MCT "Rainbow Six: Vegas 2" is available for both XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune

For: Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
From: Ubisoft
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, intense violence, strong language)

"Rainbow Six: Vegas 2" isn't terribly new, but it is improved. For the legions of gamers who still have the 2006 original spinning in their consoles, that may be news enough.

For those who want a bit more detailed of an explanation, the changes in "R6V2" are modest but almost universally welcome.

Most noticeably, features previously relegated only to multiplayer now appear throughout the game. The campaign's storyline now centers around a character you design yourself, and you can accumulate experience points _ which still lead to better weapons and gear _ in the campaign as well as during multiplayer sessions. A new system that rewards skilled kills _ headshots, close combat attacks and the like _ yields further rewards, and it, too, works across all modes of play.

For those who don't wish to play alone, "R6V2" takes more steps forward than backward. The campaign now supports only two-player instead of four-player co-op, but the ability for a second player to drop in and out at any point without disrupting the first player's progress is a nice and necessary concession. Four-player squads still can band together under the arena-style Terrorist Hunt mode, which has expanded admirably both in terms of maps and gameplay customization options.

On the competitive multiplayer front, "R6V2" adds three new objective-centric modes to complement the usual suspects. More importantly, the game allows players to invite friends to join them in ranked as well as unranked matches. That doesn't fully compensate for the lack of a true party system, a la "Call of Duty 4," but it's a step in the right direction.

Elsewhere, it's pretty much more of the same. Your character's newfound ability to sprint gives the action a modest shot in the arm, but Ubisoft otherwise doesn't meddle with the fundamental gameplay that made the first "Vegas" the best first-person tactical shooter on either console. The graphics definitely haven't improved much, your A.I.-controlled squadmates still aren't as smart as you wish they were, and occasional framerate drops are the price we pay for the game being in simultaneous development for both platforms.

But none of these issues, while each disappointing in their own right, is enough to detract from how refined the game is in the areas that matter. "R6V2" takes a great game, makes it better, and provides closure to a storyline that needed one. That's not everything everyone wanted, but for the core audience, that's more than plenty.