tom clancy's rainbow six: vegas

damn where should i start. hmm.... what about i'll kick off today's post with something like this: this game is so good that i HAVE to write about it and tell it to everyone because in that way maybe i could calm myself and not be over-excited because i'm not breathing well right now. this is THE game that i have been waiting for all these years, and it delivers. have i told you this game ROCKS? and it just, ROCKS? sorry for that, i guess my 'gamer blood' temperature's up again after a LONG time.

so my current rig's spec is pentium 4 2.8Ghz with HT, 1024mb RAM, 256mb radeon x1950 pro AGP and sound blaster audigy 4. playing at 1280x960 with all graphical settings set to ON and HIGH, this game runs smoothly without any noticeable hiccups and gives me a decent playing fps (about 20-30 fps). oh i love my rig i wish i can have sex with it.

i have been a great fan of tom clancy's rainbow six game series since the first one and my favorite installation is of course raven shield. the fourth game, lockdown is such a total letdown because it's basically a port from consoles that was made for dumb console players. no tactical planning, idiotic a.i. and a pain in the ass feeling of another fucking generic shooter made for those dumb console players. first person shooters should ONLY be made on computer; especially tactical ones. that was one dumb fucking mistake made by the developers and i don't want to talk about it.

after the terrible disaster that is LOCKDOWN, came the fifth game in the series: VEGAS. at first i was skeptical that the series greatness will never be born again. in a lot of ways, vegas is not as tactically fun or challenging as raven shield, but the developer has successfully implemented a new slick, wicked cover system that is not only fun and functional, it just simply WORKS. it is less tactical and much more forgiving and the gameplay speed really has risen up compared to the realistic approach that raven shield took; but the change has evolved and bring up the series to a new height of simplicity, style and feel. it sits right in the middle of the slow paced hardcore tactical team based shooter like raven shield and the more actiony hollywood action movie style games like kill switch. really interesting stuff.

like i said before, the new gameplay mechanic that i think are going to save the rainbow six series and hopefully other game franchise could look at it and learn something about it so that they can improve on it an put it into their own game is the new cover system. you press the right mouse button and you get your back against the wall. you press the directional key outside the cover you're in, pop out, shoot the enemy and pop right in. it's gaming mechanic genius. you could even blind fire behind cover when you're desperate.

with the pacing given a punch of steroids or two and the hollywood action movie style, you really feel like a bad ass elite counter terrorist cop guy. i also noticed the a.i. has improved with enemies taking cover and trying to flank you when they have a chance. i guess the developers has learnt something from another great fps with great artificial intelligence: F.E.A.R.

to be continued....

so the game is set in sin city: las vegas. the graphical power of the new unreal engine 3 is still not put into good use but the overall graphics in the game is still nice and the developers nailed the sin city look perfectly with slot machines, neon and even hookers and advertisement of stuff i don't care but has hald naked women on it. terrorists have taken over vegas and you're there to save the day. pretty generic story but really, do we give a shit about good story in an action game? but a decent one is a super plus.

there is a lot of stuff to do in the game beyond shooting terrorists in the fucking face. you could give orders to your 2 team mates to take cover, breach door, rappel from roof, heal each other and kill, kill, kill !!! it's really fun and exciting when you're carefully planning and organizing your team mates before entering a room full of terrorists. do you enter stealthly, pick a nice position that cover the whole danger zone? or place the door with explosive, throw in a flashbang or two and go in guns blazing ala rambo? it's your choice.

this game is also available on the xbox 360 and the only thing that's better on the xbox is it's graphics and during online play, you could use the xobx360 camera to take your picture and put it in the character in the game so that terrorist could identify your ugly dumb face and shoot you in the head. online. the controls are superior on the pc with the mouse and keyboard set up. in a nutshell, if you're a fan of an action tactical shooter ( but not in the level of hardcore ), you definitely have to check this out. on par with gears of war.