The Story
The setting for the game initially begins in Pic des Pyréneés, France, though the story promptly moves five years forward to Las Vegas, United States of America on July 2, 2010, the same day of Logan Keller’s arrival to Las Vegas in Rainbow Six: Vegas. Terrorists have seized control of Las Vegas to instill widespread panic in both the public as well as law enforcement agencies, such as the National Security Agency, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Rainbow, as well as local SWAT. As the plot unfolds, however, the setting moves away from Las Vegas to other places, such as a small town in Nevada, unlike in the first Rainbow Six: Vegas, which was mainly in Las Vegas.
Gameplay
I thought this game would be just another Ghost Recon : Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) series but it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be. Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (R6V2) isn’t as tactical as GRAW and in fact it feels more like a cross between tactical first person shooter (like GRAW) and those action shooters (like FEAR).
What I liked about is that it has the ‘Cover and Shoot’ system that allows you to actually just use cover while able to shoot at whatever bogeys hanging around. I don’t know how best to describe it but I do have a screenshot of it, basically it’s like how you see in shows there the guys actually hide behind some place and just fling their guns outwards and shoot like a madman at their enemy.
Tactically speaking, it’s not as flexible as GRAW especially when it comes to assigning orders or positioning for AI squad members. The AI could quite often they end up getting into the way, whether it be blocking line of movement or coming into the line of fire but fortunately they are really good when it comes to picking on the enemy AI. While the game lacks in tactical assignment for squad members, the ability to customize your armor and weaponry load is certainly a plus, customizations as such will affect your mobility and armor.
I also like the “no-HP” thing, your health status is indicated by the brightness and the blur of your vision. After getting hit, just wait a while and it’ll all be fine to head on the AI again.
The tutorial was integrated into the mission, it appears as pop-ups in the heat of combat so you’ll miss it here and there but luckily the tutorial indicators appears again and again as you execute the objectives.
What I enjoyed most about this game has to be the experience acquisition that allows you to level up and unlock more gears. Besides that, you get to collect medals here and there, like say after you acquire a number of successful snipes. And not only that, I love it that besides having the story mode, the game also comes with a Terrorist Hunt mode where you can customize your load and head on a bunch of terrorists in a scene of your choice.
I didn’t find the storyline interesting though but I like how intense each scenario was. Unlike GRAW2 where things could seem slow here and there, this game is action packed!
What annoys me is that the game is only saved on checkpoints, so in the event where you lost your life (in the game) or had to exit the game for some reasons, you have no choice but to resume from the last checkpoint.
Graphics and Sound
Nothing spectacular about the graphics, nor the sound. The game uses Unreal’s 3D engine, it’s fast and detailed but it’s not something that anyone would call jaw-dropping. I felt that games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. , GRAW2 and Frontlines : Fuel Of War all looked better.
On the side note, some of you may enjoy the feature where you can customize your character’s appearance. It’s pretty useless to me though.
Network / Online Gaming
The game allows LAN and ONLINE gaming, I tested out Ubisoft’s online gaming service for R6V2 and it worked like a charm, I managed to get a few games going on and the ping wasn’t bad at all, the game was playable and I do not suffer any lag despite my not-so-good broadband connection.
Conclusion
Overall – I like this game. It’s fun. It’s something not too tactical, I’ll just describe it as a fast-paced first person shooter with some tactical elements in it.
My favourite part about this game is the Terrorist Hunt which I think is where the replay value of the game is at. I kept playing it again and again just to complete the scenes and it surely wasn’t a walk in the park as the AI were quite good, it’s pretty surprising that they were unpredictable too.
The storyline could be improved though. It wasn’t engaging, the action was great but the story wasn’t.
Ratings
PC Specifications Used
The computer setup used for this review.
| Processor | Intel E2140 Overclocked @ 3.2ghz |
| Graphic Card | ASUS ENGTX280 TOP 1GB |
| Motherboard | Albatron PXP35 |
| RAM | 2x 2GB OCZ DDR2 PC2-8500 Reaper HPC Edition |
| Cooler | Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer Heatsink |
| Monitor | 20″ Dell Ultra-sharp Wide-screen LCD |
| Operating System | Windows XP (SP2) |
| Driver Version | ForceWare Release 177 (Version: 177.41) |
nice review, but does it really get a 9/10? seems to be too many average things for this title to actually shine.
average graphics/sounds, lack of storyline, average team AI?
Scores are subjective, so let’s just say I enjoyed the game very much.
Sure the storyline isn’t exactly fun in my book and neither are the graphics and sound, but i think the game is really fun for pitting my FPS and reflex again and again, whether it’s against AI or other humans.
eh,E1240 with GTX280 not bottleneck arhh?
going off topic.
yes, surely there is a bottleneck but the E2140 at 3.2ghz performs totally differently than the E2140 at stock.
I completed the game with a 7600GT and I would say performance was pretty weak in my opinion(high settings), the game doesn’t look as good as GRAW but drains significantly more processing power, ubisoft should have spent more time tweaking the game though.
Goldfries i got a question that i been wondering for the longest time. Does lets say an E2140 clocked at 2.6GHz perform the same as an E6700 that’s stock clock is 2.6GHz? Or an E2140 clocked at 3.2GHz perform the same as an E6700 that’s overclocked to 3.2GHz?
this game was quite boring for me
@fatty – the E2140 at 3.2ghz will surely be slower than it’s other siblings. Assuming that even if it runs at higher FSB, the lesser cache and stripped-down nature of it.
@choyster – diff ppl diff taste. 😀
Will it run OK on high detail on my 8600GT ? 😀
Sure why not? But with lower resolution of course if you don’t mind 😉