Gamespot writes on several games previewed over at the recently-concluded E3 in Los Angeles. Among the previewed titles are one of my childhood favorites (if you call university days wasted playing games part of one’s childhood), Rainbow Six. This time, Team Rainbow is back in action in Las Vegas, as they conduct urban warfare with a group of terrorists (surprise!) that has held several VIPs hostage. Well, Rainbow was standard fare–still the usual first-person (or now by default, third-person, over-the-shoulder) shooter. But this new release has some interesting new features.

Interestingly, in Rainbow Six Vegas, whenever you have line of sight on an area (whether by direct sight or with the snake cam), you can “tag” any hostiles you see, which assigns them to various members of your team. In this way, you can have some of your team members queued up to attack specific targets on one side of a room, while you burst into the other to flank. This tactic worked extremely well in the casino room; the only casualties were some of the brightly lit slot machines, which poured out piles of coins when blasted open. This other tactic also worked well in the adjoining area, a foyer located just under the casino room where Dr. Schmidt and several other hostages were being held. We tagged a few of the terrorists on the far side of the room and fast-roped down on the near side, which let us quickly and surgically take down the remaining terrorists and rescue the hostages. It also gave us just enough time to observe the ticking down of a timer on a large monitor at the far end of the room near the window; as the timer reached zero, the towering resort building opposite the casino exploded outside.

Xboxyde.com has a handful of images, and a copy of the CG trailer (which some people hate, actually).

Gamespy also has quite a number of screencaps and a preview, and is quite optimistic with the development of the title.

It’s great to see that the Rainbow Six ship has been righted, and we’re excited to see what we’ll be seeing later this year when it releases. Plus, since the franchise was built on intense multiplayer action, you can be sure that you’ll be getting plenty of bang for your buck. I’m sure we’ve all got our lists of features we want to see in the multiplayer, but for now we’ll just have to put our faith in Ubisoft.

As for me, I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy–when the game’s released of course, later within the year. I want one!