Rainbow Six Vegas 2 finally hits the PC, but not quite the knock-out punch as its predecessor.
Story/Presentation:
Well, you're back in Vegas, this time around as the leader of Bravo Squad, in events that seem to follow right along side the events of the first game, or at least within the same time-period. The same scenario follows suit - bad guys with lots of guns, hostages, locations, and bombs...and you're sent to mop everything up. Your character is fully customizable as a male or female - complete with voicework. People familiar with the character creation in the multiplayer of the first game will find it's been linked with the Single Player Campaign and Co-Op as well. Thanks to the new A.C.E.S. system, everything you do - in story, multiplayer, offline, or online - will earn you points in different categories to help you rank up. This unlocks everything from new weapons, armor, clothing, and camo patterns. These unlocks can be used both offline, and online in one universal character. It's a nice rendition that Elite (Rank 55) can be achieved without having to spend hundreds of hours online, and that you are rewarded for Campaign performance as well. Players of the first game will be happy to know that this one wraps everything up in one nice big package with no cliff-hangers this time around, even if the locales aren't as flashy or exotic.
Sound:
There's nothing here that sets the sond apart from other games other games. The addition of a female voice-over for your character is a small but welcome feature, and the low John Carpenter-esque themes are a nice compliment to the action, without seeming too cheesey. All of the weapons and explosions are meaty and proper, even if the dialogue is campy at best. The PC version suffers from some severe technical issues with Dolby Digital and sound cards, but more on that later.
Graphics:
Vegas 2 looks good. It's running on a completed Unreal 3 Engine, unlike the last game (dubbed "Unreal 2.5"). The colors are much more vibrant, the textures more clear, and the shadows more defined. There's a lot of post-processing effects which add icing to the cake. It's not the most beautiful game and the same blocky character models with over-sized guns and a strange view of their weapons in 1st-peron, but it's quite a sight to see.
Gameplay:
Vegas 2 remains a "light tactical shooter" like its predecessor, but seems to be less forgiving of mistakes this time around. The A.I. is all accross the board, ranging from incredibly smart, to incredibly dumb. Your teammates will actually move where you want them to, and actually take COVER in that spot, but will still do bonehead things like walk past a window full of guards instead of crouching below to avoid being seen. The enemy is much more mobile this time around, and will generally not stay in one spot for too long. They flank effectively and will often advance on you this time, instead of retreating, and abuse Blind Firing. However, they too have their flaws, as they will still at times fail to run from grenades, take cover behind objects that provide none, and do too much "peeking" without firing as if to say, "Here is my face. Please shoot it now." The new "Sprint" feature might be a total rip off of Call of Duty 4, but it serves its purpose well.
There are a handfull of new weapons and armor selections, which will please some, even if the guns do appear strangely blocky and oversized. Still, the weapon selection doesn't seem to impress as many fan-favorites were simply left out, and since the FAMAS assault rifle still remains the "noob gun" of choice. The gadgets in your arsenal remain the same, which the exception of a new Thermal Scan that will reveal the location of enemies for a certain period of time, but must be "recharged" for 90-seconds or so before using. It feels cheap, but since the difficulty is bound to irritate many, it's welcome as well. Oh yeah, the difficulty? Brutal. Vegas 2 is much less forgiving of mistakes this time around in its design. The abilitiy to tac-on more armor only helps you and not your teammates, who cannot take nearly as much punishment. Casual feels too easy, but the other 2 difficulty levels are brutal, and Realistic is 'bound to cause lots of screams and moans.
The game supports full campaign Co-Op play, complete with A.C.E.S. rewards. The multiplayer is pretty much the same as the first, with a few new maps. Terrorist hunts return, with a ramped up difficulty and more options. The online community on the PC is pretty small as once again, Piracy has had a profound affect on PC gaming.
Performance:
Here's where the woes begin. Just a fair warning, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 was not optimized for the PC...at all. It's a 100% port if we've ever seen one, and it shows. The game requires a lot more horsepower than it would seem, but some high end cards (like nVidia's 8800 GT) have issues running the game smoothly. The framerate fluxuates horribly and the only real graphical options all deal with shadows, AA, and post-processing (which doesn't seem to take much power, by the way). The sound is also very bad on the PC version. It seems as if there was zero support for sound cards, as anyone with a 5.1 system is going to cringe. The voices appear muted and muffled, but at least the guns and explosions are beefy. I ran the game on two rigs: The first being a 2.33ghz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, SLI GeForce Go 7950 GTX 512mb and Windows XP, and had a good framerate (40+ fps) with all settings max'd an minimal AA at 1440x900. The second 3.0 Core 2 Duo, 3 GB RAM, 8800 GTX, and Vista ran well at 1440x900, but barely chugged out a higher framerate than the other system. And surprisingly, the game ran WORSE at anything below 1280x800, compared to higher resolutions like 1680x1050.
Overall:
Rainbow Six Vegas 2 feels like a port...and a mediocre one at best. Despite coming out over a month after, it has nothing more to offer other than mouse+keyboard support, higher resolutions, and more AA options. The optimization is attrocious and the butchering of the sound quality is abysmal, and with the small online community, you might as well pick this one up on the Xbox 360 or PS3 if you can.