Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Updated Hands-On

Rainbow Six Vegas was a breath of fresh air for the shooter genre when it hit shelves in 2006. The first entry in the long-running series to hit current-generation consoles, Vegas looked beautiful and, thanks to the gameplay overhaul from developer Ubisoft Montreal, also played incredibly well. Having gotten past the hard job of adapting the Unreal 3 engine for the previous game, Ubisoft is now heading back to Vegas in Rainbow Six Vegas 2. We recently got our hands on an updated preview build of the game and took it out for a spin.

Although we covered the main features of the game in our extensive first look at the title, there's still plenty to go over. One of the major new features of the game is the way in which the character that you create will be able to use the Advanced Combat Enhancement and Specialization (A.C.E.S.) system to unlock new weapons and rewards. Other games have used similar systems to allow players to unlock items as they play, such as Call of Duty 4, Battlefield 2, and the original Rainbow Six Vegas, but Vegas 2 offers the same constant reward of experience gains while also allowing you to specialize in the type of gameplay you prefer to use.

For almost every action your character takes, you'll earn experience points; a basic kill is three points, with extra points for killing enemies through cover, headshots, long-distance kills, and other difficult maneuvers. You also get experience for enemies that your teammates take out, but they won't confer on you any bonus points if they happen to pull off a headshot or another difficult kill. Experience points are fairly linear, and as you obtain them, your character will increase in rank, from private second class all the way up to the "elite" class at 400,000 experience points. But increasing your rank never earns you any new weapons. Instead, you'll obtain new pieces of armor and camouflage as you earn new ranks. Just as that golden desert eagle in Call of Duty 4 is the mark of a player who's put a lot of time into the game, you'll know you're up against a pro in Vegas 2 if you see someone with night-vision goggles on. The highest rank will actually allow you to create custom camouflages for your character.

In addition to general experience, though, you can earn experience in three separate specializations. A normal kill will simply add to your basic experience, but specific kinds of kills will earn you experience in a specialization, which reinforces your style of gameplay. The first specialization is marksman, through which you advance by getting headshots, killing enemies at long range, and killing enemies while they or you are rappelling. The rewards you unlock for being a marksman consist mostly of accurate rifles and sniper rifles. The second is close quarters battle, which rewards you for shooting enemies with blind fire, killing foes at close range or from behind, or shooting afflicted enemies with a flashbang. Your rewards here are mostly submachine guns (including the fearsome P90) and shotguns. Lastly, you can attempt to specialize in assault, which tasks you with killing enemies through cover, with C4 or grenades, or killing enemies that are using a riot shield. Most of these rewards are assault rifles or light machine guns, but the final reward is the riot shield itself.

In addition to the experience and the specializations, Vegas has a number of achievements to go after. All the achievements are also present on the PlayStation 3 version of the game, so we're assuming that they'll eventually be tied into PlayStation Home when that's released. These "awards," as they're called on the PS3 version of the game, are split up into medals, badges, and ribbons. The bulk of these awards are focused on multiplayer, with your standard "kill 1,000 enemies in multiplayer" and "kill five enemies without dying" types of achievements. Most of the multiplayer achievements require you to be playing in a game with at least six people before your kills actually count, though, so if you're a fan of cheesing your way to achievements with a buddy, then that probably won't work out for you. There are also a few cleverly named achievements for single-player, such as "My Name Is Sam," which forces you to kill five terrorists in a row with silenced headshots.

While the experience system is obviously inspired by the similar system that was incorporated into Call of Duty 4, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 ups the ante by letting players earn experience in either single-player or multiplayer, which should give a bit of replay value for players who prefer to go up against the computer instead of other humans. We're sure everyone is dying to get their hands on the game, but luckily you don't have long to wait, as it's scheduled to ship out March 18. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more coverage in the coming weeks.