Las Vegas - a city synonymous with Hollywood glamour, Elvis, casinos, the Rat Pack and endless dodgy escort/contact magazines promoted by unfortunate illegal immigrants. America's gambling paradise, however, is an unlikely setting for a notoriously hardcore tactical shooter with a squad that has to take on a band of particularly brutal South American terrorists. Ubisoft Montreal's game designer Steven Masters huddles in Canada's -14-degree big-freeze to give us a warm insight into the making of Rainbow Six: Vegas...
Rainbow Six: Mexico? Steven Masters: We began the game in Mexico, largely for narrative reasons and to tell the story of the terrorist organisation, but we were trying to do a few things too. We wanted to introduce the team to the player and then take it away again - we wanted that to be an emotional experience. Second, we wanted to make a really distinct contrast between the dusty streets of Mexico and the glitzy glamour of Vegas. I think perhaps, the Mexican missions went on a little longer than we intended, but we also wanted the player to explore and get used to the game before they got to the 'money shot', as it were.
Intelligent Soldiers Steven Masters: Rainbow Six has traditionally been about multiple teams of four, so it was a tough decision to reduce that to just three guys. We wanted to improve their characterisation, to make them feel like humans, and having only two team-mates made that a lot easier, and let us put a lot more into their AI. The context-sensitive command system was a huge effort right across the team - just from the programming side, we had one guy from start to finish developing all the info we'd need in the game to allow us to do that. We went through half a dozen different iterations, trying again and again until we got something we were happy with.
Viva Las Vegas Steven Masters: We sent three of our artists down there for a week, and they took thousands of photos and gave us really amazing reference material that the level designers could work from. Las Vegas is a very well publicised place - people know what it looks like. We could use the exteriors of the buildings - the shape of them - but we couldn't use the names of the casinos and hotels, or anything copyrighted. However, a lot of what you see is what's actually there in Vegas, apart from the stuff we blow up, which is our own invention.
Good for the Health Steven Masters: The heart of the Rainbow Six experience is that it's super-brutal and unforgiving, so moving to the new health system was a tough sell. The real driving factor was that we were producing this 24-esque continuous experience where you spend the night in Vegas, and to do that with only three health points wasn't really feasible - it would've made the game extraordinarily hardcore. There was no way we were going back to the health pack mentality, so we went with the idea of the bullet just grazing you rather than hitting you in the heart, and it proved the best solution. It also leads to some really intense moments, when you've got your screen darkened out and you're under fire.
Take Cover Steven Masters: This actually happened really early in development. Two-and-a-half years ago we decided to have this cover system, and from then it was just what it was going to be and how flexible it was. There was a lot of fear from fans earlier on, especially the multiplayer crowd, that it wasn't going to allow for balanced games and so forth. We were looking at forums and they were saying 'It'll destroy Rainbow Six!', but we were like, 'Don't worry - it's all under control'!'
Multiplayer Steven Masters: It was absolutely crucial to get this right for the PC game. FPSs live or die by their multiplayer mode, and it's always been integral to and a big focus of the Rainbow experience. Personally, I'm a big fan of co-op, so I really wanted to make that work well. We wanted people to have fun going through the casinos together - it's always a really powerful experience when you gather your friends together, and instead of competing against each other, you're working together against the AI. It's great fun and I'm aiming to put co-op in all my future games.
Weapons Steven Masters: A lot of it is just real Spec Ops, what they actually use. We looked at teams around the world, but unfortunately it still boils down to a very limited range of weapons. So we had two focuses - the Rainbow weapons and the terrorist weapons, which can be more varied but are mostly things we know are really common out there. Of course, we wouldn't work on Rainbow Six if we didn't have a certain fascination with weaponry, and we all have our personal favourites - mine is the Raging Bull handgun. There are certain manufacturers we're not allowed to work with though, because they're very protective of their IP, which is unfortunate for us because we'd like to put those weapons in.
Snaaaaaake! Steven Masters: The snake cam is my favourite gadget. I love the experience of just sitting there, peering under the door, watching the guys chatting away with each other and marking a couple of targets for my team-mates. We spent a lot of time getting that whole room entry stuff right - the snake cam ties everything together for the player really well and gives you some great moments.
Just For Laughs Steven Masters: We had some great funny moments during development, including some unbelievable stuff from the AI such as turning themselves inside out, growing 50ft tall, or bouncing around like the Crazy Frog; but that's development for you. Also, I'll never forget our animation director Aaron Gilman, who did the mo-cap for our main bad girl, Irena. Aaron's a method actor, so for a while he was actually walking around the office as Irena. Having this bloke prancing around as a psychotic chick was pretty weird for a while! He's mostly back to normal now, with only the occasional flashback...
Multiplayer Steven Masters: It was absolutely crucial to get this right for the PC game. FPSs live or die by their multiplayer mode, and it's always been integral to and a big focus of the Rainbow experience. Personally, I'm a big fan of co-op, so I really wanted to make that work well. We wanted people to have fun going through the casinos together - it's always a really powerful experience when you gather your friends together, and instead of competing against each other, you're working together against the AI. It's great fun and I'm aiming to put co-op in all my future games.
Thats the biggest load of horse SH*T ive ever read, the multiplayer in Vegas is the WORST MP i have ever played, hell the server browser doesnt even show ping rates and check out the UBI forum for all the happy Vegas MP customers - http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/frm/f/3801065024
This reads like one of those bulls**t interviews with developers who are living in wonderland of their own. Rainbow Six PC is dead (after Raven Shield), and you can see why by visiting UBI forums.
Hell, people are complaining to get their money back because of poor support from UBI on the game. Forget the part that they destroyed one of the most intense TS on PC for 13 yr old console crowd, the problem is that they aren't even willing to support PC community with what it requires with proper patches.
Heh, I spared myself from this version after following its development for a while. Turns out I was right to do that... Where's my SWAT 5? Now that's a series that should get a high budget powered sequel, R6 went downhill years ago.
''Rainbow Six has traditionally been about multiple teams of four, so it was a tough decision to reduce that to just three guys''.
This sentence alone is enough to conclude that this Steven Masters is a professional liar.
Why ?
He explains the development of Vegas like it was meant for the PC, which before Lockdown, always had multiple fireteams of four operatives. Now it is known that R6 Vegas was designed as a console game first and foremost, and the PC version is nothing but a straight port from the Xbox 360 version.
It is also well known that no one of the past console versions of R6 had multiple fireteams. R63 (Xbox, PS2) and Lockdown (Xbox, PS2) both had a single fireteam of four operatives. So, stating that they took the decision to reduce the number of operatives from multiple teams of four to just three guys makes no sense, since all their previous squad based console shooters have always been about a single team with four guys at most (except the original 'Ghost Recon', but this one was a port from the PC version, like in the good old days).
Moreover, even if R6 Vegas was designed with the PC in mind (which is false), the statement of Mr Masters still makes no sense. The preceding PC iteration, R6 Lockdown, which is indeed a straight port from the PS2 console version, had a single fireteam of four operatives. That means that this removal of the multiple teams feature is not new to the Vegas game. It happened before on the PC, and the decision was taken well before R6 Vegas' design. And since the Vegas game makes a reference to Lockdown's events at the end of the Mexico episode, it means that Vegas designers were perfectly aware of Lockdown's design, which makes even more laughable their claim that their decision was new and difficult.
Sorry if my argumentation was relatively long for such a small detail, but all of this was just to show that Mr Steven Masters, like all UBI representatives, is just a specialist about patter and sales talk. I give absolutely no credibility to anything coming from a UBI representative.
I'm therefore happy to have decided to boycott this ''liar's club'' a long time ago, and supporting only private game companies whose expertise is not about bulls**t talk.
Yeah it was pretty long for such a small detail, you could have explained the same things in fewer words. But oh well
Anyway, what I'm curious about is why this interview wasn't done in the tone of "why did the game suck in the end" (obviously more tactful than that) since this website/magazine did rate it badly. Why have an article that hypes it up and ignores the fact it was a s**t game?
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