Rainbow Six: Vegas - Hands On Preview

Having toured Europe and South Africa in Rainbow Six: Lockdown, and reminisced about missions from days gone by in the North American-only release Rainbow Six: Critical Hour, the global counter-terrorist team Rainbow make their next-generation debut at the end of November by heading to Sin City. Led by newly appointed Team Leader Logan Keller, Rainbow's task is to stop infamous terrorist Irena Morales before she can execute her agenda. Whilst the plot sounds all very 'Rainbow Six', there's a more important question on the lips of the series' fans: does Vegas mark the true return of tactical action to the franchise, or will it stay with the arcade shooter-like gameplay of Lockdown???

Rainbow Six: Critical Hour aside, the previous instalment Rainbow Six: Lockdown was criticised for leaving its tactical roots to pursue a more arcade experience, and dumbing-down the franchise. In a bid to counter similar remarks being made against Vegas, Ubisoft has been keen to steer the Rainbow Six ship back on course by placing an emphasis on so-called OPA (Observe Plan Assault) tactics, and adding a new "Tag" feature that allows players to tell the AI-controlled members of the team which 'Tango' to take down first. It's also being developed by Rainbow Six 3 veterans, Ubisoft Montreal, probably the most valuable asset that the publisher has due to its prolific and highly-regarded output, so that should calm the nerves of fans of the series.

But followers of the franchise aren't the only ones keeping a close eye on the sixth instalment in the Rainbow Six series: the authorities in Las Vegas are too. At a time when "National Security" is probably the buzz phrase amongst Western governments, it's perhaps not too surprising that setting the game in Las Vegas has caused some concern. As a consequence, Ubisoft has changed some of the names of casinos in the game, and 'built' new ones (such as Dante's Casino) as alternative locations - although the skyline is still made up of recognisable landmarks including the 'Paris' super-complex.

The preview begins outside the Calypso Casino with introductions to Keller's Rainbow team-mates, South Korean Jung Park and Brit Michael Walter. Right from the start it's clear that Ubisoft has made the decision to bring Vegas closer to its roots; we say 'closer' because Vegas has adopted the more than familiar auto-health replenishment gameplay that seems to be prevalent in most recent FPS releases. It does make the gameplay feel more forgiving than in the past, not something that hardcore fans are going to want to hear; that said, it does mean that Vegas may well achieve that most difficult objective - balancing between the wants of the hardcore and the needs of a wider FPS audience. Anyway, gamers wanting that extra bit of challenging gameplay will be able to choose to play the 'Realistic' difficulty...cue plenty of headshots from fifty paces and a more tense experience. Like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Rainbow Six: Vegas drops the idea of traditional mission briefings; instead, gameplay flows from mission to another with a quick helicopter ride to the next location in the city. In fact, Vegas feels much closer to Ghost Recon than it ever has in the past, except for its emphasis on interior locations and obvious change of perspective.

Ubisoft is certainly promising a lot of things for Vegas as we said at the start, including a return to the slower paced build up of action that trademarked the earlier entries of the series. Two key elements shape their intentions: an emphasis on players to use OPA strategies so that enemy takedowns can be as risk-free for Logan and his men, and the new 'Tag' system, allowing gamers to prioritise which enemies his AI-controlled team should takedown first. So far it seems that the new team-members AI have got a handle on Tagging; it was a rare occurrence for them not to kill their marks within the first second or two of the 'Go' command being given. In practice, the OPA tactics pretty much boils down to using the virtual floor plan of the building, using the new Snake Cam to look under doors and observe the activities in the next room, before tagging enemies and launching the actual assault.

With the sort of anti-Rambo ethos evident in Rainbow Six: Vegas, it's perhaps no surprise that covering fire is an option open to players, despite the fact that implementing such a system in a first-person shooter is pretty much unheard of. Huddled behind cover, the perspective changes to third person (a move that undeniably conveys the fact that Logan is taking cover behind an object in a way that a first person perspective never could), allowing players to use suppression fire against enemies really effectively. However, we found that even opponents caught in the open don't seem to be that fazed by the random spray of hot lead sent vaguely in their direction...we would be, but then again we're not battle-hardened mercenaries. Such superhero antics hopefully won't be making much of an appearance in the final version of the game, but then again it is one potential oversight in an otherwise challenging AI. Flanking tactics against Rainbow are a key feature of the enemy AI, especially in rooms with multiple exits - missing one or two soldiers as they leave the room to perform a flanking move can prove fatal for the team soon after. However, enemies do seem to suffer from chronic deafness and fail to hear raging gun battles occurring in the next room; although its implementation does mean that players are unlikely to find themselves overwhelmed by an onslaught of mercenaries.

Besides featuring classic Rainbow Six gameplay of clearing rooms of terrorists, the preview suggested that Vegas would also include a number of set piece events. In one mission, the team track down an Outside Broadcast TV van, which the terrorists are using to transmit with; whilst Jung Park hacks into the vans computers, Walter and Keller fend off waves of smoke grenade-wielding, gun-toting opponents in a battle that lasts for several minutes. It certainly offers a change of tempo and gameplay to the experience, dropping for a short time the tactical approach that much of the game has to offer; hopefully there'll be a couple of other such sequences in the final build to throw in some extra variety. A second sequence that really stands out from the few missions in the preview occurs when the terrorists blow up the top of one of the city's casino towers, sending a shockwave through the air that shatters the glass of the building occupied by Rainbow - reminiscent of a similar event at the US embassy in GRAW.

For me, Rainbow Six on the consoles has always been about the ability to yell orders at the other members in the team over a headset, with cries of "Open, Frag, and Clear" or "Breach and Clear" leaving the neighbours convinced that I'm some sort of shell-shocked war veteran. It's something that, rather quite sadly, I've taken with me onto other videogames to the amusement of one or two others here at TVG Towers - apparently I even screamed into the headset "I have the Blue Key, repeat, I have the Blue Key", in a recent Doom fest on Xbox 360... Voice-activated commands are of course featured in Vegas, though somewhat limited to 'Go there...', 'Regroup...', 'Infiltrate' and 'Assault', with frag and flash orders reduced to being made on the d-pad. Further contextual actions are also made with the d-pad including the order to 'Breach', which is the rather cool way to burst through windows on a rappel rope Die Hard style, and the bog-standard 'Open and Clear' command. Voice commands of course may cause you to be laughed at by other people in the same room (something that I'm more than familiar with), but the truth is that it offers an extraordinary amount of immersion to the experience.

Rainbow Six: Vegas will also be one of the first titles to released on Xbox 360 to take advantage of the Face Mapping functionality offered with the Xbox Live Vision camera. If you're the sort of person who'd always fancied themselves as a bit of a Jack Bauer type, then it's the sort of feature that'll make you drool - for others it may be an element of 'sad geek' too far...but who are we to judge. It's all part of Vegas' online multiplayer experience, which sees players create their own character and develop them as time goes on. Further details on Vegas' multiplayer is expected in the future, but the idea of creating a developing avatar is one feature that fans will no doubt look forward to experiencing when the game is released on November 24th.