I know, I know...I was suppose to do an update last night at 8:00pm sharp on Vegas 2. Well, to make a long story short; I was knee deep in the single player campaign unable to thwart my attention enough to write a post. Sorry y'all. When a game is this good theres just no excuse NOT TO put all your time and energy into the first 4 or 5 hours, right?Well, thats exactly what I've done. As of 9:18am on Thursday the 20th of March I am 5 hours into the game and loving every minute of it. Aside from the occasional "hiccup" (which I will explain shortly) the game is very solid. It doesn't re-write history but what Ubi-Soft does is provide you with a solid tactical shooter with an on-line multi player component that, in my opinion, can compete with the likes of Halo 3 and COD4.
There are many improvements aesthetically and control wise in Vegas 2. The first Vegas seemed like they tried to cram too much in, meaning things were not explained well enough. Tutorials were few and far between and the control mapping was erratic, almost feeling misplaced. In the sequel, the controls are near flawless and feel refined to the point where guiding your A.I. counterparts is easy and fun to do. Which leads me to my next point; the A.I.
A.I. is a key part in any game and Vegas 2 makes no exceptions. You want a room fragged and tagged? Have your partners stack up on a door and select your entrance method. You want chaos? Order your men to open the door and throw a grenade in some poor schmucks face...or if you're feeling really mean; order your men to open the door and throw a incinerator bomb on the floor. Sit back and watch what happens, I nearly fell of my Lazy Boy laughing.Many aggregated review sites have been harping on the enemy A.I. through out the game, I for one disagree for the most part. In many of the firefights I've encountered so far, the A.I. has been spot on. Thats not to say I don't have any complaints, I just have very few. The battles can get intense in this game and rarely do they play out the same way each re-spawn. Which brings me to my one big gripe with the A.I.; it varies in difficulty from time to time and when I say varies I mean it can go from easy to take down the guys shooting at you to "Holly Hell...are you kidding me?" Just last night I was creeping around a corner very cautiously and slowly. I saw a guy standing on a platform damn near close to a mile away. I figured I could just creep around the scattered road blocks on the streets and get to the check point no problem. Wrong. As I got to about half way through the street without a scratch on me I took a breather (meaning a short break to take a sip of my ice water). I then pondered the thought of taking a quick glimpse over the road block I was hunched behind just to see where the sniper was. I stood...I got my face shot. All in a matter of half a second. This can get frustrating at points but then again Vegas 1 had the same problem.
Graphically and SFX wise, Vegas 2 is spot on. It still looks great and feels perfect for the setting. I'm not going to say that this game has engineered a new breed of super graphics, but they look crisp and flow great. There are no texture bumps or break ins, no poor shading effects, the facial features on your character (which you can create yourself from the start of the game) are excellent and the weapons are superior to any other game on the market to date. Thats right Call of Duty 4, I went there. The sound FX alone make this game bump when the volume is pumped and they don't get any better than this.
As of right now, I am thoroughly enjoying this sequel. I honestly haven't had this much fun playing a tactical FPS since...well, since the first one. Its a tough game yes and may be daunting for Noobs to the Tactical FPS scene but if your into Tactics, FPS's, excellent story line and one hell of an impressive weapons cache, then Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is a surefire pick.
-4.0 out of 5.0-
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