CrunchArcade: Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 is your latest Tom Clancy pretend war fix

[photopress:r62r.jpeg,full,center]

Reuters has a little something on the return of Rainbow Six Vegas 2, a name that sounds like a sports score. The game, which debuted on the PS3 and 360 this week, features more daytime raids than Vegas 1, if I remember Ubisoft’s pitch correctly. (I guess there were complaints that Vegas 1 was too dark.) Reuters takes a wider look at the franchise with this piece.

For one, the London-based news agency examines the game’s roots, going back to Ubisoft’s purchase of the game’s developers in 2000. Since then, so we’re told, the game and its variants—how many Tom Clancy games are there?—have accounted for one-third of the French publisher’s revenue.

People like playing war games. No surprise there. I used to love the Medal of Honor series, then EA started treating it like a sports franchise, releasing new games every fall. They stunk. Who remembers Rising Sun?

Like every Tom Clancy game, expect plenty of multiplayer options. Enough to topple Call of Duty 4 off the top of the mountain, though?

Lastly, check out the juxtaposition of the Vegas 2 story to the top Reuters story, where bin Laden warns the EU over those Mohammed cartoons. A game about anti-terrorism right next to the most wanted terrorist. Oh, Internet.

Also, I (and I think the rest of the staff) have started putting “CrunchArcade” in the headlines of video game-related stories. Makes ’em easier to identify.

New “Rainbow Six” game refines formula [Reuters]