Hardcore Goes Tactical

Published April 1, 2008

For those that cherish unrelenting realism in their first-person shooters, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® Vegas 2 for Xbox 360® is a watershed title. Its unerring focus on real-world authenticity reinforces the game's tactical intensity at every turn, while offering subtle, distinctive tools and features seemingly custom-built for the hardcore gamer.

Peek-a-boo! I see you!

Every gun boasts its own unique merits and feel, and every equipment loadout has its own strategic options. There are subtleties found only after trial and error, practice and dedication. Every hour of gameplay produces yet more expertise in the hands of a skilled gamer.

It's these challenges, these self-imposed restraints that allow the hardcore gamer to go beyond what is necessary and prove their skill and unrivaled ability.

Even the improvements to the game's mechanics are geared for precision. For example, the new Reload Cancel allows you to jam your half-empty magazine back into your gun if you're caught out by an enemy while reloading. A much appreciated new tool for the competitive gamer.

Likewise, the ability to sprint grants a much needed boost in confidence when moving from cover to cover, pursuing an enemy, attempting to retreat, and, best of all, when desperately trying to outrun a recently tossed grenade's blast radius. Even your bullet's newfound ability to pierce cover rewards the most environmentally aware players above all others.

Surprise!

Of course, for all the deserved praise I may heap upon the naturally hardcore status of Rainbow Six Vegas 2, there still remain a number of homebrew hardcore challenges to ratchet up the difficulty even beyond the game's already hefty challenge rating. Let's look at a few.

You Clear

For so many players, the A.I. teammates do the heavy lifting when clearing a room in the single-player Campaign, relied upon to open, flash/smoke/breach and take out the "tagged" enemies. Use your A.I. comrades, sure, but if it's a challenge you crave, make sure yours is the first move when clearing a room.

Whether you're crashing through a skylight, shooting through a window, or fast-roping down into the action, put yourself in harm's way before your teammates. Allow them to supplement, not define your skill.

Move, Move, Move!

Any skilled Rainbow Six Vegas 2 player can plant themselves behind cover with good fire lines in multiplayer matches and claim kills as players go by. Earn top billing on the end-of-match leaderboard when you're constantly on the move though, and you'll boast a true claim to fame.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is a tactical shooter after all, and no one could call foul if you played with a great deal of care, using cover constantly, moving only when sure of safety. That said, the hardcore looks not only for stats, but for challenge, and playing on the prowl will grant you all the difficulty you require.

Psst! You're about to have a bad day.

Throw to Impair

Leave the frag and incendiary grenades to those that need them, the novice player. Rely instead on more subtle techniques like lighting up a pursuing enemy's hallway with a flash grenade, smoking a room entrance and switching to thermal to pick out your targets, or setting a strategically placed laser trip wire to alert you of an enemy's presence. In short, if you score a kill, let it be with a bullet.

Ill-Suited to the Purpose

Any time you find yourself in a room where you can confidently claim the top spot every time, allow me to suggest the use of weaponry that is most ill-suited to the map at hand. For example, tailor your tactics to the shotgun when faced with a large, open map while letting the sniper rifle do the talking when navigating claustrophobic, indoor battlefields with tight hallways, stairwells, and small rooms. Find victory while using the least preferable equipment and you may hold your head high indeed.

In the Dark

The proper use of thermal/night vision goggles can go a long way to swinging a fight in your favor, but how well do you think you could fare when stripping yourself of their use in the game's darker maps and levels, whether offline or online. Could you pick out the silhouette and fire true before your night-vision-using adversary draws a bead on you?

Despite its naturally hardcore state, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 still offers so many opportunities to make use of impromptu, homebrew challenges. It's these challenges, these self-imposed restraints, that allow the hardcore gamer to go beyond what is necessary and prove their skill and unrivaled ability to their opponents and, more importantly, to themselves. Make me proud, soldier!

Article by Hardcore