If you want to get fancy you can, for the first time in a R6 game, repel or “fast rope” over the sides of buildings and through windows. This tactic can become very effective for busting in on some unsuspecting terrorists as you hang upside down from the side of a casino. Using the d-pad you can control your teammates and order them to do things such as open doors, clear rooms, and move to a certain position. One of the coolest features of this is to direct your teammates to a closed door, then use your snake camera to scope out the bad guys, press select on each of them to mark them for target, then send your guys in (either shooting or tossing grenades) to take them out in the order you choose them to die. There are many other small quirks such as a massive amount of sub-machine guns, assault rifles, gadgets, explosives, and other tools at your disposal to kill off the multitude of terrorists inserted throughout the game. Basically the controls for Rainbow Six Vegas do exactly what they need to and improve on any version of the series before this one. The loading screens are tossed out and are replaced with helicopter rides where you receive your mission briefing.
Once you complete the single player campaign a couple of times you are ready to jump online with Rainbow Six Vegas’ massive multiplayer portion. Before shooting one bullet online you need to go buy a Vision camera for the Xbox 360 from Microsoft. Using this camera and the face scanning software built into R6 Vegas you can literally put yourself into the action, well your head at least. Being one of the only games to use the Vision camera, Vegas did it right the first time. The virtual me actually resembled me and people that have met me in person recognized me when we were playing together. You take a photo from the front then one from the side and the software creates a virtual soldier out of the photos. The best online character I saw was one created around Jack Bauer’s mug, done with photos off the internet and a balloon for shape.
OK this is just a gimmick but a cool one at that. Now that you have your soldier created it is time to jump online and R6 Vegas has plenty of modes to keep you busy. Included are multiple solo and team based matches with around ten multiplayer maps. There is also a co-op story mode and a very addicting/difficult co-op terrorist hunt mode. The campaign is not up to snuff with the online co-op of Gears of War but it does stand on its own two feet as one of the better ones found out there. First introduced in the classic GRAW this game also features the same level system that advances your character from private to general using a points system. These points are obtained by: winning matches, beating co-op levels, and getting kills during online play. Vegas has also included the ability for clan play without changing your Xbox Live gamertag, because you can easily add your clans initials to the beginning of your gamertag right in the multiplayer menu. There are also online rankings, achievements, and other gimmicks to keep you playing online for months to come. Rainbow Six Vegas has one of the most expansive and all-including multiplayer modes that we have seen in a long while. This mode is what puts this game above Gears of War gameplay wise in my mind, something I never thought I would say so soon after the game’s release.
Graphically Rainbow Six Vegas is a mixed bag of great and just decent stuff. The character models and guns are a treat to look at but some of the face recreations are just plain ugly. Explosions and fire will remind you every time that this is a next-gen title and belongs on our beloved Xbox 360. The level design will make you forget these small mishaps very quickly as each one of the casinos is unique. Animations, such as rappelling or hanging upside down on a building look really good and don’t really get as repetitive as I would have thought. Draw distance in a town like Las Vegas is important and the game got it right; seeing the Bellagio fountains as you rappel down the side of a casino from miles away is something you need to see to believe. I might as well compare it to Gears of War and can take care of it really quickly; it doesn’t match up in terms of graphics. The textures look nowhere near as polished or detailed and the same amount of work was not put into the look of Vegas as it was in the gameplay department. That being said Rainbow Six Vegas still looks fairly good and if it wasn’t for Gears of War it would probably be the best looking game on the system. Everything also scales down a bit for online play that is understandable to keep out the lag. The audio portion of Vegas is a little bit better and reminds me of GRAW a lot. All of the sound effects and music are in place and it really hits a home run when using a 5.1 surround sound system.
