Locked On Target: Rainbow Six Vegas Preview

With 1UP’s single-player preview of the new 360 R6, we realize that Vegas ain’t Lockdown, and it ain’t Rainbow Six 3 either. It’s something new, something fresh, and something Rainbow Six: realism, tactics, CQB, and tension.

Your fellow Rainbow teammates are now smarter: they will move from cover to cover, use both available cover and smoke grenades to mask their movements, and pick targets based on threat level and instructions. To compensate for the smarts, Ubisoft has gone and deleted one member from the traditional four-man team – oh, man, there goes all that firepower.

To compensate for that loss, however, they’ve also added the ability of each team member – plus the player – to revive fallen teammates. All the same, having fewer resources to down Tangos with will require the player to use his head, and not his guns, more often.

A new rules of engagement system has been added to the Vegas package. The player can switch between Assault and Infiltrate rules, depending on the tactical situation. Anyone who’s played SWAT 3 will recognize this: Rainbow will sneak around and try not to attract attention under Infiltrate rules, perfect for approaching unsuspecting targets or threatened hostages. Should all hell break loose, however, the player can then switch to Assault mode and let Rainbow rock-and-roll. Or, in SWAT 3-speak, “Bang and clear! BOOM! Move move move!”

Read the rest of the Rainbow Six Vegas Preview after the jump.

With 1UP’s single-player preview of the new 360 R6, we realize that Vegas ain’t Lockdown, and it ain’t Rainbow Six 3 either. It’s something new, something fresh, and something Rainbow Six: realism, tactics, CQB, and tension.

Your fellow Rainbow teammates are now smarter: they will move from cover to cover, use both available cover and smoke grenades to mask their movements, and pick targets based on threat level and instructions. To compensate for the smarts, Ubisoft has gone and deleted one member from the traditional four-man team – oh, man, there goes all that firepower.

To compensate for that loss, however, they’ve also added the ability of each team member – plus the player – to revive fallen teammates. All the same, having fewer resources to down Tangos with will require the player to use his head, and not his guns, more often.

A new rules of engagement system has been added to the Vegas package. The player can switch between Assault and Infiltrate rules, depending on the tactical situation. Anyone who’s played SWAT 3 will recognize this: Rainbow will sneak around and try not to attract attention under Infiltrate rules, perfect for approaching unsuspecting targets or threatened hostages. Should all hell break loose, however, the player can then switch to Assault mode and let Rainbow rock-and-roll. Or, in SWAT 3-speak, “Bang and clear! BOOM! Move move move!”

We’ve already shown screenshots of rappelling Rainbow members, hanging off the sides of a building. Assault and Infiltrate also work up there as they do on the ground. Team members will hang upside-down, just above the window, and carefully take aim at threats inside under Infiltrate rules. Call out Assault, and they’ll crash through the window bringing in the thunder (or the flash-bangs, but that’s the same effect anyway).

Finally, those boys at Rainbow’s R&D have thrown in a new tool that will save Rainbow and civilian lives (can’t say the same for the terrorists, though). Oddly, it’s a similar gadget that their Clancy-game stablemate Sam Fisher has used before: a fiber-optic “snake cam.” Instead of cracking a door open and peeking through to see what’s inside – which usually results to bullets in the face – Rainbow can slip the snake cam underneath the door and see what’s inside. Even better, individual targets can be “tagged” with the cam for each Rainbow member to neutralize.

Finally, this is one game that will happen on the fly. Rather than the separate mission briefings and cut-scenes from its predecessors, the storyline in this game will be more dynamic and more interactive. The developers admit they’ve been influenced in this regard by the TV drama 24, and how that TV show handled plot twists, the pace of the story, and kept the viewer glued to the TV screen. At this rate, maybe they’ll have to add “drama” after “tension” for future R6 titles. Because this is all beginning to look really good to us.