Let me start this edition of Buy, Borrow, or Bury by apologizing for not getting a post up last weekend.  I had finals the week before, so I didn't get much of a chance to play anything.  Anyways, enough excuses!  This week I'm going to review Rainbow Six Vegas 2, the follow-up to the renewal of the Rainbow Six franchise surprisingly titled Rainbow Six Vegas.  I know, I know, how do they think these names up right? =P

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 When the preview videos and screenshots started surfacing for this game a lot of people were worried because, for the most part, it seemed like more of the same.  With games clocking in at $60 these days no one likes to see that.  I kind of thought the same thing when I saw the videos but there's one important thing to note - the videos (at least the ones I saw) were all of multiplayer games and nothing of the single player campaign.  They were showing a lot of the same maps from the first game, plus a lot of the same weapons and it just looked like the same thing.  I can say that that's basically the case.  For the most part, the multiplayer is identical to how it was in Rainbow Six Vegas, plus some guns, maps, and modes.

If you didn't play the Vegas 1 the game is basically a tactical shooter.  As far as the multiplayer goes that means you start out on a squad with some of your friends and you play against an opposing team.  There are your standard gametypes (deathmatch, team deathmatch) as well as the cooperative terrorist hunt gametype where you hunt down enemy AI opponents with your friends.  There are a ton of different weapons ranging from assault rifles, sub machine guns, light machine guns, pistols and so forth.  You can also outfit your character in different clothing and armor which adds a whole new element to the game - should you go with minimal armor in favor of mobility or load up on armor and move slow as a turtle?  The choice is yours, and you can always just go for the middle of the road and get the both of best worlds.  If you have an Xbox Live vision camera you can also scan your face and apply it to your in-game character which is cool.

There are some additions to the multiplayer this time around though that weren't obvious in the videos.  First off, this time the story mode is completely cooperative.  When you're playing through the normal single player story campaign you'll be listed as "needs help" in the Xbox Live guide.  That way your friends know that you're playing alone and can jump in to help you out if they'd like.  It's pretty handy on those spots where you're stuck, just ask a buddy to join you and you'll get past in no time.  Plus everything's more fun with more than one person I think.  Another thing they added is you can now earn ranks for multiplayer in the single player mode.  In Vegas 1 whenever you got a kill or won a round you would get some points.  After you won a certain amount of points you would rank up and earn new gear.  Now you also get awarded points in single player which is pretty nice.  I played through the entire single player campaign and I think I earned about 5 ranks or so, so when I went online I could really pimp my character out with armor and weapons.

As far as the single player goes, I think it's amazing.  As I said at the beginning of this review there was some concern because of the multiplayer videos that were posted, but the single player in Vegas 2 really steps it up over Vegas 1.  They made it so that nearly every room was fun to play by adding multiple points of entry.  What this means is, you can attack through the doors, go to the roof and breach down through a highlight, get to the room through a stairwell - there's a ton of possibilities.  Of course you also command your AI squad members, so you can breach a room filled with bad guys from multiple different directions at once and confuse the enemy.  I think half of the fun I had with the game was planning and executing an attack and watching things play out.  It's really fun, and it was way too underused in Vegas 1.  Like I said this time around it seems they set up every room to have different ways to play it if you want.  They also added levels that play perfectly to this idea of using ropes and positioning to get through.  For example, there's a level early in the game where you're in a rock climbing gym, and so obviously there's a ton of fast ropes and rappels for you to use to navigate around the level.  The enemy can use the same strategy though, so you always have to watch your back!

Another nice thing about the game is the pacing of the story.  Let me preface this bit by saying that the story is kind of garbage.  It's completely incoherent and I had no idea what was going on the bulk of the time all the way up until the end.  Still, that's not really what you play a game like this for - you play it to feel like badass swat team member taking down terrorists!  That being said, they paced the progression of the game really well.  Instead of being split up into separate levels they split the game into 7 different chapters, each with about 4 acts (an act is kind of like a short level).  At the end of most acts and especially at the end of each chapter something epic happens.  Whether you go down in an amazing firefight, some explosion happens, you rescue someone - something ALWAYS happened at the end of the chapter to keep me interested.  That's a big improvement from Vegas 1 where only one or two intense moments went down in the entire game.

This game surprised me.  I went into it not expecting much and came out with it pretty amazed at how good it was.  It kept me so interested that when I picked up GTA4 earlier this week I played it for a little bit and put it back away so that I could go back to Vegas 2.  With all of the hype that has surrounded GTA4 I think that speaks volumes.  That being said, I'm going to have to give Rainbow Six Vegas 2 a Rent.  That's not to say there isn't a lot of value there - the campaign is good enough that going back and replaying it is definitely an option (especially since they worked in the rank system to solo games) plus the multiplayer, although not exactly revolution, will keep you playing the game for a while.  Still, there are some better games out there as there usually is, and if you're only looking for a single player campaign chances are you can buzz through the game in a week or so. 

Thanks as always for reading, make sure to come back every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday for more new posts!  If you have any questions or critiques please post a comment or hit up the contact page for ways to contact me.  See you Tuesday!