ACES for your skill sets
Now one thing a lot of people have been wondering is how the single player and co-op modes will integrate with each other. Well, it’s seamless. Other than the fact that you’ll only order two guys around in co-op rather than three, the game plays exactly the same. Well, the AI is ramped up a bit more as there’s two human players, but you can progress through the storyline either in single player or in co-op… or in a mix of the two. Either way, you still progress, whether you have another player with you or not.New to Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is the ACES system which, rather superbly, is persistent through all the playing modes in Rainbow Six Vegas 2, both on and offline. This is a skill system that analyses how you play the game and awards you with weapon unlocks accordingly. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a multiplayer deathmatch, co-op story mode or just sitting playing on your lonesome, you’ll still be earning points towards one of the three different disciplines: Marksman, Close Quarters or Assault.
So for a CQB expert (hah!) such as myself, I unlocked a variety of shotguns. I’m not a huge fan of shotguns though, the reload time and small capacity don’t suit my ‘spray and pray’ shooting style… plus the accuracy is questionable when you’ve got hostages in the room as well.
So I then focused on my assault technique and saw the rewards early on with some new assault weapons… but soon enough I dropped back into my close quarters playing style. But it was ok, shotguns are good in the right situation, especially so in multiplayer deathmatching, something I’ll be talking about in the next article.
Ok, so far in Rainbow Six Vegas 2 we’ve got an improved control and cover system, ramped up difficulty, a persistent weapon unlock system and a much richer, more integrated story mode that doesn’t care if you’re playing alone or with a mate. What else is there? Ooh, yeah, there’s the ranking system, which, just like the ACES weapon unlock system, tallies up your points regardless of which mode you’re playing in.
Now unlike the ACES system, the ranking really has little impact on gameplay itself and is more about kudos for building up your rank and unlock visual extras. You can kit your virtual self out in all manner of gear, adding on different helmets, glasses and goggles, gloves and other fancy frippery that actually has no impact on the game itself. But you shouldn’t dismiss the rankings out of hand as unlike the ACES system which gets you your first unlocks fairly early on, the ranking ladder takes a lot longer to climb. So when you see a Captain online, you’ll know he’s spent a serious amount of time in Rainbow Six Vegas 2… and probably doesn’t have a girlfriend but hey, at least he’s the daddeh in Rainbow Six Vegas 2!
Check back soon for my report on the absolute mayhem of multiplayer.
