Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas PSP Review

Pros:

• Fun 1st person shooter
• Easy to shoot and strut your stuff without having to find cover to remember the controls
• Levels are replayable
• Some level of aiming assistance in hip-fire mode, but aiming down scope is troublesome.
• Player's character will yell or shout out if he is hit, stuff like that.
• Night Vision well implemented.
• Weapon animations not too shabby.
• In-game cutscenes are done in-level and not using more stolen PS3 elements.

Not Pros:

• Graphics aren't as good as they could be (e.g. Resistance Retribution level of graphics) but still not too bad (makes some PS2 games look bad)
• Feels a tiny bit artificial at times
• Suffers from quick and dirty port syndrome:
• Decent start up movie of the Ubisoft logo and PS3 intro. That's it.
• Menu interface looks like it's from the days of Rainbow Six Rogue Spear. Blocky and ugly.
• Game can be a little uneven difficulty wise.
• No optional mid-level save, all done at certain points :(
• The terrorists need brains

Warnings:

• If you've seen the cover for the PSP version and gone 'whoah what beautiful screenshots!', think again. They're from the PS3/Xbox360 version of the game.

I'm playing this game right now to get a feel for it again so I can review it. To be honest it's not too bad, but it can feel a little artificial or uninvolving when compared to things like LocoRoco or Resistance Retribution. Yes, I know LocoRoco is completely out of place among PSP shooters, but the point still stands. There's no constant inspiring background music or sound comparable with Call of Duty 4 (even on the DS), and it can feel like Quake 2 singleplayer with the sound turned off because of this.

Once you get past this though it's not too bad for the casual gaming session. In a way the lack of engagement with the player is good because you don't get addicted to it to the point you HAVE to finish it in one night, and that way it's always there ready to be progressed-on (is that even a word?). However there are some problems with keeping the players interest. The terrorists aren't exactly original. In fact, their skills could be summarised in an algorithm like this:

If (player is seen/comes towards you/shoots your drinking buddy)

then walk sidewards back and forth while shooting

end If.

That gets a bit boring after a while, and also makes it hard to make long distance shots if they don't stop moving. The problem is that the terrorists are no where near as skilled as they are aware of the world around them, and that they can't react or fight with much strategy. Another problem with Rainbow Six Vegas is that your own soldier feels more like a robot than a human being. The camera does not follow human movements, rather it slides along the floor like the player is on a segway and not walking. Although, don't get me wrong, segway combat would be awesome. Regardless, the gun swaying left and right is not enough to make the player feel as if they are in the game and not just playing it.

It's not all bad news though. Despite feeling a bit unengaging, the game does have a nice balance of challenge and shooting action, which is why we're all here, no? It's not like some older tactical shooters where having no gun on the hud was apparently the way to go, and there's enough sparks, smoke, blood and bullets to make things interesting. Plus the odd explosion.

There is also some aiming assistance with hip fire to keep things moving too. The normally blue crosshair is surrounded by a red circle indicating that you're aiming at an enemy, and then at this point if you hold L in hip fire mode you can lock on to that target and kiss difficult PSP-esque aiming goodbye. Additionally if you sight an enemy with your scope you can press L on them to track their movements and anticipate their moves. This only works for one person though, so you can't just track the entire enemy force and see through walls :)

I'd say that if you can find a cheap copy of the game, and are looking for a casual 1st person shooter challenge on the PSP, Rainbow Six Vegas is a good buy. If you are looking for something more addictive, maybe Resistance Retribution (albeit it a bit more challenging at times) and LocoRoco (albeit it completely unchallenging full stop) are classics.

I give Vegas a rating of 78/100.