Rainbow Six Las Vegas PS3 Review

After months of promising screenshots, tantalizing movies and much hype, Rainbow Six: Las Vegas has finally arrived on PS3. I remember the good old days of Rainbow Six on PC, the original. What makes this game unique is its realism. The original had to be one of my first experiences of one-shot kills in a first person shooter. Tactics and teamwork are champion.

Lets take a look at the PS3 incarnation on a few levels.

Graphics

Hmmm… you know that feeling when you are watching a clip-scene, and then you have a sudden realisation this is IN-GAME graphics and they totally kickass, and within moments i’m going to be running around in this high-res city. That was my first impression of Rainbow Six.

Level design is thorough, challenging, and ideally suited for heavily armed special forces operatives roaming in unison for some scum to pump full of lead. It is hard to characterise the graphics - they are indeed quite nice to look at, but at the same time, I can’t help but think, why do they have to have this crazy filter over everything, that to me seems to make everything look a bit fuzzy, a bit dreamy.

Things blow up, glass breaks, grenade effects are nice, character design is solid.

Gameplay

This is where it gets fun. I can hardly hope to express my glee at for the first time, hopping over a wall and descending down a rope, with the option of going conventional or ultra-cool upside down style, all the while being able to shoot any mofo with my pistol. Single player, it has to be said is good. I’m only a few hours into the single player campaign, and boy it is challenging. But commanding your AI teammates around is a true joy.

Option 1: Order them to follow you around and go gung-ho around corners, with a very real possibility of death, and that inevitable frustration at losing 10 minutes of your life as your get ported back to your last checkpoint.

Option 2: Find yourself the nicest vantage point, select a sniper rifle with optional 6x or 12x zoom scope, and feel like a general as you command your team to move to any location within sight.

A particular highlight is ordering your players to a door, and then having the option of how they enter the room. Sometimes, a bit of the old flash-bang grenade is called for, while other times you might want to send them round the back while you prepare for a frontal assault.

Walls and virtually any other object on the map that might substitute as cover come to great use in Rainbow Six. Just hitting the L1 button will have you hunched against the object. A bit of analogue maneuvering allows one to sneak up to a corner, with a generous proportion of the out-of-site scenery suddenly revealed. With a bit of practice, you’ll look like a real pro, lining up ze enemy before even becoming visible, waiting for the perfect moment (like when the ze enemy reloads) and bang!

Multiplayer

Multiplayer in Rainbow Six is comprehensive. There is no hiding the fact that the game makers know how to give this title longevity on the PS3, by stuffing multiplayer mode with many delights. The character customisation is good with a decent amount of skins and body armour to select from. Within minutes I stylised myself with a handlebar moustache, a nasty gash above my right eye, some badass full-suite body armour, and a big, mean, machine gun. And with eye protection in mind, who could forget a pair of aviator sunglasses?

Whats more, there are weapons and kit items to unlock, making it all the more enticing to progress through the ranks.

The Bad

I can’t help myself. I have to make some comparisons. And going off what I know, I have to compare Rainbow Six to Resistance. Given the fact that Resistance was a launch title here in Australia, and Rainbow Six has had many months to polish their act, I find some annoying annoyances with Vegas.

• Load times are excessive - nothing more frustrating than booting up for a quick game, only to spend a few minutes loading up the multiplayer console, being forced into a random multiplayer game (no facility to select a game that i’ve seen) wait patiently for the in-progress game to finish… and then the game host quits and your back to square one!
• The graphics are just a shade fuzzy, like i’m getting a bit of eye strain and I know its not from a lack of hardware (just look at resistance and the smooth chaos that occurs)
• Overall I think the game lacks just a touch of class, as though there was some rush in its preparation… or something. Undoubtedly we will see a game patch sometime in the future that hopefully addresses all of the above.

Conclusion

Ok so i’ve unloaded the good and the bad about Rainbow Six: Las Vegas on PS3. My review is about 75% positive so I think thats a good indicator of my satisfaction level. To be fair I haven’t even seen much of this game, such is the nature (hopefully) of owning a game for less than 48 hours. I have no doubt that there are many surprises, many joys and few disappointments awaiting as I dig deeper into Rainbow Six.