Aim down sights is consigned to clicking the right thumbstick, sprinting is on the left bumper (with your character’s stamina being that of a 60 year-old smoker), and there appears to be no way to melee opponents in close quarters. Why is that?įor starters, the game itself controls oddly and never feels very comfortable. But for a well liked game, no one ever really talks about Vegas 2 nowadays. That isn’t to say that the game was not warmly received, as it got solid reviews across the board (including a positive, four star review by Jeff Gerstmann). Released on March 18th, 2008 (five months after the seminal Call of Duty 4 and eight months before Gears of War 2 solidified its predecessor’s legacy) the game felt like Ubisoft had designed it for a previous era of consumer expectations. I can’t really separate out my interest in Vegas 2 from the timing of it hitting the market. Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 was one such game, but playing through it with modern eyes reveals it to be a fascinating case study in the evolution of shooters. But during the decade that shooters established now-modern conventions, there were many titles in which “incorrect” design decisions placed them in the dustbin of history. In no genre was this most apparent than in shooters, which evolved a great deal from early generation titles such as Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and Call of Duty 2 to “split-gen” games like Titanfall and Destiny. However, it wasn’t long ago that this wasn’t the case, and one must only look back to the Xbox 360/ Playstation 3 era to see a far more eclectic mix of game designs in big budget titles. Open world games are now expected to have top of class shooting and driving mechanics, all shooters must have some sort of RPG-inspired customizability, and god help any RPG that lacks “tight” controls. In recent years we’ve seen an unprecedented blending of genre elements into all manner of video games. It’s astonishing to think about how far game design has come in the past decade.