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Thread: Rainbow Six: Vegas - First impressions

  1. #1
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    Rainbow Six: Vegas - First impressions

    First things first, this is not the "Rainbow Six" of Rainbow Six/Rogue Spear/Raven Shield that many of us have come to love over the years. However, it also isnt the pile of trash that "Lockdown" was.

    Esentially, Vegas can be seen as a tactical-shooter, with the emphasis firmly on the shooter, and less on the tactical. Its closes comparison would probably be a cross between the excellent "Brothers in Arms" series in terms of the tactical elements (mission planning is gone, and commands are issued to your two squad mates on the fly, in combat, via the game interface) and "Gears of War" in terms of the action - implementing as it does an ingamel "Cover interaction system".

    Squad AI is good, theyve saved my behind a few times now, and pathfinding and other such issues that have often blighted R6 games, have yet to really appear. Enemy AI however is pretty poor (in one particularly difficult ambush, i found i was able to run around the outside of the room and pick off all the enemies through the windows, which they were seemingly unable to fire back through, without them battign an eyelid, before entering and completing my objective), however they will try and flank and other such basic moves, the gameplay core of Vegas however is pitting you in massive pitched fire fights, rather than putting you up against a handful of super-intelligent crafty enemies, and as such this will often go un-noticed.

    Graphics are pretty poor to be honest, however they hide it well under a plethora of post-processing effects and HDR, however, textures are very shoody, and as with many recent titles from Ubisoft, AA will not work on a lot of systems. Considering the game is set almost exclusively in Vegas casino's, theres a decent bit of variety in environments (Developers of FEAR 2 - take note!!). Sound effects are pretty thumping too, which is nice.

    The most important thing with this title is that it has halted a sliding trend in recent releases from Ubisoft, that is crappy console to PC ports, ala the kind that eventually ruined "Splinter Cell: Double Agent" for many PC players. Admittedly, there are still problems under the hood, and crashes will occur on occasion, but this is much better than some of the recent "look at me funny and i'll crash your PC" stuff Ubi has been putting out.

    All in all, if your after a shooter with some rudimentary tactical squad based elements (ala Brothers in Arms), this is the game for you (and the game GRAW should have been) mixing action and tactics in a fun and enjoyable manner. If however, your after an ultra-realistic shooter, while the realism is still there in Vegas (it doesnt take much to kill you, but as with many action games, the health bar has been replaced with "Overshield" style regenerating health, makign you nigh on invincible if you play wisely), your going to be wanting to stick with "Raven Shield", "Swat 4" and co.

    --Jakk
    "You don't know Jakk..."

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  2. #2
    Ultimate Member RockNRoll's Avatar
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    Regenerating health? COME ON!!!

    What about linear maps? Are they linear or are they cool?
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by RockNRoll
    Regenerating health? COME ON!!!

    What about linear maps? Are they linear or are they cool?
    Its still plenty challenging regardless of the new health system, simply because you can die so quickly, however R6 fans of old probably wont be too impressed.

    The maps are linear, much like the old games, you have to progress from Point A to Point B, however the games reliance on usage of cover and squad mates, means that the maps are usually aranged so that there are multiple firing positions and cover points to set up from and move through.

    --Jakk
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  4. #4
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    I've heard similar feedback regarding Vegas. I still feel RVS was/is the best of the line (I know, including RS) and its a shame ubisoft gimps this franchise. Oh well. Fortuneatly my system can't handle vegas so I don't have to buy it just yet. I know a lot of rvs clans were looking to migrate over at some point, especially since lockdown was such a bomb. I hear the cover feature of Vegas is neat to have. But the health regen is as **** as you can get imo.

  5. #5
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    The health regen is pants when related to the gameplay of the original Rainbow Six titles, simply because it was a lot more slow paced. Given that in "Vegas" you die just as quickly as you did in the original R6 titles (couple of shots and youve had it if you dont fidn cover and regen), but face about 10x as many enemies per map (f not more), its sort of a "best of both" balance. If they were to have integrated a "health bar" (instead of an "overshield") system, then it would have had to have been a world of Rainboe Six soldiers who could take thrirty shots before dying in maps littered with health packs.

    You make a good point with the system requirements, simply because the game looks nothing special at all, the SM3.0 requirements etc. are an absoloute joke IMO, the texture work is amongst the poorest i've seen in a title released in 2006, and some of the post-processing effects they use to obscure them are pretty hideous (yes, this is another game with "the sun is burning my eyes out of my skull" style HDR)

    --Jakk
    "You don't know Jakk..."

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    [/B]

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