Rainbow Six Vegas Review

The third Tom Clancy franchise in Ubisoft's 'holy trinity' (the other two of course being Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon), Rainbow Six is the last of the three to hit the next-generation. Stuck in development whilst Sam Fisher became a Double Agent, and Scott Mitchell countered a coup in Mexico City, Team Rainbow finally gets their chance to stretch their legs on Xbox 360 before they hit PlayStation3 in 2007. But over a year since the counter-terrorist team last arrived on the scene in the somewhat derided Rainbow Six: Lockdown, has Ubisoft Montreal continued to take the franchise further away from its tactical roots than ever before???

Beginning on the mean streets of a Mexican border town (Ubisoft can't seem to stop locating at least parts of their next-gen Tom Clancy titles in the country), the game introduces new Team Leader of Rainbow: Logan Keller. Besides acting as a way of going through the motions of a typical tutorial and introducing some of the new changes in the game, including the re-emergence of tactical planning in the form of "OPA" (Observe, Plan, Assault) and the Snake Camera gadget (probably borrowed from Mr Fisher) to look under doorways, these early missions also lay down the foundations for the story. Following the capture of Keller's teammates Han and Gabriel by international terrorist Irena Morales in the border town, players track her down to Las Vegas, where she and her army of mercenaries are beginning to unleash their plan.

There's no denying that Rainbow Six: Lockdown probably alienated a lot of the traditional Rainbow Six fan base. Having landed on consoles in 2003 with the challenging and tactical "Rainbow Six 3" (a version of the PC's Rainbow Six: Raven Shield) and following up with "Black Arrow" in 2004, the change in direction to a more arcade shooter made sure that Lockdown didn't feel like the Rainbow Six of old. So what of Vegas? Put simply, developer Ubisoft Montreal has reined in the franchise from becoming more or less a typical FPS series, once again putting a greater emphasis on tactics. That isn't to say that it's reverted to being the somewhat foreboding experience that trademarked the early entries of the franchise; Vegas offers an intuitive and efficient tactics system that lays down the foundations for following instalments.

Streamlining the tactical order system into "Infiltrate" and "Assault", which dictates whether teammates shoot an enemy on sight or wait until being shot at first, Vegas introduces the new Tagging system that allows players to identify the two enemies to be targeted first by the rest of the team. The gameplay really pushes hard to deliver the idea that to succeed in the game, players have to use the OPA system. Thankfully the strength and ruthlessness of the teammate AI demonstrated in Vegas ensures that players won't feel like they're doing all of the shooting. In some respect, there is a certain element of trial and error gameplay to Vegas, but it never seems to overwhelm you with frustration; in fact, there is a real sense of responsibility when an assault goes badly wrong. The second that you panic or impatience sets in is the second that a terrorist shoots a bullet right between your eyes...and you have to restart from the previous checkpoint.

The covering system is a strong feature in Vegas, and quite honestly comes second only to the brilliant efforts of Epic in Gears of War. Simple and effective, holding the left trigger when Keller is next to any object from a wall to a car will switch the camera to third-person and bring Rainbow's Lead into cover. A serious advancement for the First-Person Shooter genre that will no doubt be copied by others in the future, the practicalities of switching to third-person goes beyond just seeing the character you're playing; it allows you to check where enemies are, as well as use 'Blind Fire' around corners without risk of being shot. It works really well, and is far from being a cheap trick that makes up a feature list.

It is fair to say that Vegas isn't perhaps as visually amazing when compared to Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, which several months on, still ranks as one of the best looking Xbox 360 titles out there. This is mostly down to the various filters running through GRAW, and its strong use of HDR thanks to the exterior locations. Vegas at the very least offers visual highlights of its own; many more environmental objects are now destructible than ever before, making the gameworld far more believable than previous instalments, and the Flashbang effect is still one of the most jarring effects seen in a videogame. Like a number of next-gen shooters including Call of Duty and Gears of War, Rainbow Six Vegas doesn't feature any health bar on the HUD, instead relying on visual effects and blurring techniques to register just how serious Logan's injuries are.

The lines between Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six have blurred with the release of GRAW and Vegas, and there're obvious similarities between them, not least in-game mission updates from a helicopter-based teammate, on-site ammo/weapon caches, and the ever-present squad-based gameplay. That said, Rainbow Six continues to feature largely interior-based locations with fairly close-combat assaults, whereas Ghost Recon is set more or less in exterior locations; Rainbow Six is largely first-person, whilst Ghost Recon is largely third-person - let's just say that there's definitely room for both franchises, even under a single publisher.

One aspect pushed by Ubisoft was the unique skillset of Logan's teammates, heavy weapons and demolitions specialist Walter Michaels, and electronics and ranged weapons specialist Jung Park. In reality however, their 'skillset' is little more than contextual: need a computer hacked? Click on the offending terminal and Jung Park with tap his way into the system. It's little more than that really, other than occasionally being told that a specific doorway is the only route to the objective, and is perhaps one aspect that could have been developed further.

Several set pieces take place during the course of the game that really stand out as tense and memorable experiences. The defensive shoot-out in the cathedral-like theatre of Dante's is one that really stays in the mind, and sees the team defend their position on the vulnerable stage against a legion of enemies as they try to hack into a terrorist's computer. Besides trying to bring down as many mercenaries as possible before they destroy the computer and the vital information, the real feeling of being out in the open makes it a desperate shoot out. Vegas is also filled with a number of scripted events that we won't spoil ("The bells! The bells!"), needless to say, they shape the experience of this latest Rainbow Six, drawing you into the action.

With the perceived threat of terrorism on US soil in the real world, it's perhaps no surprise that well-known Las Vegas complexes such as Paris and the MGM Grand, don't figure in Rainbow Six. Instead, stand-ins such as the Calypso and the incomplete Dante's form two of the prime locations for many of the game's assaults. Perhaps most notably is the replacement of the Hoover Dam with the 'Nevada' Dam for the game's climax... Despite these changes, the gameworld remains feeling very 'Las Vegas' in style, and there are one or two landmarks that still feature in the skyline such as the famed light-topped great pyramid.

Shifting away from the engrossing experience of the Campaign, Rainbow Six Vegas also offers instant action gameplay with "Terrorist Hunt" and extensive online functionality, not least a four-player Co-Op mode that plays through the entire storyline. Taking the experience beyond both that of GRAW and Gears, Vegas sets a benchmark for co-operative gameplay, and extends it further with seven other multiplayer gametypes for up to fourteen players. Granted, these gametypes may only include the standard fare of Deathmatch (Sharpshooter), Capture the Flag (Retrieval), Last Man Standing (Survival), and their Team-based equivalents, but it all feels a solid and exciting experience nonetheless.

Like its predecessor, Vegas also includes P.E.C.(Persistent Elite Creation) throughout the online experience, which allows gamers to develop their multiplayer characters over time. As they're promoted through the ranks, new armour and accessories including shades, caps, and clothing, become unlocked. Vegas is also one of the first titles (along with Activision's World Series of Poker title) to make use of the Face-Mapping capabilities of Xbox Live Vision, enabling gamers to scan their faces into the multiplayer game. Though a nice enough detail to add to a feature list of any game, the fact is that the technique has already been used in recent years - such as Tony Hawk's Underground 2 on PSP.