Rainbow Six Vegas 2 concludes the Vegas storyline for this benchmark tactical FPS series.

The question remains, is this one of the franchise’s better installments or is it more of an expansion pack?

One of the big features of Vegas 2 is the new and improved PEC (Persistent Elite Creation) mode, essentially their very own character creation system. Another major feature is that of ACES (Advanced Combat Enhancement Specialization) which will grant unlockable items based on your play style, split into three categories. The three categories are CQB (Close Quarters Battle), Assault, and Marksman; getting points in one of the three categories gets you a weapon in that field. For example; a shotgun for CQB, assault rifle for Assault, or a sniper rifle for Marksman. The ACES system is active in the campaign, Terrorist Hunt, and multi player. You also earn points to rank up; which unlocks armor, clothing, and camouflage. The weapons still follow in their sub-machine gun, assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle categories; like previous Rainbow Six games.

Overall most weapons are somewhat realistic and more importantly are situational. There’s really no gun that’s great at everything, you’ll need to find a gun that fits your play style for that map and game type. The one problem with the guns is that certain shotguns, like the Spas12 and 500 Tactical, are way too powerful and have too much range. You can literally get sniped with a shotgun sometimes.

The graphics for Vegas 2 have been improved over Vegas 1. There’s a somewhat noticeable difference, but they’re not very impressive; especially after the graphically stunning barrage of the holiday 2007 games in which many games focused on destructible environments, rather than just putting bullet holes in some walls, and breaking some glass, like in this game. Sometimes you can’t even move or interact with little things like a lunchbox, trashcan, or glass doesn’t properly shatter; which hurts immersion.

Unfortunately the campaign doesn’t live up to its predecessor. Vegas 1 had a feeling like the television show 24, since the entire campaign was one long mission with a very urgent feel to it. Vegas 2 feels very disjointed, like the developers almost said “Okay, here’s the school level, casino level, oil refinery level, and others; now put them in some random order.” The game almost has no story at all, you just run from point A to point B and kill everyone in between. The enemy AI is still top-notch; they take cover, flank, use certain types of grenades, and blind fire. However this level of AI doesn’t transfer to your teammates. They perform well in combat, but their navigation is sometimes off. Several times the AI teammates were walking into objects, or would take cover on a wall and refuse to move. Online co-operative play has been stepped down a notch, Vegas 1 allowed for four players, whereas Vegas 2 only allows two players; but now you’re allowed to see cut-scenes while playing co-op.

Another feature of Vegas 2 is Terrorist Hunt. This game type can be played alone, with AI teammates, or up to three friends online. The objective is to kill all the terrorists that are located on the multi player maps. The game play and AI remains the same in this mode as in the campaign. The major problem with Terrorist Hunt is the enemy spawning as instead of enemies spawning when the game starts, you have to walk past certain parts of the map to manually spawn them. Rainbow Six has always been about being tactical and clearing rooms, but with having to trigger spawns it takes the tactical element away from the game. You might walk into a room with no enemies, then when you walk past a certain point, the game will spawn three enemies around you and you’re dead within seconds. Sometimes you might kill every terrorist on the map, except the last 2, then you’ll spend the entire time left looking for them and you might not ever find them, because they never spawned. These situations don’t always happen, but they taint the overall experience.

The multi player mode comes with 13 maps, two of those coming from previous games. It also features five game modes; Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Attack & Defend, Total Conquest, and Team Leader. This is where Rainbow Six’s tactical game play and PEC mode fire on all cylinders. This is one of the best multi player games on Xbox Live. There’s really no big problems from it. It’s everything that Vegas 1 was, but they’ve fixed most of the major complaints from it.

If you were a fan of Vegas 1 you’ll probably enjoy this game too. The biggest thing hurting it is that it feels more like an expansion pack, than a sequel. With that disclaimer out of the way, this is one of the best shooters on the Xbox 360 that the more realistic FPS fans will enjoy.

Reviewer’s note: The Xbox 360 version was tested for this review

Whenever a video game is made that is based off of a movie, the world lets out a collective sigh. In some very shallow ways the game tries to have some of the movie’s feel. No, it is not in the visual department or combat, it’s through swearing and being vulgar; for example calling the easy difficulty called “Pussy” is how the developers decided to let movie “feel” come through. Other than the characters in the game resembling the actors in the movie, there’s not a really connection between the two. This easily could have been “Stranglehold 2: Now Featuring Curving Bullets”.

If you were hoping that Wanted: Weapons of Fate would keep the same unique, badass, and very “get out of the box” feel that the movie had, you’re going to be disappointed.

The combat in the game is what’s standard in a 3rd person shooter nowadays; the only things really unique are curving bullets and flanking, which really aren’t needed often, mainly due to the game’s normal difficulty being so easy. The game’s AI seems to have only two modes; run straight at you and shoot or stand still and shoot, that plus heavy aim assist makes death or even a challenge highly unlikely.

The concept behind the game seems cool; you switch between Wesley and his father Cross, with Cross’s journey being the beginning, the Wanted movie being the middle, and Wesley’s part in the game as the end of the story. In theory this sounds very interesting, but it fails to deliver, because the game’s story is told in such a derived way. In between each level you’ll see a cutscene which features some surprisingly bad graphics; they actually look worse than gameplay. Also the dialogue in the cutscenes don’t exactly help either, they’re more of an excuse to change levels and locations than anything else.

The game does have some cool moments like Cross storming into a plane, then trying to escape, as the plane becomes completely vertical. Once again, this could have been a very exciting and unique moment in the video game, but it doesn’t follow through, since you aren’t allowed to play this segment; it turns into a quick time event. Moments like these is what a Wanted game should be all about, but there’s really no over the top crazy moments other than this. You basically walk through hallways and lobbies clearing out enemies.

The game also throws in some slow motion quick time events, but instead of hitting a button you have a few seconds to shoot the enemy and the bullets they fired at you. These moments are fun, but they are very rare. Not only would a better variety in types of locations and set-pieces help, but also more weapons and enemies. In total the game has two sets of weapons, you’ll either use your pistol or be duel wielding a set of submachine guns, that’s it, which might be the lowest set of weapons in a shooter this generation. The game tries to mix things up by offering a couple sniper and gun turret sections, but they do not work well since they just feels thrown in and  clunky.

It’s hard to mention enemy variety without laughing. Many levels in the game have one or two character models, which are literally identical, from their clothes to their bodies, so you may the kill the exact same guy fifty times in a level. Luckily with the game only lasting around five hours, the roller coaster ride is over before you want jump off and have a quick death. Once you beat the game you unlock a few different modes, but they’re all just derivative of the normal campaign.

For example, there’s a Headshot Mode which might sound fun, but its simply the normal game with the requirement that you kill everyone with headshots, which is boring. You can also unlock new characters to play as, but this is simply cosmetic because their animations and game mechanics are exactly like Wesley’s, and the unlocked characters don’t appear in the game’s cutscenes.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate is mediocre in every sense of the word, which is a shame since the source material had a lot of potential for a video game. At its core the game is a competent shooter, it’s just highly forgettable and very generic, which is the case for most movie video games.

Reviewer’s note: The Xbox 360 version was tested for this review