After the slight disappointment of the first Rainbow Six Vegas, what with it being distinctly inferior to the Xbox 360 version, you’d have thought we’d be pleased with an iteration which matched the rival console. We’re not though. Yeah, shame that really. Although at least what we lamented in our review of the first game isn’t likely to crop up here, as the 360 version is just as bad. Before we start with the shakedown, it’s worth keeping in mind what you expect of a Rainbow Six title, and what makes it different to other titles on the market. The biggest difference to any other FPS out there is not in the level of realism, but the way it forces you to think. It’s almost impossible to approach Rainbow Six with anything but a measured pace, and if you’re not in that kind of mood, you’d better say goodbye to your inner calm. Sure, you can snag yourself a high-caliber machine gun and charge through the levels scaring the crap out of the enemy and your team-mates, but you’re unlikely to get far. No, you’re far more likely to suppress the terrorist forces with a small silenced weapon, and a little patience, than a big gun and seething hatred. When you pick up a Rainbow Six title, you expect intelligent gameplay. You expect AI that gives the impression of self preservation. Sadly those expectations, and the kind of gameplay you’ll experience have been somewhat ruined, and as such, Vegas 2 is undeniably a worse game than the original.

First off, while your team-mates, for the most part, look, sound, and behave like idiots, they’re horribly effective at deleting the human contents of a room. As long as you don’t force them into a clearly suicidal position, they’ll kill with ruthless efficiency. You won’t need to do a thing if you’re patient enough, as they can happily deal with a dozen or so enemies without batting an eyelid. This takes much of the urgency out of the sections that have clearly been designed to make you panic a little. Similarly, much of the intelligence is gone from Vegas, and we’re not exactly sure why that is. While the first title had some genuinely tricky sections due to the intelligent AI and variable actions of the terror goons, this iteration, whether it’s because of different level design, or some kind of AI tweaking, seems to have more clearly delineated segments. ‘Zone A’ of a level, for example, will require some door work, ‘zone B’ sees you up against guys with grenades, ‘zone C’ demands smoke bombs and ‘zone D’ is a lazy set piece with boring dialogue involving a horde of samey looking enemies and handily placed cover. The more gung-ho nature of your fellow terror quashers makes things distinctly less clever as well, as does the COD 4-style experience meters.

The ill-fitted experience bar rings up your kills like some kind of demented shop keeper. "Yay! A +2 headshot," it visually screams at you to keep the blood flowing in honour of the mighty lord of levelling up. Copying this mechanic wholesale from Call Of Duty is a bad move on Ubisoft’s part, as the icons cluttering the screen every ten seconds only serve to create a carnival atmosphere. Win a prize every time with ‘Call Of Rainbow’. The most immediate downside of this being that you always know when you’ve snagged yourself a bad guy. One of the joys of Rainbow Six should be the feeling that you’re never relaxed. If you clear a room, and have notification of each kill, you know it’s safe, and simply charge towards the next zone. All of these points don’t add up to much individually, and there are some plus points, but when you look at just how silly the whole affair is compared to the first game, you simply can’t see it as a step forward.

The same issue plagues the look of the piece as well. The biggest change, and something which Ubisoft was keen to PR in the run up to release is the difference in locales. This time a majority of the game is set during the day, which automatically makes things less easy for a developer looking to make their shooter that little edgier. Fine, that’s a brave move considering the last game, and not one we’re wholly against, but it leaves more room for error on the visual front. And really, that’s our main issue with Rainbow Six Vegas 2. It just doesn’t look anywhere near as good as it should do. The drab corridors and convention centres of Las Vegas simply aren’t as iconic as the casinos and hotels, and the game suffers dreadfully for it. Indeed, there are few sections of the game that impress with the locations, and in many ways it feels like the leftovers of the last game.

We’ve ranted on too much about the comparisons with the original Vegas, and hopefully you’ve got the point that moving the franchise towards something less realistic doesn’t seem to be working. If you want something more ‘in yer face’, there are plenty of options out there, not least of which being COD 4. Looking at Vegas 2 as an individual, there are still issues. The greatest of which being the frustration you’ll feel when you reach an area that defeats you at the first and second runs. It’s worth noting that the difficulty is just about spot on, but with a title that requires such patience, you’ll often find yourself getting wound up and far too aggressive. In such situations it begins to play like Sega’s The Club, where you end up memorising the enemy locations and completing levels by memory rather than improvisation and skill. For a game that used to be so desperate to be realistic, even before the advent of the next-gen consoles, it’s somewhat disappointing to see it move in such a direction.

Like we said, the distinct differences in attitude do yield some plus points, and as much as we’ve slated it, it’s still a fun experience. The stop-and-pop gameplay works tremendously well, mostly because of the excellent cover system and finely tuned controls. If we had any kind of complaint about the command system, we’d probably suggest that it’s just a little too efficient. There’s nothing extra in the squad direction menus, which leaves you unable to mix things up, should you want to get away from the standard stack-breach-clear routine of emptying rooms of terrorists. As far as the squad dynamic goes, it’s difficult to berate. It does feel a little oversimplified at times, and you’re often merely going through the motions with your team-mates, but getting the hang of ordering your subordinates around is an easy task. Once you’re in full control of them, you’ll find that getting them to work through an area is reasonably satisfying, even if you’re relegated to long-range support. The fact that you’re significantly less effective as a Rainbow Six operative than your two underlings is slightly galling, though.

Other elements of the game say a lot about what has to be one of the laziest titles of recent years. Purely from an aesthetic point of view, it’s really not great. Horrid screen tearing, some inexplicable texture loading and unacceptable load times don’t help the case that this is a step forward in the series. Aspects such as hostage rescuing is done particularly poorly, which for a title reliant on such activity, is dreadful. There’s no real need to do anything in any kind of order, because the terrorists won’t think to attack the hostages when you storm the room, again, rendering any kind of urgency void. It’s this kind of backward AI that really bugs us. Your paltry array of enemy character models feel just too stupid or regimented to give you any kind of challenge, and as such are merely ragdolls waiting to suck up your bullets. They have little sense of purpose about them, and never make you feel like they’re defending something, let alone looking out for their own lives. It takes a while to realise this, but once you do, the whole experience of a title like this is just too watery to really enjoy.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 isn’t as good as many previous efforts from Ubisoft, that much is undeniable. It has shifted its focus towards something less realistic, and scabbing elements from Call Of Duty 4 does nothing to cement its position as the most realistic squad shooter out there, something which many fans enjoy about the franchise. That said, it’s still a fun game, and everything that we’ve said about it is borne of disappointment rather than genuine irritation. The fact that we enjoyed the original Rainbow Six Vegas so much is something we find almost impossible to get away from, and the rushed feel of so much of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 really doesn’t help us to recommend it.

Bear in mind that you’ll be able to pick up the excellent Rainbow Six Vegas for around ten to fifteen quid, and this seems a little bit pointless. There’s simply no one we can happily suggest that would enjoy this any more than the first one, and as such, as fun as this title is, we have to say you should really skip this version and wait for the inevitable follow-up.

Tom Leclerc