Rainbow Six: Vegas Diaries Part Two

This is my ongoing exploration of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six series, played in release order, where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. This time I continue Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas.

While in pursuit of Irene Morales, a known terrorist, two of my squadmates had been taken hostage, and there was a situation in Las Vegas that Six wanted me to check out before I could rescue them…

I’m not altogether sure where San Joshua del Mosquiera was supposed to be located, somewhere along the Mexico-US border, but it was only a short helicopter flight to Las Vegas. Operation: Calypso Casino began at 2214hrs on 2nd of July 2010, and things were already hot. Dr. Phillip Smythe had been taken hostage inside the casino. I was meeting Mike Walter and Jung Park, who had been in exercises nearby, and I was to get in and rescue Smythe.

Leaving the helicopter via fast rope, introductions were as short as the police presence was large. Mike suggested that we enter the casino through a wall, so we moved off. Much to my surprise, the number of tangos present was quite large. We fought our way forwards and to the left, then to the right to avoid roadblocks of cars and debris.

A news helicopter came in for a closer look, before it was hit by an RPG and went down in an explosion. A bunch of tangos later, we could see the front doors of the Calypso - which then exploded. It was a good thing that we’d already decided to breach through the wall, which I had Mike do once the coast was clear.

We entered the casino, and went through a door into an area of offices. They had either made the bold decision to paint the walls with blood, or the terrorists had been through this way. As I looked under some double doors with the snake cam, I spotted a tango walking straight towards us. The instant the door opened, he shot me before we shot him dead.

More tangos populated a nearby cubicle farm, who we killed in a two-pronged attack before going through a door and loading into the next area. As I checked out the door ahead of us, Joanna Torres explained that she wanted us to get her access to the security systems. The door led into an area filled with slot machines, and a couple of cars on plinths as grand prizes. It was also filled with tangos. Leading the way inside, we slowly cleared out all of the hostiles before moving towards the next hall - which also had its fair share of tangos.

Once the way was finally clear, I went for a door at the far end, and inside it were several hostiles - so I threw in a grenade. Through that room and a corridor, we reached a lift shaft, which we used to go down to the bottom where a great, big hole greeted us. It was a tunnel which led to some cutting equipment, and someone complaining that some people hadn’t returned to get more of the money yet.

Leading the charge, I shot two people and hid in the ventilation shaft. Moving around to the left, I shot two more men through the grate, then knocked it open and checked out the casino’s vault. More tangos awaited us as we left the vault through the open door, and two were hidden in the hallway just inside the door immediately to our left.

The hallway led to our objective, but I could hear someone complaining about their buddy stealing money from the money the thieves were stealing, and decided to use the door to the left, which took us upstairs. Shooting a tango on the ground floor seemed to anger the rest of them, as they flew into a frenzy. In short order, however, the area was clear and we entered the security office.

Jung hacked the feed, and more tangos came after us the moment he was done. We fought our way to a hallway, and I opened a door to shoot a tango who I can only assume was waiting for us to use the next door instead. Going to that second door, I opened it and was shot before Jung killed the tango.

Through the office and into the corridor past it, I used the snake cam on a door and found that two tangos were sneaking towards us. I opened the door and we shot them, going the way that they had come and up some stairs. At the top, Joanna contacted us to tell us about something being broadcast on WNN - hostage killing. She cut the feed before the shooting started, but I had to assume that the terrorist was going to pull the trigger after saying that we should pull back otherwise there would be more “of this”...

We entered the front lobby, and I’ll skip over the multiple attempts at this section, because man was it tough… Shooting one tango made the ones behind the reception desk come single-file through the one door, dying to my bullets. Rounding the corner to the right, more tangos rappelled through the skylights and we shot them. A bunch of tangos swarmed the mounted machine gun at the top of the stairs, but a couple of grenades helped thin them out.

As we reached the top of the stairs, some men attacked from a higher floor. Whilst dealing with them, I made sure to shoot the two men hiding inside a door that accessed some emergency stairs. We could only go up one level with those, and had to fight our way across to the other end of that level to an escalator. More men attacked before we could go up, and things got a little hairy for a moment before we cleared the way again. Heading up, the way was clear as we went back to the emergency stairs, and up to the top floor.

We had reached the Fantasea’s Lounge, and as we entered a maintenance area we could hear one of the terrorists molesting a hostage. One of his friends wasn’t too happy about that, they were only murderers and thieves, after all. We broke in through the left-hand door, and shot the three terrorists. More did come in through a third door, at the far end of the room, but I shot them all since they were again in single-file. The hostages thanked us, and told us that Irena Morales and these men had talked about doing similar attacks across the city. Leaving the hostages, we loaded into the next area down the hallway.

The hallway ended in another slot machine hall, but we were on the upper level. Tangos were on either side, so we went to the left - again, I’ll skip over the number of attempts this section took me. After shooting the one man in my aisle, we went from cover to cover, taking shots at the men opposite us when we could. More men rappelled in as we got close to the end, but a grenade helped out immensely.

At the far end, we spent long minutes firing at the hostiles on the ground floor of the casino. Even once they were all dead, we had barely reached the far end of the hall when more tangos attacked! It seemed that they didn’t want their keno hall disturbed…

Down the hall, we loaded into the next area. This was where Dr. Smythe was being held, and as we approached along the upper level, it seemed his captors weren’t too happy about it. He had apparently made them late, which meant that they were trapped here. Luckily, the roof of their room was where I had chosen to stand, and it had a nice windowed gap which gave me a good view inside. From relative safety, I shot most of the tangos who were with Smythe before heading down to see him.

It turned out to be a lounge, and Smythe thanked us before I told him to follow me and we headed to the far end of the room. Joanna told us to get Smythe to the parking structure, as I shot one final tango in a hallway, and checked for tangos with the snake cam. Seeing nobody, I opened the door and immediately came under fire by two hostiles hiding behind a cubicle partition.

Through the next door, we were in another hall, this one with card game tables, as well as a few slot machines. After telling the hostage to stay back, we cleared the room a little. Returning to the hostage, I took him down and through a cashier’s office, where a few more tangos needed shooting.

With the hall now well and truly empty, we continued towards our checkpoint up some stairs, which also had a final two tangos. However, upon checking the snake cam and seeing the parking structure was ahead, I didn’t trust it. I sent the squad ahead, while the hostage and I held back. Thankfully, when Mike and Jung went past the rifle that I could see hiding behind a pillar, I assumed that it was safe. Grabbing the hostage, we went to the end and met up with the FBI.

Agent Lynch, someone who had done HRT training with Logan years ago (and gone prematurely bald, it seemed), tried to find out who I was working with, but Logan just said that it wasn’t Delta Force. Smythe piped up, telling us that we had to warn Dr. Williams, his colleague, as they were both needed for whatever nefarious scheme was going on. Unfortunately, Williams had apparently already been captured.

Logan called in Joanna, who came in with the chopper and took us away to the next operation. She explained that we were on extended loan to the Department of Defense, just before Irena Morales came on my heads-up display. She was apparently transmitting to everyone in Las Vegas, and said that what happened at Calypso was a statement of intent. She warned the authorities to stay away, because they had a micropulse bomb, and she followed it up by showing it killing someone…