After spending more time with Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, it is becoming apparent that the multiplayer aspect of the game is somewhat broken.  Many of these problems were already addressed in our full review of the title, but it is now clearer where the pain points are and how Ubisoft can address them.

It should be noted that many of our gripes with the game are due to our experiences with the previous version, and the subsequent expectations we had for the sequel.  If you've never played the first title these problems might not bother you at all, but you are also missing out on a lot of fun.  I encourage everybody to pick up a copy of the original Rainbow Six: Vegas (probably in the bargain bin at your local game shop) and give it a spin.  The original is arguably better (and more fun) than Vegas 2, but regardless, if you have a fresh perspective on the current iteration of the game, definitely let us know via comments below.

I also want to re-iterate that Vegas 2 does a lot of things right.  The feel of the game is great, animations are smoother, and controls are tight.  The multiplayer maps are brilliant, and are very fun to play from a design perspective.  They got all of those elements (which are the core of the game) 100% correct.  It is the arbitrary limitations to the game modes that are killing multiplayer for me, coupled with a few other nuances.  I know many of these well-intentioned restrictions are in place to reduce cheating and to keep gamers from leveling up too quickly, and I agree that some of the tweaks are good.  However, a couple of them wind up killing gameplay.  It's as if Ubisoft took a wrong turn on the last leg of the journey to perfection.

I think if they patched the game to fix 3 major issues, it would get them back on track:

1)  Split up Team Deathmatch.  Unless you are doing an advanced search, if you want to play on a team there is basically only one selection for you:  Team Deathmatch.  You can't choose whether you want to play only Team Survival or Team Sharpshooter.  The difference between these two game modes is essentially respawning.  There are many gamers that enjoy one-and-done gameplay, and for them, Team Survival is wonderful.  However I would say most gamers prefer to have respawning, and for them, Team Sharpshooter is where it's at.  Grouping these two types under one "Deathmatch" umbrella was a huge mistake.  If you are a Sharpshooter lover who happens to wind up on a server that is hosting Team Survival, after you die, you usually just quit and search for a new room (rather than wait 10 minutes for the last camping asshole to die).

This is ruining Team Survival games, because the gamer turnover is too high.  It's hard for Survival hosts to keep a fluid string of games going.  This is obviously frustrating for Sharpshooter lovers as well, because they have no choice as to where they will wind up.

This basic problem makes unranked play annoying, and ranked matches a complete joke.  Ubisoft, please split Team Deathmatch up into two parts:  Team Survival, and Team Sharpshooter.  This is how you had it in the first Rainbow Six: Vegas, and there is no reason for changing it.

2)  Leave all hosting options active, regardless of game mode.  The arbitrary limiting of hosting options, depending on game mode, is retarded.  If I want to play a co-op terrorist hunt with unlimited respawns, on realistic with heavy enemy density, I should be allowed to do so.  I might not get any achievements for it, but I should still be allowed to do it.  Currently I can't, and it limits how fun this mode can be.

Want to play Attack & Defend with unlimited respawns?  Nope, can't do that either.  Even at its maximum setting, if players happen to die 3 times early on, they are screwed and have to sit there watching the match until it ends.  So what do they wind up doing half the time?  That's right... they quit.  Honestly Ubisoft, did you even spend 5 minutes thinking that through?

I'm sure they made these changes to help eliminate boosting (hah) and to even out gameplay to give defenders a better chance, however there are better ways to do this.

For example, why not allow unlimited respawns, but have the defenders spawn a little bit closer to the current package (or bomb/hostage) location than the attackers?  Or maybe have the defenders spawn more quickly?  There are a million ways to tackle balancing the gameplay, but Ubisoft chose the shortest path.  By eliminating gamer choice and forcing everybody to play the game their way, they are effectively limiting how much fun and variety the game can offer.

Stupid.

3)  The dead can no longer voice-chat with the living in Team Deathmatch

I'm sure this change was done to curb "cheating", however when you die, you no longer hear your teammates that are still alive, nor can you talk to them.  You can only talk to other players that are also dead, waiting to re-spawn.

This change kind of makes sense if you are playing a Team Survival match.  It cuts down on distracting chatter (for people still alive) and of course you don't want dead players helping out the ones that are still alive (even though help from the dead is limited, in that they can only watch the screens of people on their own team).  However for any game that has respawns (especially unlimited respawning), disabling chat is just stupid.

Should you die, you have roughly 7 seconds (on average) before you respawn again.  In those 7 seconds, chatting with the living is disabled, and you can only chat with other teammates who are dead (which at any given moment isn't very many people).  I honestly do not know what Ubisoft was thinking when they decided to disable chat-with-the-living for this ridiculously short timespan.

This does nothing to curb cheating, and in fact winds up greatly hindering communication and team play because people are constantly dropping in and out of chat.  It has the net effect of reducing the amount of talking to almost nothing.  I cannot tell you how many games I have played where people have complained that their mics are not working, or that there is something wrong with the server because of this bullshit.  Nobody knows what is going on, because no other game disables chat for unlimited respawn matches, including the previous Rainbow Six: Vegas.

Rainbow Six titles are known for abundant and necessary team communication, but all of that changes with Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.  Team silence is exactly what this ludicrous policy is encouraging, and it is affecting all matches across-the-board.  Try playing Attack and Defend with nobody talking.  That's right, you lose.

If chat-with-the-living were enabled, I suppose in those 7 seconds I could warn my teammates where the enemy is, which might be considered cheating.  However if I can just tell them 7 seconds later, what does it matter?  If my teammates are going to be hunted down within the timespan of 7 seconds, would any warnings really be effective anyway?

This change needs to go away, and Ubisoft needs to enable chat-with-the-living on matches that have unlimited respawn.  As it stands now, this bug (yes, I'm calling it a bug, because it is too stupid to be a gameplay decision) is greatly disrupting team communication in a way that is confusing players, with zero benefit to gameplay.

There are a few other odd changes that Ubisoft made to gameplay that I find annoying, but I'm not sure they can be addressed via a simple patch.  For example, in Terrorist Hunt, enemies are not pre-populated on the map when you start the game.  They spawn in from all sides depending on where your characters are walking.  In the old Vegas, the enemies were already laid out, and if you thoroughly cleaned out one section of the map you could be confident that an enemy wouldn't randomly spawn to blast you from behind.

This isn't the case with Vegas 2.  An enemy can appear at any moment, many times just popping onto the screen out of thin air directly in front of you.  And guess what, the computer is always faster at pulling the trigger.  Dial the settings to the harder levels and Terrorist Hunt becomes a complete chaotic mess, and there is no coherent way you can really plan to sweep through the level because enemies will randomly spawn all around you.

Terrorist Hunt becomes less about planning and execution (which is what the Rainbow series of games were all about, if you recall), and more about learning what "hot-spots" on the map will trigger the next shit-storm.

Is this fun?  I guess it can be...  Especially if you've never played the original Vegas.  But I think in comparison, this mode has taken a turn for the worse.

But that is enough from us... What would you change about Vegas 2?  Did we get it wrong?  Leave your rants below.