Tom Clancy and Ubisoft seem to think they’re on to something: If the people liked GRAW in 2006, they’ll love GRAW 2 in 2007. And if they liked Rainbow Six: Vegas in 2007, they’ll love R6:V2 in 2008.

There was a recent era in which we only had to lament this annual release strategy as it related to sports games. Developers couldn’t possibly revolutionize football passing or puck physics or free-throw shooting in 11 months, but we needed those marginally improved graphics and updated rosters, so we opened our wallets. Annual shooters, though, expose the real shortcomings of such a rushed development cycle. There’s no time to take the game in a radically (or even moderately) different direction, so we end up with a handful of gameplay tweaks and AI revisions bolted onto last year’s game. Sometimes the result is $60 worth of buggy, poorly translated garbage (see: GRAW2), and sometimes the result is Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

Custom face creation … well, it could
be better

Vegas 2‘s big change, as far as I’m concerned, is the expansion of the first game’s character creation and experience components. You now use your created guy in every mode of the game, and you can accumulate experience and fabulous firearm prizes as you gun your way through the campaign, not just multiplayer. All the goodies you get in campaign are available in multiplayer, and vice versa. My primary concern in pretty much any game is unlocking whatever can be unlocked, so this is a welcome change. Most of the equipment in the first Vegas was simply beyond my grasp because I rarely played online.

Most of Vegas 2‘s other improvements fall on the online side of the fence. The full campaign is now co-op-able with two players, replacing last year’s four-player, cut-scene-less oddity. Beyond that, Ubi could have added zombie walruses to the multiplayer; I’ll never know because I’ll never play it.

Grafting new features onto last year’s game also seems to have roughened up some of the edges. I lost my teammates at one point and had to backtrack through the level to convince them it was OK to come out of their hiding places. It’s possible to shoot bad guys through wooden crates or thin walls, but not through chain-link or orange plastic construction fences. And certain cover objects seem to prevent you from moving the way you’d like, making it impossible to work the so-vital lean-and-shoot tactic with much success.

The Ubi-Clancy cabal seems set on milking its franchises as frequently as possible, and in that light, Vegas 2 could have been much worse. But it’s odd to see bugs introduced into these quick sequels, which are clearly little more than tarted-up expansion packs. It’s no GRAW 2, thankfully, but I can’t help thinking Vegas 2 could’ve been much stronger (and maybe its own game, instead of a weakly connected sequel), if Ubisoft had been willing to give another year to bake.