Evil doers invade Las Vegas in Ubisoft's thrilling first person shooter, Rainbow Six Vegas. A port of last year's Xbox 360 game, Vegas takes players on a dazzling trip through Sin City's casinos, tempting them with neon lights and gambling tables before sending hundreds of terrorists their way. As Logan Keller, leader of a counterterrorist squad, gamers must use their wits, their real world weapons and their team of heavily armed commandos to thwart the scumbag's evil schemes.
While players explore a fictional Las Vegas (Ubisoft wasn't permitted to model actual casinos and hotels), they'll find plenty of action tearing apart gambling machines and filling bad guys full of lead. However, this is not a run-and-gun action adventure. Instead, gamers must sneak around, peeking around corners to plot their next move. The artificial intelligence knows how to shoot and will drop the team in a matter of seconds, which makes a slow and steady pace the key to victory.
Before barging into an open area or room, gamers need to think things through. Sure, they can go in guns blazing (which usually results in your death), but with the help of the AI-controlled commando buddies (demolition expert Michael Walker and electronics wiz Jung Park), they can also toss smoke/flash bang grenades, or split up the team lays down suppressing fire so the player attacks from the opposite side. They do this by pointing in a direction and pressing X. Doing it while looking at a door, for instance, instructs the team to kick it down, while pointing at a random spot on the ground orders them to form up at that location.
In addition, gamers can spy on their enemies by sliding a snake camera underneath the door. Maneuvering the SIXAXIS controller in real time (while a little awkward) lets them view terrorists from all angles without being seen.
Much like the Xbox 360 shooter, Gears of War, keeping cover plays a huge role. Whenever players come to a wall or other obstruction, they can hug that object after by pressing the L1 button. The game then goes from first to third person, allowing them to not only see their character, but peek out from behind cover and fire several shots without exposing their entire body.
A deep multiplayer experience complements the single player campaign, thrusting players into 16 person firefights. The ability to create a character, adding an outfit with a host of real world equipment and unlock more along the way makes the game unique. Whether or not Ubisoft replicated the user-friendly Xbox Live Arcade experience on the PlayStation Network, however, remains to be seen.
PlayStation 3 owners will gobble this game up. Xbox 360 users, on the other hand, should stick with their version. The SIXAXIS snake cam controls take a while to get used to, and the lack of Achievements makes the game less enjoyable. Nevertheless, Rainbow Six Vegas is an intense FPS worth playing, and GameDaily will post a review when it hits June 26.
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