November 30th was a good day for me. It was when I received my copy of 
Rainbow Six: Vegas one day before it was supposed to be released here in Europe.
Even so, it was much later than expected (early November) and about two weeks after the US… but what else is new?
So, I’ve been playing RS:V just about every day since I got it, and although I haven’t played all multiplayer modes or maps, and I haven’t finished the game yet, I do want to post some “early” thoughts of the game.
Having only played Rainbow Six 3 Black Arrow myself, I can’t comment too much on the progress Ubisoft has made, although I do recall loving that very short expansion, which I played online once or twice but didn’t enjoy too much.
I do know the cover system, using the left trigger, with the corner peeking is awesome and almost flawless. Almost, because there are some instances where you can’t take cover where you want, or you can’t peek for some reason.
But let’s start with the story. As unoriginal as it sounds, you’re a 3-man anti-terrorist team leader. The game starts in Mexico where you have to go from A to B to reach the final destination and save the world, but… it’s not that easy.
After a good start, which reminded me of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, you’re sent to Las Vegas where terrorists are wreaking havoc. There you’ll be sent from casino to casino, occasionally leaving them for restaurants and yes, even the streets.
Although it’s unoriginal and quite repetative when you strip away the numerous weapons and varied maps, it’s these things that keep everything relatively fresh.
The AI your enemies exhibit is incredibly good, almost as good as that found in F.E.A.R.. Unfortunately that can’t be said of your team mates’ AI. They’ll disobey orders or don’t use cover correctly (which enemies do), and if they get shot and you’ve healed them they’ll forget you told them to take cover and run right out in the open.
Sounds are great, with each weapon having a distinct sound by which you can recognise them (with lots of practice). Ambient sounds are mostly made up of casino sounds, getting quite annoying at times.
Enemies pretend to talk to eachother, which is especially obvious when you shoot one of them since you’ll often hear the exact same lines like “They shot him”, “Cover me! / No, you cover me!” although there are the occasional parts where you’ll hear them talking behind doors you’ll snake-cam.
Which brings me to a problem; too many events are scripted. Move slowly and look at when things happen, and before long you can get through areas simply by counting enemies that’ve been downed or lines that’ve been spoken.
Heck, a lot of people online ranked up (more on that later) because of a bug and such a scripted event, making the whole ranking system a load of crap.
As I said before, maps are varied enough to keep you from getting bored, and — definitely when you’re playing on “realistic” difficulty — the game is very challening. One small gripe is that before entering a big shoot-out you’ll find an outfitting box. That box basically allows you to restock on ammo or change weapons. Very cool, but it’s often on the wrong side of doors leading to new areas, meaning you’ll have to guess which weapons you’ll need in the upcoming, unknown area. Will you take a sniper rifle with the chance of there being no way to use it? Are you going to bring along smoke grenades into an area that might be pitch black, making flashbangs a better choice?
Graphically it’s a great looking game. The first-person part works very well, with enough of a height difference between standing and crouching, and the switch to third-person when taking cover is seamless. Animations of all characters is very well done, and the models are smooth and detailed (though not as detailed as in Gears of War, still detailed enough). Not all accessories your team mates carry along are real though, as they’ll have ropes painted on their pants… but that’s only a small annoying thing that should (at least IMO) be improved next time.
Shoot an enemy in his leg using a low-powered gun and he’ll buckle and move away, shoot him in hit torso and he’ll react differently, but headshots still rule.
Textures are smooth and detailed, even when zoomed in using any scope on your guns. Blood on floors and walls look realistic as far as I can tell, and bullet damage to walls doesn’t disappear right away and looks pretty darned good.
Doors blast to pieces when hit by a frag grenade but take minimal damage when blasted open using a breaching charge, and cars can be shot to pieces (up to a certain point) with wheels and doors flying open or completely off.
Amazingly enough I have not noticed that much difference in graphics between singleplayer and multiplayer, which brings me to the online portion.
You’ll start off making your character, first by picking the gender and then the face/head, facial hair and make-up (optionally putting your own head on your online character using the Xbox Live Vision camera). You can then continue outfitting your character by picking the armor for body, legs, arms and shoulders, and the upper and lower body clothes, all having several camouflage options.
Last, but definitely not least, you’ll be able to pick your favorite weapons and “gadgets” (grenades, etc).
As you play more and win more, you get experience points, which help you rank up from private first class to … whatever’s the highest. Getting a higher rank unlocks new armor, camouflage, and weapons, so ranking up can be important if you really like a certain gun in the single player and want to use it in the multiplayer.
In terms of finding a match to play, it’s easy enough. There are loads of people playing RS:V at any time in the day, and most are quite good hosts. Every now and then you’ll experience some rubber banding no matter how good everyone’s connections are, but aside from that there shouldn’t be any problems if everyone does have a decent connection.
Problems arise when someone doesn’t have a fast enough connection and lag sets in. You’ll have to time your shots up to a second early. Luckily lag can usually be avoided by not playing with/against people on the other side of the ocean. So check gamercards before joining a match, or set one up and (if you speak anything besides English) set the language to keep out English speakers.
My favorite online modes are co-op terrorist hunt, where you have to eliminate all terrorists on the map before time runs out (if a timer has been enabled), and the co-op story mode, which comes down to playing the single player online with 3 others.
There are also some CTF variants where one team defends something (a bomb, a briefcase, hostages) and the other team has to diffuse/steal/rescue them. Not my favorite types of games mostly due to the spawn camping that happens a lot in them, not to mention that there’s one voice chat for both teams, so you can’t even make tactical discisions without the other team hearing you. Big fuck-up on Ubisoft’s side IMO.
Over all, so far I’m very happy with my investment in Rainbow Six: Vegas. It’s a game that will continue to keep me busy for days if not weeks to come simply because the single player is very challenging. The multiplayer won’t be able to keep my interest for very long with the exception of terrorist hunt and co-op story mode.
If you’re not sure you’ll like RS:V, get to the Xbox Live Marketplace and download the singleplayer and multiplayer demos. They’ll give a good impression of what’s waiting in the full game.
