In conjunction with the highly anticipated showing of Splinter Cell: Double Agent by developers Ubisoft Montreal at E3 this year; Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas also left a mouth watering impression. Yet another installment to the series, Rainbow Six Vegas will pick up on the trail left from the previous titles, and take the game into the next generation.
The actual Rainbow Six Vegas game opens up on familiar grounds with you being briefed in a helicopter, ala Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. The story revolves around the team leader of Rainbow, Logan Keller, who you navigate through “Sin City” in order to stop a vile terrorist plot from succeeding. However you are not alone and will be accompanied by three other team members: a demolitions expert, a hi-tech expert, and an intelligence officer, that you can command throughout the game to aid you. The typical icon related commands are available to you from the previous titles, and also a picture-in-picture view via the HUD.
One of the newest features to be noticed immediately are the enhanced visuals and realism made possible by next generation technology. Rainbow Six Vegas will essentially be one of the second wave of games to be released for the Xbox 360, and should harness a lot of the power that the console has to offer. The game is being built on the Unreal 3 Engine and is looking exceptionally nice thus far.
One of the most innovative single player features the game has to offer is the implementation of motion capture, more commonly known as Mo Cap. Ubisoft utilizes this method to make the game look ultra realistic by taking camera footage of real-time movement by actors and then building them into the AI of the game. One of the best examples of this method in action is the addition of the new take cover option. Essentially you can now take cover via objects in the game; similarly like you did in Ghost Recon, but with far more realistic movements, as opposed to computer generated ones. Mo Cap can also create better facial and other in game animations.
