Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas

The other day I was sitting in office discussing how crappy the PC port of Splinter Cell Double Agent was, when suddenly, out of nowhere it dawned on me that Tom Clancy must be one rich SoB. I know, it sounds very random, but think about it, this man has his name associated with a lot of successful franchises, be it Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six.

Released for the PC way back in 1998, the Rainbow Six series laid down the foundation for the tactical shooter genre as we know it today. Unfortunately, after last year’s dismal Rainbow Six Lockdown, many people were put off with the series and took to stuff like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter to satisfy their tactical trigger finger. That very same segment will probably approach the latest iteration of Rainbow Six extremely carefully, but guess what, it’s time to shed those inhibitions and dive right in ‘cos Vegas is one hell of a ride…

As far as the game’s story goes, it isn’t going to win any awards since it’s the same old good guys VS terrorist fare with a couple of plot twists thrown in along the way, but what this game lacks in a story, it makes up for in leaps and bounds with its high octane gameplay. Taking a page from Epic’s tactical shooter, Gears of War (review link), Ubisoft has incorporated the very same ’take cover, pop out, shoot and then take some cover again’ mechanic and surprisingly it works flawlessly in such a game. Don’t worry though; the game still takes place from the first person perspective (so it’s still pretty tense) but shifts seamlessly to third person as and when your character takes cover.
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Just like the levels in Gears of War, the entire game is scattered with objects the game’s protagonist, Logan Keller can take cover behind at the simple touch of a button. Oh! and in case you’re pinned down by heavy enemy fire, you could always indulge in some blind fire to save your life (it’s not very accurate but it’s still a life saver at times). Gone are the days when a single bullet could end the entire mission; in Vegas you can absorb a fair amount of damage before you actually die. Since there is no health bar in the game, as and when you get hit, the screen begins to blur and you start breathing really heavy which means it’s time to take cover, regenerate your health and head back into the action. With this new system a lot of the tense atmosphere synonymous with most Rainbow Six games has been lost to a certain extent and there will be times when you’ll be tempted to go all out, guns blazing et al, but then again, a quick bullet to the brain reminds you that this is a Rainbow Six game at the end of the day and you will have to tread carefully.

Another cool addition to the series is the fact that you and your team can now rappel down buildings and breach rooms in a highly cinematic (and not to mention cool) way. If for some reason you feel the room’s far too dangerous to breach, you can even invert you character (by pressing the crouch key) and take out the visible enemies, before entering that room. Not keen on making a grand entrance? No worries, clear the room out using your teammates and then flank the enemy while they’re distracted. Speaking of your teammates, they are pretty sensible this time round and won’t just run out into the open to get shot; they’ll take cover, value their life and most importantly, provide the cover and back up they’re actually meant for. As and when once of them gets injured badly, you can bring them back from the brink of death with a quick shot of some sort of magic portion, but unfortunately, they cannot reciprocate the favor for you.
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Ordering your team is context sensitive so if you want them to enter a particular room all you have to do is point to the door and multiple options pop up on screen from where you can either have them breach and clear or blow up the door and clear or throw a frag and clear; simple yet extremely efficient. If for some reason there’s a hostage situation behind a particular door (which is when you’ll need your Snake Cam), you can peek into a room and tag the tangos so your crew knows exactly whom to take out in which order.

Weapon section is pretty solid and you’ll have a plethora of weapons to choose from and something that’s new (and much needed) to this series is the fact that you can pick up an enemy’s weapon. Vegas offers a healthy selection of Multiplayer modes as well; you have your terrorist hunt, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and so on but one mode this game really shines is in its co-operative mode, which by the way is applicable for the entire single player campaign. Unfortunately co-op games have the nasty habit of crashing pretty often (it crashes pretty often in the single player campaign as well) and to make matters worse you can’t even save in-between levels so it does end up getting frustrating.

Visually this game is mind blowing, courtesy of the Unreal 3 engine and nearly everything in this game screams of high production values; characters look well detailed, Vegas looks downright gorgeous and most of the environments (especially the Casinos) are so well detailed it’ll make your eyes bleed. Unfortunately this game is a real resource hog and poses a bit of a problem for Nvidia cards, but when it works, it looks so f****g good, you’re willing to let all of that go. In the end, Vegas is one of the best action games of 2006 and shouldn’t be missed by anyone who has a moderately powerful rig; its definitely going to go down in history as the game that re-invented the series.