With open ended first person shooters around every corner, it wouldn't hurt for some tactical, slow paced action. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 delivers mostly on this, but it's age is something to keep in mind.
The story starts with your main character, Bishop, alongside Logan Keller and Gabriel Nowak, who were present in the first game. Your initial objective is to rescue hostages from a group of terrorists before they are executed. As you arrive to the scene, one of the negotiators distracts the terrorists, buying you and your team some time to prepare to open fire. Nowak, however, believes that one of them is about to shoot, and starts firing early, alerting everybody and leaving the negotiator dead. After gunning down the remaining enemies and defusing a bomb located in a nearby room, the game then takes you five years into the present with Bishop and his new team attempting to hunt down two bomb makers hiding in Vegas.
I could go into more detail, but honestly it's quite a forgettable set up. Nobody really shows any kind of emotion through out the campaign, and it's definitely one of the more weaker aspects in the game. A lot of things could've helped it out a lot, such as fleshing out the antagonists more and actually giving your team mates some extra personality instead of programming them to be lifeless killing machines. Speaking of your team mates, one of the biggest issues in the game lies within the friendly AI. They're borderline useless, and will rarely help you out when you need it the most. They constantly get stuck on all kinds of geometry through out each mission, and will occasionally get stuck on themselves. Fortunately, the enemy AI show far more intelligence, being able to flank you with ease if you aren't careful.
Graphically the game does show it's age in parts, but it looks nice overall. Weapon models show plenty of detail, each level is varied in design and people are animated believably. Textures are an issue though. Getting up close to a wall or an object will highlight just how muddy it looks, which can ruin the overall look at times. Controls feel tight and responsive through out the entire game. The game relies on a cover system, and combined with the commands that you can give out to your team, it makes for a comfortable experience. On the topic of commands, they include telling your team mates to move to another area, cover a door, throw grenades, and you can even change the rules of engagement, essentially allowing you to choose between a stealthy or a more aggressive approach.
On average, the story will take you about six to eight hours to finish depending on what difficulty you're playing on, which is too short in my opinion. Thankfully, there are two other modes available. There's terrorist hunt, which revolves around killing a set amount of terrorists before they kill you. This is what most people will come back to after they've beaten the campaign. You have a healthy amount of maps to choose from, as well as all sorts of different guns. Every single weapon feels extremely satisfying to use, especially compared to more modern shooters. Landing a perfect kill with a shotgun or achieving that solid headshot with an assault rifle has never felt better. The other mode is versus, which is basically game modes from other shooters on the same maps as terrorist hunt. It's fun but is plagued with a serious net code issue that can spoil matches. Surprisingly, a good few people still play the game online, so you shouldn't have trouble finding any matches.
A cool new feature that wasn't in the previous installment is the ability to alter Bishops appearance and earn experience when playing. The original Vegas did allow for customization, but only in multiplayer. The sequel now lets you do this but on and offline. As I mentioned before, you can now gain experience from killing enemies in certain ways thanks to the new ACES (Advanced Combat Enhancement and Specialization). For example, gunning down an enemy from afar will grant your marksman points, and blowing up somebody with a grenade will grant you assault points. Overall there are three subcategories, and leveling up each one will either award you with a hefty experience bonus, or unlock a new weapon for you to use in combat. Eventually you will earn enough XP to level up Bishop, and unlocks include new camouflage, clothing items and armour.
Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is a great game. The realistic weapon handling alongside the enjoyable modes and tight controls offer up a breath of fresh air to anyone who is all too familiar with the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield. Although it's almost a decade old now, it's definitely worth purchasing, especially since it can be found almost anywhere at a very low price. Buy it immediately.