Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas Comments by Kristan Reed

The Edge writers are cock sniffers,and Bill should have them destroyed for what they said.
That or they shouldn't get any more Microsoft PR goodies from here on in.

Edge was spot on about the 360 this month.

It will have been uncomfortable reading for Microsoft fanboys though.

The fact that you agree with it shows just how off-base it was.

Anyway, Vegas. Apart from the awful tearing in the first part of the first level - which then strangely disappears as if by magic - it's amazing!

Keep going Herod, we need a good bust-up. This comment thread was suspiciously sane until you waded in with something utterly irrelevant to R6 Vegas.

Yay, barnard666 got what I meant about health. In Gears or Halo the recharge works well because the game is meant to be played more frantically. In R6 you want stealth and tension which for me is better with a trad health system. The 'skin of the teeth' feeling is one of the reasons I love games and common to games from different genres. For me its the same 'just about hanging in there' feeling in Forza and Geo Wars.

2 things -
- There are no rules. Just because it isn't a recharge system does not mean there must be health packs and repetition from bad checkpointing. I can think of a few ways to implement it better.
- I hate the bandwagon mentality thats going on. I want the best system for the game, not what is trendy in the market at the momment.

Got this on pre-order, but HMV seem to be slacking :/

Still, a few questions: In the demo, I thought the enemy tagging was on the 'Back' button. Has this changed? Also, recently there was a dev diary video saying that it was only 2player splitscreen... is it now 4?

Can't wait for this to arrive!

How many people started playing R6:V like GoW then? I felt a bit of a dummy pressing A to duck for cover and to dive to the side... methinks I've been playing an intuitive type of game for too long.
The tearing was noticed, what's that all about... the engine being pushed too much!!

:)

@Krudster

Ok, am I pleased that my lingustic-fascism prevailed, or disturbed that my comment gets edited out?

I just need to take the bad with the good, I suppose ...

By the way, I can point out LOADS more mistakes with everyone's articles if you want.

;-)

Sure, go ahead - though feel free to mail me personally as sometimes comments don't get picked up on.

:O

"God, I was just joking Minerva!"

:D

Ok, I can't do this whole thing with emoticons and quotes from Hudson Hawk, no matter how much I would wish otherwise...

Cool - I promise to try and limit it to glaring ones, a la 'That which shall not be mentioned', although it's difficult to quiet the beast once awakened.

In those instances, your best bet is to make one of your colleagues run a distraction and hope it gets diverted long enough for you to slip away.

@krudster: It's impossible to e-mail you! I've been trying to get in touch with you on 4 occasions over the past weeks and no dice no matter what I do. :/

I think this game is absolutely brilliant and rock hard (read: realistic-ish bar the wonderfully useful health recharging system) but the horrid v-sync issues, that seem to occur when the game has more than two enemies onscreen or any smoke/particle effects, let the otherwise outstanding visuals down a bit and makes the game feel a little rough and ragged. It depresses me that the Xbox 360 cannot do amazing graphics without some kind of compromise, in this case, a completely smooth-moving framerate. I actually prefer the multiplayer visuals which might be toned down but at least seem to move all nice and smooth.

I wonder if it'll be the same on the PS3 when it comes out next year...

Brilliant game. Hard, but fucking brilliant.

One prob with the review though:

"Once they're in formation, all it takes is to select one of three options with the corresponding dpad direction - open and clear, frag and clear or breach and clear (we'd argue that 'flash and clear' should be in there too - an extra command on the dpad would have made no difference to its simplicity)."

There is actually a 'Flash and Clear', plus a 'Smoke and Clear' as well. You have to set your squaddies to 'Infiltrate' using the left bumber and you'll get those extra options when they line up to a door (did you even play the game?).
Besides, using 'down' on the d-pad to add an extra option would be stupid, as how the hell would you get them to follow you again if you decide that going through that door is maybe not such a good idea? That could possibly lead to instant death, because there would be no way to abort the action thus having no option but recklessly throwing your teammates into a room full of hostiles.

/goes back to reading the rest of the review :)

/finishes reading review

Ok, this is probably the first EG review I've actually disagreed on a few points with. Not because I disagree with the fact you are saying it is a great game - it is - but some of your points are ridiculously picky.

"Even Lockdown with its Sniper sections tried to change the gameplay emphasis, so it's slightly disappointing to see the game's focus stay the same for almost the entire game."

Yey!!! Shitty stealth sections and crap driving levels FOR THE WIN!!!!! Actually, um, no.....

"the game really needed a better premise than having to duke it out among fruit machines, neon lights, golden statues and roulette tables. There's enough variety elsewhere for it to not be a real deal-breaker, but Ubisoft stretches the whole Casino locale beyond novelty. Was it really that essential to the premise?"

Clue is in the title - Rainbow Six: ..... *drum roll*..... Vegas. To be honest, not once did the thought "too many casinos" come into my head. Who really gives a shit as long as the levels are well structured, the graphics are great and the gameplay is fantastic. Using this opinion you could also say "Gears of War had too many levels out in the street". Yeah exactly, ridiculous.

"The similarities with Gears of War's duck and cover gameplay are unavoidable - both make it imperative to make good use of cover at all times, both let you peep out from behind cover to fire, both make it easy to blindfire, both let you revive downed squad mates, and both have (usually) decent AI."

I agree with all these points.... apart from the fact that Gears' squaddie AI was far from "decent". It was fucking awful, especially on Hardcore difficulty. RS:Vegas' AI was infinitely better to my experience and was useful as opposed to useless

And yes, the story is far-fetched and slightly ridiculous. But then that's what I love about it. The whole game felt like you are playing an episode of 24 with the constantly escalating but far-fetched twist-ridden story. 24 is amazingly good fun though, 'nuff said.
Plus I am glad they took out that extra teammate. The way these levels were designed meant that not once did I miss the 4th member. If anything if Ubi did put in the extra man, the levels would have been too crowded. Three's a party, four's a crowd.

Top game. Pants graphics. End of.

Besides, using 'down' on the d-pad to add an extra option would be stupid, as how the hell would you get them to follow you again if you decide that going through that door is maybe not such a good idea? That could possibly lead to instant death, because there would be no way to abort the action thus having no option but recklessly throwing your teammates into a room full of hostiles.

You can just point somewhere else and press "A", of course...

The option I've really missed on a number of occasions is when you tag a terrorist (who hasn't seen you yet) as first priority, and then have no option to control when your man takes the shot. You have to instigate the combat situation yourself before your men will start firing in infiltration mode, and in assault mode they'll fire as soon as they see anyone.

It's also a shame that you can't direct your 2 teammates to different places, but that's another issue. Some of the rooms do seem very much designed for online co-op with their 3 or 4 entry points, and will probably be much easier (yet possibly more satisfying) as a result.

Set mode "Pedant!"..

Added to all this general slick AI intelligence and control refinements is a more

Artificial Intelligence intelligence?

I find the checkpointing absolutely atrocious throughout, the AI substandard (it's actually more scripted than anything), the command structure limited (no on-map orders, limited to both AI squard members at once). It's more of an excercise in frustration than in good level & situation design. A step up from Lockdown, to be sure, but nowhere near an 8. Edge was much more accurate and less forgiving in their review.

But wait, could there be a connection between the forgiving Vegas review on the EG site and the fact there has been a Vegas ad plastered all over it for days? Of course not.

I've never liked Rainbox Six, but I've completed the demo four times now and just ordered from play-asia. Who wants realism when playing games? That's why your play games to get away from it.