Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (Xbox 360)

As previously stated, everything you earn online or off directly adds to your character, there’s no difference in online and offline play and someone who only goes online once in a blue moon with the game will find out that they’re not left behind like a newbie whilst everyone is running around with the best gear/weapons. It is this particular use of experience that has really amped the game up for me. I have been slowly climbing up the ranks by playing nothing but online Terrorist Hunts and Campaign mode, enjoying the game immensely.

Vegas 2 has been given a shiny coat of paint for both the multiplayer and the singleplayer portions of the game. The graphics that were lacking in the mp side of Vegas have been polished for Vegas 2 and they are just as good as the singleplayer graphics this time around, there are still the annoying texture load issues when first starting a map and the custom characters can take a while to load in again. Overall though it’s graphically a step up from the first game and the detail on the custom characters is great. You can also see the animation engine has been improved and the movement of the characters tweaked.

The AI is just as ruthless as it ever was; it uses more tactics now and makes fewer mistakes in terms of your own team. However Michael and Jung can still make some awesome errors that get them killed or peg a grenade in the wrong place even when you’ve told them /where/ to throw it. The enemy AI can be confused at times by loud noises and a carefully timed shot or explosion may get them to turn their backs, perhaps this is a human failing and their curiosity definitely gets them killed. They use rappels, fast ropes and the works once more and some of them are armed with heavy weapons that can chew through cover.

The music is stirring, the voice acting is decent with a few annoying performances here and there by some of the lesser cast. The sounds are nice, the gun effects are particularly meaty and nothing in the game sounds like a pop-gun. The Desert Eagle and the Raging Bull make convincing loud reports that shake your eardrums.

It should be awesome, it should be right up there with a 9.5. It’s not though, because it has some problems. The AI path-finding can go awry so badly that it glitches them elsewhere on the map, this can grind the screen to a slow and reduce the otherwise smooth game into a slide-show as the engine panics because Mike or Jung have vanished and can’t get back to Bishop. It can have moments where you’ll lose control of the team, you can stack them on the door, and they won’t obey a single command during co-operative play. Both of these require a check-point reload or sometimes a complete game restart.

Terrorists seem to be able to see through solid walls at certain times, they are given a superhuman sense in the pitch black. Some of them do have NV goggles, but most of them should be as blind as bat, not be able to headshot you from across the room. And the most annoying of all, the Terrorist Hunt spawning. I’ve actually watched terrorists appear from thin air behind buddies whilst playing online, I’ve walked out of one room that’s been cleared, only to be shot in the back because the bastards have respawned behind me. I remember the glory days of Rainbow Six 3 on the PC where the terrorists were spawned into the map already, they were right there and all you had to do was go find them and hunt them down. Now I understand that when you’ve got 35-45 tangos in a big map like these are, it might be a bit of a strain on the engine, but this is next generation, these problems are supposed to be a thing of the past – that’s what we were told about the Xbox360, PS3 and so far all I hear are excuses, excuses, excuses.

So yeah, Terrorist Hunts are great and annoying at the same time. In fact you can use this new spawn-in against the tangos, since they’ll come running in to investigate a noise all you have to do is lay down some c4 when an area is clear on a map like Import/Export House. Have a team stack up against one door, sneak forwards, shoot a few times and listen for their alarmed voices. By working the map like this you can lure most of the tangos into a kill zone with a little planning.

It’s nice to see a sequel to Vegas and even though it’s got a those glitches and bugs, it’s still a great game that’s tremendous fun to play alone or with friends. I just wish that I could have scored it higher, in all good conscience though with the glitches et-al I can only give it the same score as I did Vegas, even if it’s a better game.