Rainbow Six: Vegas follows Logan and his team of Special Operations soldiers as they chase after a terrorist leader in a Mexican border town. The mission goes badly, and Logan finds himself the only member of his team not captured by the terrorist leader, Irena Morales. Logan fights his way through the terrorists only to see his men ripped out of his reach by a helicopter. Logan's commanders order him to leave Mexico, and to temporarily forget his teammates due to a developing situation in Las Vegas.
Upon traveling to Vegas, Logan teams up with two new operatives in the Rainbow Six program. Logan's team is quickly briefed that terrorists have taken control of several casinos in the city. Hostages have been taken, including two scientists involved with sensitive research with the Department of Defense. Logan and his new team will fight their way through the terrorists and find themselves at the center of a plot that threatens all life in the Las Vegas area.
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| Those terrorists are really gambling with their lives! |
Rainbow Six: Vegas is similar to other First-Person Shooters, however a few mechanics make the game stand out from the others in the genre. When moving to cover, the game switches to a third-person perspective and allows you to cling to walls and lean out to fire at enemies. Players can also utilize a number of gadgets to assist in safely taking out enemies with minimal risk to themselves such as a snake camera to look underneath doors, tactical grenades to distract enemies or to cover advances, and others. These abilities and gadgets are important, because combat in the game is much more deadly than in other typical Shooters, bringing a bit of a realistic feel to the genre. Enemies and the player both can only take a few bullets before dying, making the tactical use of weapons and equipment extremely important to completing the game.
Luckily, Logan has his team to support him against these difficult odds. Players can command their two-person team to move through areas, hold an area, stack up and breach a door, and other combat techniques. Players have to be careful not to abuse their team, however, as the death of a teammate means a game over just as much as if Logan were to die. To make things a little easier on players, it is possible to revive a fallen teammate as long as the player makes it to the injured man within a certain time limit.
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| You two go on ahead, I'm going to hit a buffet. |
I often say that a game's flaws are most apparent when playing on the hardest difficulty available, and Rainbow Six: Vegas is no different. I appreciate the realistic approach taken with the game, but in some levels dying repeatedly due to one stray bullet was much more annoying than challenging. With even more powerful bullets flying your direction, you really rely on your teammates' AI to cover you. There were a number of times that I set my team to watch my back, only to die from a terrorist walking up behind me and shooting me repeatedly. In my red-screen death cam I could see my teammates just sitting there, watching the guy shoot me, seemingly laughing (I knew I should have given him a raise!). When a game is this tough, you really rely on the game's mechanics to work correctly in order to successfully progress through the game, and Rainbow Six: Vegas violated this trust multiple times.
For the most part, however, the game works as it should. One of the greatest pleasures in the game is planning out the assault on a room full of enemies. It's extremely cool to see your plans go into action and quickly accomplish what it would have taken much longer to do by yourself. Many areas have multiple access points which allow strategic entry when working alongside your team. In most cases, sending your team in one door and then flanking enemies that are distracted is the best strategy.
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| Looks like the window cleaners got their squeegees mixed up with guns again... |
Las Vegas looks quite good, even when you consider the game's graphics against modern games. The environments are interesting and generally make your feel like you are actually in Vegas. The game's music is mostly good, though a few times a track would play that seemed completely out of place for what was going on in the level. I was really confused when I was peacefully walking through a level and pumping battle music started playing for no reason.
Rainbow Six: Vegas features only 6 main levels, though each level is broken up into separate scenes of different lengths. Basically, the single player story will last around 8 hours. The game offers many multiplayer options though, which greatly increases the game's longevity. Players can cooperatively play through the story, either online or on the couch together. There is also a terrorist hunt mode, in which players attempt to take out all terrorists in an area within a certain amount of time. When it comes to competitive multiplayer, Rainbow Six: Vegas has a huge number of game modes and maps. Unfortunately, the online multiplayer is mostly dead as this game is quite old when it comes to software.
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| Homeland Security likely adds your name to a list if you ever play on the terrorist team. |
I was surprised how good Rainbow Six: Vegas was, with it being such an old title. There were some problems due to the state of the gaming industry at the time, but all in all, the game still stands up well today. The game is quite hard, and punishes Rambo-like rushes, so I won't recommend the game to those who enjoy feeling like untouchable gods of death. If you're looking for a more realistic spin on the Shooter genre though, check out the game!
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