Tom Clancy games are, in my opinion, the cream of the crop when it comes to tactical combat. For those people who prefer a stop-and-pop to a run-and-gun, chances are you’ve given either Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon a try. Coming off the heels of the stellar Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Ubisoft hopes to drive the series further with Rainbow Six: Vegas. Recently at the E3 expo I had the chance to witness a hands-on demo with some of the developers at Ubisoft themselves, while trying to drown out the noise of the demo guy narrating the experience.
The demo starts off (on a 360 dev kit of course) with Team Rainbow flying over Las Vegas in their chopper a la G.R.A.W. The beautiful, highly rendered city sprawling beneath the chopper is gorgeous and really runs with the excellent visuals we received earlier this year in G.R.A.W. The commander in the front seat tells us that a group of V.I.P.’s are being held hostage by a terrorist organization inside one of the local Vegas casinos. Of course it’s up to Team Rainbow to save the day, and the team is prepped as we land on the roof. The stairway looks like too risky of an insertion point, so we throw our quick drop cables over the ledge and begin to rappel down off the edge.
A few stories down we spy an appealing point of entry. Beyond the large pane of glass in front of the team there are three guards in one of the main rooms. Well Doing the math, the lead player notes three terrorists plus three spec op soldiers equals fun. He assigns the teammates to fire on the outer two guards respectively on Zulu and takes aim himself. While simultaneously issuing the command and shooting, the guards drop like clockwork. The window is then kicked in, to impressive effect, and the team is in.
Edging their way through rows of casinos, the team efficiently guns down terrorists and soon they reach a room up on a platform. Taking out an optic cable that must’ve been borrowed from Sam Fisher, we note that again there are multiple guards in the room; one stands in front of the door we are at, and three are walking around the room. Splitting up again, the leader goes to the other door and issues a Zulu command. One teammate kicks in the door, knocking out the guard, while the other two take out the remaining Tangos. Good job, but wrong room as it turns out. I guess even Spec Ops make mistakes sometimes.
All right, back into the casino and going to the remaining door, the optic cable is unleashed; we found the right room! The hostages are all in a circle in the middle of the room on the ground, but unharmed. Guards are at each doorway: two are patrolling, and one is out on a large balcony showing a hostage off like a trophy. A special surprise is cooked up for the terrorists as the chopper is called in for backup! As the chopper takes out the patrolmen, the two doors are charged and breached by the team, and the remaining guard takes a bullet to the back of the head, rescuing the hostages with zero collateral damage, but wait! As we turn a corner, a screen is in view which is counting down from seven seconds! As the timer hits zero an entire casino explodes in the distance lighting up the night sky! Las Vegas is on fire and it’s up to Team Rainbow to save the day. Take control of the situation and make sure that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas when Rainbow Six: Vegas launches for Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox, and Xbox 360 in Fall 06.
