger for more Rainbow Six action you have been craving. If you plan to play Rainbow Six Vegas just for the single player, it is worth it's price tag, but multiplayer is where it holds the gold. Sure, Rainbow Six Vegas suffers from some framerate issues and a couple other problems, but that is not enough to suggest otherwise. Overall, Rainbow Six Vegas produces a stellar experience with plenty of new content and an enthralling multiplayer, which should not be missed.