Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Member Review for the Xbox360

Re-rolled

There are two different styles of FPS's when it comes to how 'smart' they are. On one end we have those games where the player is given a big gun and lots of enemies to use it on, with no thought towards tactics other than 'bang bang fall down'. Then, there are those games which base their entire gameplay on hiding behind chest-high walls, flower boxes and other such objects, poping out only to shoot at the enemy who hasn't quite grasped the concept of cover.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 fits into the later category. Only with more respawning.

You see, this game is hard. Even on the Normal difficulry you'll find yourself dying more often than one would comfortably allow. Enemies will pop out from places you could not possibly have known they were and kill you, they'll kill you without firing their gun, they'll kill you despite the fact that they shouldn't be able to see you, they'll kill you without raising their gun, they'll spawn and kill you...

Get the picture? This game is very, very unfair.

It's somewhat addictive too, due to its ACES and rank system. Apparently similar to that in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, getting kills will earn you XP. After you get a certain amount of XP, you will 'level up', gaining more options for your PEC system (PEC allows you to customise your character's armour and clothes). The ACES system, however, is how you unlock weapons for your character. By killing enemies in certain ways (through cover, headshot, close range etc.), you gain points in one of the 3 ACES categories: CQB, Marksman or Assault. Each level of each ACES category rewards you with either a weapon or an XP boost.

Mind you, you can just grab the gun off of a dead enemy, but unless you've unlocked it you can't equip it from your Equipment menu, meaning that if you change if for something else later you can't get it back without getting it off a different enemy.

The story of Vegas 2 is pretty simple: You're a member of Rainbow, and you go around fighting terrorists. It also ties in with the story in the original Vegas, where you were a different member of Rainbow, going around fighting terrorists.

In fact, a lot of things tie in with the original Vegas, seeing as they've pretty much recycled everything from the first game and put it into Vegas 2. True, there are some things that differ but for the most part, it's déjà vu all over again.

The gameplay? Same ol', same ol'. Hide from bullets, pop out, kill guy, get killed by his buddy hiding just around the corner, respawn at checkpoint, rinse and repeat.

The sound? Exactly the same as in Vegas. Pretty good, but not overly good. No music at all during Terrorist Hunt, though, so you'll have to bring your own. It'll likely cover up everything the enemy says, but if you yell at the screen 'Control your shots, make each one count!' every minute or so, you'll be pretty much fine.

The few things that have changed from the original Vegas are that you now can control Michael and Jung during Co-op (if you're the first player), and during Terrorist Hunt (if you're not playing split-screen).

Plus, it's harder, as far as I can remember. A lot harder.

To be honest, I'm having trouble reccomending this game to anyone. If you've played the first one, then you'll know what to expect. If you haven't, I reccomend renting the first one beforehand to see if you'd like it or not.

It's in my opinion that they 'phoned it in' on this one.