Rainbow Six Vegas Review
Score: 4/5
In the era of first person shooters when health and armour were measured in percentages and demonic fireballs were your enemies’ feared weapon of choice, Rainbow Six offered something completely different. Tactical squad based combat in first person was a bit of a revelation at the time and remains rather unique even today. But the series hasn’t managed to keep itself cutting edge as of late; the most recent in the series was met with a muted response. Vegas is Ubisoft’s attempt to revitalize Rainbow Six and place it back atop the action ‘A’ list. Vegas’ fun is somewhat shortlived, but Ubisoft mostly succeeds in its effort. For better or worse, Vegas’ single player ends up feeling like a compilation of greatest gameplay hits from Ubisoft. But with the inclusion of excellent online portion, you end up with a rather full-bodied package overall.
Vegas’ story is your typical excuse to butt heads with terrorists, but offers more intrigue than your regular videogame fare. The presentation moves away from cinematics and towards implementing the narrative during actual gameplay. For instance, video feeds are piped in through your visor during real time gameplay. The closest the game comes to cinematics is during the level transitions while flying about in a helicopter, but even then it’s all in first person. The techniques are clever and sound in premise, but there’s a kind of disconnect keeping you from truly relating to either the characters or what’s going on.
It also doesn’t help that the voice acting is trying to play it straight but comes off comical. Rainbow Six is comprised of international members, each with a distinct accent. Unless you’re immediately familiar with the series, hearing chatter from a couple of guys with an Aussie and Japanese accent is bizarre. Also, this whole international swat team concept strikes me as pretty ridiculous, something like Team America except they’re not trying to be funny. I digress, however.
The gameplay in Vegas is one part first-person shooter, one part squad based tactical combat. Despite the heavy emphasis on ordering your teammates around, the core shooting action is great. There’s an impressive amount of firearms available, each with distinct characteristics.
When triggered, the guns light up with what might be just a bit too much muzzle flash, but looks fantastic. With the guns jerking about violently when fired, the overall effect is often of barely controlled chaos. Terrorists when shot actually look as though they’ve been shot, reload animations are especially slick, glass will crumple and shatter, slot machines will chatter and spew coins, debris from shot objects flies about, and smoke, frag, and incendiary grenades detonate in fine fashion. That’s a lot of flash for a ‘brainy’ shooter.
There’s also a cover a system in place here: the camera zooms out into third person when your character ducks behind an object. You’re able to blind fire and peak out of cover for reticule assisted aiming, but you can’t do much else. Still, the cover system matters because death comes very quickly. Slipping into and out of cover works nearly flawlessly, it’s realistic, it looks great, it’s fun, and a very welcome addition.
The solid shooting foundation is supplemented by a full fledge squad command system. This is where the game truly shines. The levels are structured to be conducive to strategy: buildings and environments are often built as they may be found, with naturally occurring multiple entry points. Guiding your two teammates to these entry points is a major part of getting the job done.
By simply pointing at a door you can command your teammates to “stack up” on it. Once they’re there you can then issue various commands of entry and attack, such as placing a charge on the door then entering or throwing in an explosive then entering. Before doing so you can approach any door yourself and use a snake cam to clandestinely survey the room. There’s a matching breach tactic for each situation. So there’s an element of thoughtful planning before jumping into action. What’s more, choosing the best stratagem has real consequences and will determine how smoothly things go once executed.
The post-strategy action is often thrilling. Entry points aren’t just limited to doorways. You’re also able to rappel down the sides of buildings and “fast rope” down short distances. Imagine being on a roof with a skylight in the middle. Off to the side there’s a rappel point leading to the windows one floor down. From the skylight you observe multiple terrorists in the room below. You command your teammates to stack up over the skylight and get ready to fast rope down. You rappel down the side of the building instead, turn yourself upside down, draw your pistol, lower yourself until you can just barely see the room through the windows, and wait. You then command your teammates to fast rope in. They shatter through the skylight above and drop in the midst of the terrorists. A firefight breaks out. Taking advantage of the distraction, you start firing into the terrorists. Before it ends, you push off the side of the building and swing back through the window breaching the room yourself. You then seamlessly draw your assault rifle to finish off the last terrorist. Simply awesome.
Bizarrely, these gameplay attractions become repetitive before you’ve completed the game. The usual formula repeats itself just a little too often: move to room, stack teammates at door, move to another door, breach, and repeat. Furthermore, there really aren’t enough scenarios of the like in the previous paragraph. By the end of the game you’ll wish there was more of the good stuff because there just isn’t enough.
It seems Ubisoft loves Xbox Live. The online multiplayer is fleshed out and built up just short of a separate release. To begin with, there’s an online story co-op mode with up to four players. Given the single player mode is built entirely around group play, playing with four friends online fits like a glove. There’s also the Terrorist Hunt mode that places you and up to three other friends on smallish maps populated with terrorists. The goal: clear the map of all enemies. This mode doesn’t offer much besides another challenge, but with friends there is some modicum of fun. There’s also a single player version which is basically useless; with just you and no AI friendlies to command, the gameplay is functionally debilitated.
Then there’s your adversarial multiplayer. As expected, it includes six game types structured around your classic capture the flag and team and solo deathmatch archetypes. All of the combat attractions from single player carry over here including the cover system. It’s just as fun using multiple entry points to get the jump on your opponents here as in single player.
But the real star of the online multiplayer is the experience based system they’ve structured around it. Called “Persistent Elite Creation”, you can build a “persistent” avatar over time. It is essentially an experience (xp) points based system. By playing you earn xp points. You gain xp points regardless of how well you do, but the better you play the more xp points you earn. By earning more xp points you progress up a military style ranking system (i.e. private first class, major, captain, etcetera). The ranks aren’t just for show: with each rank earned you unlock new equipment to outfit your avatar with. Equipment like body armour to actual firearms and other weapons are unlockable. Despite the fact that no player will be able to completely overpower his lower ranking competitors by virtue of superior equipment, this system is a huge motivator to keep playing. It seems like such a simple idea, but I don’t recall any other console online multiplayer mode offering something quite like this.
Besides actual gameplay-centric unlockables, there’s also a good deal of superficial customization as well. You can adjust facial features, the pattern and colour of all the clothing, and also unlock pieces of clothing that are of no consequence whatsoever, like balaclavas, sunglasses, and hats. After meticulously crafting a bad-ass avatar, you’ll find yourself taking pride in the final product. Great stuff all around.
Visually, Vegas is no slouch. Your character models, for one, are rendered beautifully. That, the gunplay, and the few instances of outdoor environments are real knockouts. The real glory shots are during the fly-by sequences in helicopter, surveying the whole of Las Vegas which is spectacular. But despite being quite impressive in all the usual categories, the graphics fall just short of the “wow” factor too often. Like, for instance, when you step out onto Fremont St. which is covered overhead with one giant video screen: instead of being treated to a fantastic light show, the screen displays a dull undulating pattern. Also, although the game is set in the glitz and glam of Las Vegas, much of the game is surprisingly too dark for its own good.
The soundtrack is serviceable; it neither excites or gets in the way. On the other hand, the sound design (aside from your characters’ voice acting) is usually excellent. Bullets ricocheting off all sorts of different objects are particularly impressive; unloading a clip unto a car unleashes an orchestral fury of pings and pangs. If an explosion goes off too close to you you’ll be deafened with nothing left but a high pitched ring. There are, however, some annoying glitches. The most notable is the games’ trouble detecting what sounds are behind cover and which should reach you completely unobstructed. Aside from the sound effects, conversations and battle speech from the terrorists are well implemented and decidedly mature with more than a fair amount of expletives. It may seem like a small thing, but the adult language does a good job of setting the proper tone.
If you’ve played many Ubisoft games of late, you may have noticed more than a few similarities to their other titles. The squad based gameplay, the cover system, live video feeds pumped through your visor, even the snake cam just to name a few things, are all very reminiscent of Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter and Splinter Cell. Heck, even the very first level of Vegas starts out in Mexico, the very setting that GRAW takes place - I think someone at Ubisoft has seen Traffic one too many times. At any rate, while Vegas might be plagiarizing a bit, it mixes up enough of the good stuff to keep it fresh. And if the single player thrills don’t last, there’s plenty in the online mode worth sinking your teeth into. Here’s looking forward to Splinter Cell Ghost Recon Rainbow Six New York.
peachey @ November 20, 2006