Second Play — Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas — Completed Vertigo Casino

One of biggest effects that Vegas has had on me so far is the creation of a whole new set of tactical senses. In your basic first person shooter, I progress linearly into a room, kill everything and move onto the next one. Because of the fabulous amount of damage I can absorb in say, Halo, the best tactic is to step out and allow the Covenant to reveal their positions by shooting me. Not so in Vegas, where locating enemy fire is the gameplay. This type of gameplay immediately creates three feelings in the player so intense that they could easily be called additional senses.

The first feeling is a sense of potential danger. This applies to any area not yet explored, and results in a certain type of behavior toward the area. Under no circumstances would I consider simply walking into an unexplored room in Vegas. The different entry points, angles of attack, and possible ambush points must be carefully considered. Any non-visible areas must be scouted out from behind cover if possible or very quickly if no cover is available. This behavior is known in the warrior lexicon as clearing a room.

The second feeling is a clear sense of safety emanating from a previously cleared area. After taking the time to creep through a room and observe every possible crack and crevice, I feel perfectly safe putting my back to this room while considering it a safe retreat point in our assault of the next area. Of special importance is the time limit on this feeling of safety. Because of the crafty AI in Vegas, the longer I have my back against a cleared area, the less safety it emanates. Ironically, the best moments in Vegas are when being flanked by the AI out of a previously cleared area. The feeling of being outsmarted (as apposed to cheated) by game AI is truly a rare and valuable one.

However, the most revolutionary feeling I get from Vegas is best described as a weird sense of fairness. Weird in the sense that a human emotion is being applied to an AI character. As the commanding officer of my squad, I feel an obligation to share the burden of vulnerability with them. Sometimes the only way to clear an area is to walk right into a potential line of fire. Although there is nothing in the rules of Vegas to prevent me from always ordering my men to perform this risky maneuver, I find myself going out of the way to share this virtual burden with my virtual teammates. This quite often results in me taking a bullet for a character that is essentially a series of animations, prerecording vocalizations, and AI points hardcoded into the Unreal map.

I also continue to be impressed by Vegas’ presentation. Sure, the game’s representation of the Las Vegas cityscape within Unreal 3 is minimalist, with only a few buildings poking out here and there among the blurry ground textures; however, in keeping with this minimalism, frame rates stay smooth even on high polygon rooftops. On the other hand, building interiors continue to amaze. I try to imagine putting together some of the bar fronts and backroom poker games from within UnrealEd, and can only gasp at the amount of artistic labor present in these rooms. Having worked extensively with UnrealEd 2, I can appreciate the little details like cubemap reflections on glass banisters, and the differences in texture scaling among distance objects. Viewing a particular room from behind cover with my acog scope is almost like finding my way through a restaurant themed maze where each half-empty wine glass is pregnant with danger.

Overall, I continue to be pleasantly surprised at every turn with Vegas, and look forward to my next rooftop insertion with a boyish glee normally reserved for playing guns in the backyard. Tune into my next play rating to find out how the gameplay holds up over time, and for more on Vegas’ unfinished coop mode.