PS3 Tom Clancys Rainbow six Vegas style

For anyone holding out to play the PlayStation 3 version of Rainbow Six: Vegas, the wait has certainly yielded the most generous version of the game so far. It's a substantial and feature-packed game: It includes all the features of the 360 version (bar the Vision Cam face-mapping technology) and the recently released Player's Pack Red Edition, new multiplayer maps, and some extra tweaks like using the Sixaxis to control the under-the-door snake camera.

The single-player campaign is exactly the same as we've seen before in the 360 version, and it's a far more substantial campaign than what we've seen from this franchise previously. Whereas previous Rainbows were little more than a series of well-designed skirmishes loosely hooked together in sequence, the new game is actually built around a story arc. While it's certainly not the most imaginative narrative you'll ever come across, it does bring the game a far greater sense of purpose than we've seen in previous episodes, despite being marred by a Halo 2–style cliff-hanger ending. It's fun, it's relatively short, but it's not really the reason people play Rainbow Six games.

The real meat comes from the multiplayer modes, which in this version include two co-op modes (a four-player version of the story mode, which is tremendous fun, and a co-op terrorist hunt) and eight adversarial modes. Of most interest are the two new modes from Red Edition, Total Conquest and Assassination. The former is a team-based capture-and-hold game, which is remarkably fast-paced when played on some of the smaller maps, and requires coordinated teamwork for the best results. Thankfully the voice functionality is remarkably clear, with all the chat noticeably less crunchy than that heard on the 360 version. Assassination, similarly, is big on teamwork, as it's an attack-and-defend game with a VIP instead of a static object. On the defending team, one player is randomly selected as the target, and is dropped into the environment in civilian clothes and equipped with just a handgun. The objective is for the team to escort him to an extraction point while eliminating the opposition. If the VIP dies, the game is over. When played "seriously" it's remarkably fun, but of all the modes in Vegas it's one most likely to be spoiled by uncooperative play. For shooter fans looking for an alternative to Resistance, particularly online, Vegas offers plenty to keep things interesting. It's solid, pretty good-looking, and packs a thoroughly decent single-player campaign, too.
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