Team Rainbow is an elite team of S.W.A.T. who are sent into high risk situations and have existed since their first game 'Rainbow Six' in 1998. As hinted by the title, this one is based in Vegas but sadly the Ubisoft Montreal people chose to put most of the locations in the most boring parts of Vegas possible. A fitness centre and a housing district are not the most compelling locations.
The Campaign of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is not a particularly memorable one and is fairly short. You play as Bishop in a series of acts to stop acts of terrorism and unravel a web of conspiracy. It lasts about 8-10 hours and has 3 different difficulties to play on so there is some replay value there (especially if you are a achievement whore like me). There is also Terrorist Hunt and Multi player to keep you interested in this game as well. Terrorist Hunt is either a single player or co-op mode where you have to kill a certain number of terrorist on the multi player maps. Multi player also has the classic modes (e.g. Team Death match) but the one which I most enjoyed was Conquest where you have to take and hold 3 points for 30 seconds to win the match.
The game controls very well, when moving you are in first person but by pressing the left trigger (on the 360) you will take cover and switch to a third person perspective. You can sprint by holding the left bumper and through grenades with the B button. However there is no melee attack which is a disappointment, personally i would think taking a guy out with a knife is still quieter then a silenced shot.
One very nice system is the ability to fully customise your characters appearance and armor. There isn't much option with faces but you can if you have a vision camera scan in your own face which is a nice feature. You can also change your clothing which doesn't affect your ability but just makes your character look cool. While armor affect your mobility and protection, so you can either be very fast or be a tank which takes a few more shots to kill, i like being the tank.
However the best part of this game is the persistent character system. This is similar to the Call of Duty 4 multi player rank system but i carries over to the campaign, terrorist hunt and multi player. Basically you get experience points for every kill which allows you to rank up and unlock more armor options and clothing options. There is also a system known as ACES (Advanced Combat Enhancement and Specialization). There are three categories: Marksmen where you get points for killing enemies at long range or head shots, CQB where you get points for killing enemies in close quarters and Assault where killing enemies with grenades or ones with shields will reward you there points. As you achieve higher ranks in these categories you will unlock more guns to use in all of the different game modes. This is one of the big hooks for the game and makes dieing in a terrorist hunt or campaign not feel to bad because as long as you killed 1 enemy you will have advanced in some way.
Another big hook for this game is that it is very tactical. You have a number of gadgets, such as thermal vision, night vision and the snake cam to help you take out the terrorists faster and in some cases silently. You can also rappel down the side of a buildings and breach in through a window, or flip yourself upside down and shoot through the window before breaching. Also due to when playing single player you have the control of two AI team mates who you can tell to stack up on a door and either flash and clear, breach with charges or just simply open and kill the foes inside depending on the situation.
Where the game does fall down however is the AI of your opponents and your team mates. Quite commonly the enemy will run in a straight line towards you, making them very easy targets. While in other cases your team mates won't do anything and when an enemy is about to shoot you in the back they will wait for them to shoot and then fire. The game would have been much better if the AI was improved but it is not so bad as to make the game un-playable.
Also the graphics of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 are somewhat disappointing and when compared to other games which are built on the Unreal Engine such as Unreal Tournament 3 it is somewhat lacking. And because you are in the somewhat more boring parts of Vegas there is nothing really there which wows you, which is a shame.
So should you buy this game? Yes if you like a strong shooter with a much heavier emphasis on tactics and stealth rather then a run and gun experience. The multi player side of the game is still quite heavily populated on Xbox live but i don't know for how much longer with the likes of Gears of War 2 on the horizon.
Score
6.5/10
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