7 February 2010

Dear Vegas 2 developers...

Did you realise that your game is a little frustrating? I'm not talking about the good sort of frustrating that comes from a difficult challenge, either. I'm talking about the intentional cock-blocking and overall asshattery of your team mates who seem to think that in order to advance their own career that I must be removed, allowing them to take my place as squad leader.

I can't think of any tactical situation where moving out of cover, seeing tangos (sorry, i mean enemies) and trying to duck back into the same cover is not an inconceivable solution to the problem of avoiding death. However, my team mates immediately melt into the space my shadow was previously occupying with alarming regularity. Surely bullets penetrate even lightly armoured targets as myself and them standing/crouching so closely might result in their own untimely death. I didn't tend to notice this and other pathing issues that crop up frequently of the two AI-controlled squad members in Vegas 1 so i'm assuming that someone out there in developer land didn't remember the old adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"...

Of arguably greater insult is the whole restart procedure whereby design leads (presumably) made the decision to have most equipment restock chests just after the last save checkpoint meaning that i have to re-equip any changes or refill my ammo/grenades every time i die in the sequence that follows that checkpoint. Not only is this particular oversight frustrating but it is accompanied by the decisions to a) not be able to clip through your team mates (or in fact, walk in a half metre radius around them or slide past them when at that half metre radius) and b) spawn with them directly in front of you and the line of progression, effectively making an impassable barrier to move forward each time you die and respawn until their dim-witted AI routines realise that you in fact do not want to "sex them up" by rubbing your body against their invisible clipping wall in a mime-icry of any true sexual act and instead wish merely to pass by their location.

Other than that, the game is okay, i guess. The sound could do with being balanced better in some circumstances when your audio settings for 99% of the game are fine but then for one or two "cutscenes" you are unable to distinguish the voice actors from the background noise of the helicopter despite having changed nothing.

Please could you address these issues in Vegas 3 (or whatever you're planning on doing with the Rainbow Six series next).

Kind regards,
Duoae.

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