The first Rainbow Six Vegas game ended on an annoying cliffhanger and was an enjoyable single-player experience. You breached banged and cleared through a number of glitzy locations and back streets controlling two AI team-mates as you went your merry destructive way.
However, it was the multiplayer mode that lasted the distance in a similar vein to Call of Duty 4. This sequel doesn’t really do much more in the single player campaign – except it does tie up all the loose ends from Vegas 1, and once again, it does deliver if you play it on Xbox Live.
The main thing you’ll notice in both single and multiplayer is you can now run. This may seem weird at first but if you’ve been playing COD4 before this release it should prove useful when running to cover and away from grenade blast radiuses. They’ve also included a new upgrade system. You earn points for so many headshots, stealth kills, grenade kills etc and this levels up your character. Not only does this work in the single player game but in a great move, all your hard work carries through to Xbox Live. A nice touch. On Xbox live, there are 12 maps in total to play through and 2 new game modes. The Rainbow Six Vegas 2 online gaming options are well balanced and are great fun to play – you’ll lose many hours shooting your mates in the back.
To sum it up, the gameplay in Rainbow Six Las Vegas 2 is very good – it’s as good as the last one – but that was 18 months ago and things have come along well since then. If you enjoyed the last game, were itching for the Rainbow Six Vegas 2 release date and can’t get enough of ordering your AI team-mates around (who, incidentally, still run into a hail of bullets and lie there until you can patch them up), then this is for you. If, however, you’re getting a bit fat by grazing on all these next-gen shooters, you may wish to look for something different.Rainbow Six Vegas 2 gets a very good 7 out of 10.
