The Rainbow Six series has evolved in interesting ways. Starting out life as a PC shooter with a great amount of depth - and a few failed console attempts such as an installment on the Nintendo 64 - the series switched directions when Rainbow Six 3 for the Xbox (a game far removed from its PC counterpart) blew up the online console gaming market. Suddenly the series was console-friendly and Ubi Soft ran with it. Rainbow Six: Black Arrow followed and was another smash hit - but then the inevitable happened. The developers changed the game too much and Rainbow Six: Lockdown flopped. Its expansion, Rainbow Six: Critical Hour was widely ignored - and so it's with great pleasure that I can tell everyone that Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas recaptures that classic gameplay the original RS3 blew us away with, but with some great - and essential - additions to the overall engine.

A whole new team has been brought in to combat a growing terrorist threat in sinfully beautiful Las Vegas. Gone, but not forgotten, are the days of Dingo and Weber; now your team consists of the tough Texan with a heart, Logan Keller (that's you), and a small amount of other tough soldiers from around the world, keeping the concept of the Rainbow Six team alive with diversity in character origin. As with most Rainbow games, the story isn't the stuff of legends, but it does try. Whilst terrorists capturing various casinos acts as the main plot of the game, there are various underlying elements, including members of your team being captured and even a few twists near the end of the game to add a couple of surprises.

Vegas acts as a great playground for you to use all the wonderful new tools at your disposal, thanks to the brand new gameplay mechanics. Vegas uses a superb cover engine, not unlike Gears of War, but it works in a much different way. When near any kind of wall or large object, you can hold the L trigger to press up against it and hide, going into a third person perspective much like Perfect Dark Zero. From here it's a simple matter of moving along the wall to a corner from which you can fire, or blind fire, or simply poking your head out above the cover and firing. It's incredibly efficient and simple, lacking the accidental mistakes often found in GoW's cover system, where the character performs another action assigned to the same button.

Even more thought has been put into the cover system though; when you reach the corner of most cover you can actually pear around it with your gun, simply by moving the thumbstick further. Releasing the thumbstick moves you back behind the cover safely, while releasing the L trigger makes you leave the cover completely. This concept of taking cover is complimented by the new health regeneration system; when you take a few shots, the screen turns a very dim shade, making it tough to find your way to safety at times. Sometimes you can make it to cover, but be warned - you can't take a lot of hits in Vegas without dying! [Something that most gamblers know all too well… Ed].

Outside of the cover system come many context-sensitive abilities, mostly involving ropes; you can fast rope out of helicopters or down windows, or scale buildings whilst equipped with a pistol to fire at enemies inside the building before breaching the window. Clicking in the right thumbstick from here inverts your character as he flips upside down to get a better view of the action. This, combined with the new cover system and the ability to command your team, really makes Vegas feel more like a proper tactical squad shooter than ever - add to that the fact that any gun can be equipped with a silencer at any time during gameplay, plus the ability to change the rate of fire too, and you've got yourself an incredibly well designed game engine.

The commanding system works like it has for years now - for the most part. At any time you can push the A button to command your team to move wherever you're looking. If you point at cover then they'll automatically position themselves behind it. Looking at doors and ladders opens up command options such as Frag and Clear or Flash and Clear, depending on whether your team is set to assault mode or stealth mode. One new feature however is the ability to mark two targets at a time for your team to focus on. For instance, imagine a secure room with two different entrances; you command your two-man squad to 'stack up' against one door and prepare for entry, then head for the other entrance yourself. Using a small camera you can peer under the doorway and see who or what is inside, like in Splinter Cell. Hitting the back button on a specific terrorist puts a mark above his head, then and as soon as you command your team to enter they'll eliminate the ones you've marked first. You don't even have to go in if you correctly command your squad - and the best part is that the marks above the enemies' heads when they're a target also help you to keep track of enemies on screen no matter what's between you or them, as well as confirming when they've been neutralized. There's nothing quite like ordering your team to breach into a maximum security casino and watching them take out the targets you indicate right away, without having to even fire your gun.

The Vegas setting allows for a lot of other truly spectacular firefights and locales. You'll battle a huge squad of terrorists along the famous strip, blow open walls to enter the ventilation shafts of a casino vault, scale massive heights that overlook one of the most amazing views you'll find on the 360 and take a huge leap of faith off the Las Vegas Dam. There are only six levels in all, but each is huge and they can be incredibly difficult at times - yet ultimately very rewarding and satisfying. This is easily one of the best single player shooters on the market right now and a great step forward for the franchise.

The multiplayer works essentially the same as the single player game, incorporating all of the fast ropes, rappelling and covering found in the campaign into the multiplayer maps. To prove that Vegas is serious about reclaiming the glory of Rainbow Six 3, the developers have also included a fan-favorite map, City Streets Large (renamed simply Streets) and plan to release Presidio as well. The new maps are mostly incorporated from the single player mode, such as the Casino Vault found early in the game, as well as the under construction Dante's Casino found later on. A few maps are built from scratch as well, including the new fan-favorite Killhouse, which features two adjacent multi-story buildings with numerous catwalks and alleys between them.

The modes are familiar as well, bringing the tactical Survival and run and gun Sharpshooter modes, as well as the return of Retrieval (introduced in Black Arrow) and the new Attack and Defend mode, where each map has a new objective. For example, one level may require one team to break into a casino and steal documents while another map will challenge them to defuse a bomb or rescue hostages. Total Conquest has been removed from the mix, but plans have been made to add it when the first big content batch is released for the game via Xbox Live Marketplace. Vegas also features Persistent Elite Creation 2.0, where things are lot less strict than they were in Lockdown. You're no longer restricted to picking a class with a specific set of weapons, nor do you need to purchase items such as armor or grenades. Lockdown's extra additions for each class, such as the Engineer's ability to change level aspects or planting turrets, have also been removed - but in all fairness they never quite worked anyway. PEC level upgrades simply unlock a couple of new guns and numerous armor options, with little else - a change for the better in my opinion. This is back to basics Rainbow Six 3 gameplay with logical advancements in the way you can control your characters, with no major gimmicks or restrictions like in Lockdown.

Graphically Vegas is a huge accomplishment for the series and for the Xbox 360. Many of the visuals rival the best looking games available, with top notch animations and presentation. Each level is introduced and ended with a stunning helicopter ride that blows away the similar concept found in GRAW. Explosions and lighting also look spectacular, with a large effort put into how each gun fires and reloads. Likewise, the weapons all sound great, the voice acting is decent and the music epic. All around it's a great package, but not without a few missteps. Graphically the only real downside is that the enemies all tend to look exactly the same; however, there is a major issue I have with another mode, one that is a beloved favorite of me and numerous other Rainbow fans - Terrorist Hunt. This is a mere shell of what it once was, shifting the settings from single player levels to the online adversarial maps full of terrorists who warp in at will. Unlike previous Rainbow games, where terrorists were in set locations from the start and you had to find them, they now move and spawn to nearby areas, ruining the whole concept. To master the mode means to learn how the game spawns the enemies and how to manipulate that to your advantage - with some practice you can sometimes eliminate twenty or more terrorists by only navigating a couple of rooms. The game mode works the same way online and the Mission co-op mode isn't much better, either. All the story elements have been removed, making it act as sort of a more elaborate terrorist hunt. The whole storyline and great cinematic moments are really crippled and it makes for a poor excuse for an online mode compared to what else is out there - Gears of War's excellent jump-in co-op for instance.

There is one area of the game that has been drastically improved over Vegas's predecessors, and that is the artificial intelligence. Enemies will flank the living hell out of you to levels of insanity, including foes who will run all the way down an out of the way flight of stairs to get under you and fire on you through a grating in the floor. They take cover, dodge grenades and fire with pinpoint accuracy. The enemies in this game are no joke and, especially on the Realistic difficulty, are not to be taken lightly. It makes for a truly satisfying experience where you'll need to use all your wits and skill to get out alive.

With the exception of the Terrorist Hunt and online co-op short comings, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas is a huge accomplishment that brings the series back from the depths of mediocrity in Lockdown and returns it to the pure tactical fun found in the first Xbox outing. Any first person shooter fan should pick this game up, but those who especially look for realism and shy away from the GoW and Halo sci-fi based games will really be impressed with this one. Welcome back Rainbow Six!

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).