THE first Rainbow Six Vegas ended on an annoying cliffhanger, but was an enjoyable single-player experience. You breached, banged and cleared your way through a number of glitzy locations and back streets controlling two AI team mates as you went.
However, it was the multiplayer mode which lasted the distance, in a similar way to Call Of Duty Four. This edition,
Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (Xbox, £49.99; PS3, £49.99; PC, £39.99, ****), doesn't really offer anything more in the single-
player campaign, except tie up all the loose ends from Vegas One, but once again it does deliver if you play it on Xbox Live.
The main thing you'll notice on both single and multiplayer is that you can now run – very useful when you're trying to dodge grenade blasts. With a new upgrade system, you earn points for things such as stealth or grenade kills. On Xbox Live there are 12 maps to play through and two new game modes. These are well balanced and great fun – you'll spend many hours shooting your mates in the back. If you enjoyed the last version and can't get enough of the series then you'll love this. However, if you're getting a little bored with next gen shooter games then you may wish to try something which pushes the boundaries further than this.
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus 4 (PS3, £49.99, ***) is not a new washing powder, but the new MGS way of presenting their re-mix and expansion pack. The award-winning original, which came out last year, was intriguing, with a great story and a fantastic multi-player experience that had you choosing a squad of players then fighting others online. You could even win cherished characters from opponents and keep them. Unfortunately, this version takes out any single-player story, and instead has you playing random missions with varying objectives. Without a story, Portable Ops Plus is just plain confusing, especially if you haven't played the first game. If you have played the original, you'll be disappointed by the extras on offer. When playing online there are five multi-player modes which can support a maximum of six players and these are quite fun. They include the standard death match and team death match modes. I thought there was going to be more in this title, and if it was a download I would have been impressed, but for me, this just didn't have enough content in it.
The full article contains 427 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
