Unreal Tournament: Vegas on
Rainbow Six: Vegas

Posted 04/24/2007 at 11:28:26pm

How absurd is a first person tactical shooter that has guns with unlimited ammunition? One of the most basic elements of battlefield tactics is: If you run out of ammunition, you can no longer shoot the enemy, but the enemy can still shoot you. Therefore, you're dead. Omitting this is the definition of sacrificing too much tactical strategy.

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"You can recover from hits just by finding cover and waiting out the damage." Another basic element of battlefield tactics: Homo sapiens generally require a number of Earth days (if not Earth weeks, or Earth months) to recover from the often debilitating effects of getting shot. In other words, getting shot is a bad thing, and should be avoided whenever possible. Once shot, people cannot hide in a closet for thirty seconds and jump out as good as new. People who are shot (not grazed or nicked, actually shot) generally cannot act as effective soldiers, certainly not 60 seconds after being shot. I don't care how elite these soldiers are, they're human, and humans don't react well to bullets.

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"Similarly, teammates can be revived when down, so they’re never out." So, you're saying that poor Ding Chavez can take a shot to the head from a Barret Arms M82 .50 caliber anti-vehicle rifle, have his brain matter reenact "The Big Bang" and his teammates can simply scoop up poor Ding's brains off the wall, put said brains back where they came from, revive Ding and continue on their way? Surely, this must be a sacrifice of too much tactical strategy. Keeping your fellow soldiers from getting shot no longer matters? Ok, fine. Just make sure the medic brings a spatula to speed up the process of scraping Ding's brains off the wall. There are hostages to be saved, and we're in a hurry.

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"With the emphasis on action, the game does take some liberties with realism to intensify the pace." How interesting is 'action' in which it doesn't matter how much you shoot, whether or not you get shot, or whether or not you die (so long as some other Rainbow member is around)? This isn't action, this is a fantasy.

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Rainbow Six: Vegas allows for infinite ammunition, Superman-like healing powers, and the ability for medics to perform miracles. This is NOT Rainbow Six.

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This is Unreal Tournament: Vegas. Change the name, and "old-school die-hards" like me would like this game.

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Oh, and one more thing. We're actually "old-school die-easyies." We don't react well to bullets.

Hit the nail right on the head! on
Game Theory: Rainbow 5 1/2

Posted 04/17/2007 at 10:41:32pm

Thanks for raising this! I was morbidly dissapointed by Lockdown, and seeing the trailer for Rainbow Six: Vegas in which a Rainbow operative puts down his close combat weapon to heave up his two meter long sniper rifle to score a headshot at a stupefying range of 25 feet just proved to me that the Rainbow series was very much "Tango down."

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Interjection by Roommate: Imagine how I felt, I am a sniper, I always am in every combat game, excpet games with tanks. and even I don't like the sound of that. its idiotic. the very definition of a sniper is 'long range' End Interjection.

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I was one of the "loyal, hardcore, dedicated." The King is dead, long live the King.

NewsI disagree with the author RE: Flying/Racing/Whatever on
Stay off my computer/console, you!

Posted 04/17/2007 at 10:31:03pm

"if it requires some kind of joystick to operate in real life, there's no reason why you should be mashing W, S, A, or D to do so in virtual life"

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I agree completely with this statement, but I believe the statement completely misses the point. If the flying/racing game is a simulation then the program should be on a PC, regardless of whether or not it is playable with a mouse and keyboard.

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Can you play a racing or flying sim with W,S,A,D? No. Can you play a racing or flying sim on a console? No. Note that I am considering "sims" to be proper, brutal, hardcore sims, such as GTR2, GT Legends, Grand Prix Legends, rFactor, netKar Pro, IL-2, Battle of Britain, Falcon 4.0, Microsoft Flight Simulatior and Lock On: Modern Air Combat.

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If any type of simulation (which, does qualify under the "Flying/Racing/Whatever" umbrella) ever ended up exclusively in the realm of consoles, it would cease to exist. There is no market for simulations on consoles. Simulations are also unplayable on console gamepads. The simulations I have listed above require either a joystick or a steering wheel and pedals. An analog mini-joystick on a gamepad will not work.

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Just because something doesn't work with a mouse and a keyboard doesn't mean it should automatically get shipped to consoles.