Friday, March 21, 2008

Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (Early Thoughts)

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/rainbowsixvegas2/review.html

I’m surprised by some of the reviews for Vegas 2, especially those that claim it’s just “more of the same.” It's true, but it’s “more of the same” refined and improved in almost every way. After spending ten hours or so with the game, I can’t imagine going back to the first Vegas and not finding it woefully inferior to its sequel.

Some early thoughts:

* The best RPG mechanics in a shooter yet, better even than Call of Duty 4. Having a single custom character for both single-player and multiplayer is a stroke of genius, especially now that you earn XP in the single-player modes, giving new players a chance to get down the Vegas gameplay and level up some without receiving a radical anal reconstruction by experienced players online.

* Thank God Ubisoft fixed the XP rewards on Attack & Defend matches, my biggest gripe with the first game. There’s no longer an additional reward for stretching out a match to twenty minutes, even if victory was decided in the first two minutes. I never understood why the attackers didn’t get more XP for capturing the intel expediently, instead of hanging out with it by the helipad for fifteen minutes like a bunch of dicks.

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