Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas Review

Jun 27, 2007

After months of delays, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas has finally descended onto the PlayStation 3. Ubisoft's tactical shooter has been out since late last year on the Xbox 360 and PC, while PlayStation fans have had to sit tight and hope that their version could stand up to the competition. Fortunately, the answer is by and large a resounding yes, with Ubisoft having delivered an online (and even single-player) experience that shouldn't be missed by strategic action fans.

For the most part, Rainbow Six: Vegas on the PlayStation 3 is identical in most respects to its counterparts on other systems, but the wait for PS3 owners has paid off a bit in terms of value. While Xbox 360 owners are able to purchase the Red and Black map packs for $10 a pop, all of that content is included right on the Blu-ray disc. This includes a couple new modes and a large handful of new maps, giving you some 20 maps to play on. While not every map is available for every game mode and three of them are "redux" versions of other maps, we doubt anyone could complain about the amount of content to be found here.

And as has been the case with most other Rainbow Six releases, the general quality of the maps here is very strong. While purists may be a little turned off at the rejuvenated (but not necessarily better) Presidio or other classics found here, most of the selections are great competition grounds. Everyone will of course gravitate towards their favorites, but you can't go too wrong with any of them.

When Ubisoft began work on Rainbow Six: Vegas for the then-unreleased next-gen consoles, it revamped a good deal of its gameplay mechanics and worked on creating a smoother and more natural experience. The biggest addition is its cover system, enabling you to put your back up against most any wall, barricade or flat-sided object in the game. The camera shifts from the normal first-person view to a third, and by pressing towards an edge of cover you'll pop up as your view zooms in to an over-the-shoulder view.

It's a system that works very well and naturally, thanks to a few subtle but very important control options. For one, you hold L1 to stay in cover and release it to move freely again rather than having it act as an on/off toggle. This means that if you suddenly come under fire, it's easier to react quickly and back away rather than having to remember to hit the cover button to "unlock" yourself from your surroundings. Secondly, you're still able to freely aim in any direction while taking cover, which makes it less inhibiting than some cover systems we've seen in the past.

Overall it's a fantastic system that works really well, though it's not without flaws. These are mostly related to objects not being able to be used as cover even though it seems like you should be able to, or in some rare instances with jagged doorways, ducking behind a different section of cover than you meant to. While you'll certainly run into these, they in no way lessen the overall experience, though you may be taken out while online every now and then because of them (just like everyone else).

The other major change to the entire game is the ability to repel down the sides of buildings, windows and such. It's a pretty cool feature in the single-player game as it opens up multiple pathways in many cases and allows you more freedom in your plan of attack. In the multiplayer game, it changes the returning maps, as you'll now be able to navigate between certain areas much more quickly. For instance, in Streets you're able to hop right out of the windows from either building and descend to the ground rather than having to run down a couple flights of stairs. It's certainly more dangerous, but it's also much quicker.

As for the single-player experience, what you'll find here is exactly the same as the other releases. The story is a little more interesting and engaging than many other war shooters, which is nice, and the setting is certainly unique. Ubisoft has recreated the city of Las Vegas about as well as anyone probably could, and it makes for a lively and engaging setting.

Control-wise, movement and aiming is about as spot-on as it could get, though the PlayStation 3's Sixaxis controller means it's a little more sensitive and not quite as smooth as what you'll find on the Xbox 360. But by and large it's been nicely tweaked and refined for the PS3's pad.

One area that Rainbow Six: Vegas on the PlayStation 3 does fall a little short on when compared to the other versions is with regards to visuals. It's a nice looking game to be sure, but the whole thing doesn't look quite as sharp as it could. Colors are a little duller and there isn't as much use of certain effects, like bloom lighting and such. Some folks may appreciate that aspect to a certain degree, but beyond that it still doesn't look quite as nice as what we've seen previously. Some texture work isn't quite as sharp, and the characters aren't as detailed as what's found in the 360 release, especially in the faces. Weapons that have been dropped pop in and out of view as you approach and walk away when they're but a mere 50 feet or so away.

Also, as we've mentioned in one of our last previews of the game, there's a weird issue when running the title in 1080i as everything, including the menus, look very blurry. It's pretty sharp when played at 720p, which leads us to believe that at 1080i the game is still rendering at 720p and then upscaling the output image to 1080i, but poorly. So by all means, choose custom resolution support and turn off 1080i when playing the game - you'll be very happy you did.

The fidelity issues aren't only specific to the visuals, unfortunately. While the sound is overall fantastic, some of the audio effects are used when they're not appropriate. For example, in more than one instance an enemy who was maybe 50 feet from us and out in the open sounded like he was way down a tunnel. His weapon would sound muffled and distanced, which is awesome when appropriate, but not when you're right next to him.

Performance-wise, the PS3 title does run just as well as the 360 release with nary a hitch of slowdown in sight. Online is very smooth as well and we never experienced any lag, though voice support is a little sketchy. In some games it worked fine, while in others we heard multiple levels of echo and stuttering noises. We swapped out multiple headsets to make sure it wasn't a problem on our end, and we even heard it without one attached and the sound simply coming through our display's speakers.

We do wish that the search function was more robust, however. You have options to search for specific game types and maps, but you're not able to search for server size, which means you're just as likely to wind up on a server with a cap of four players as you are fourteen.