Here’s an interesting new way to cross promote. Apparently there’s been a scavenger hunt injected into Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 since July 18th that urges players to seek out clues in the campaign regarding Paramount Picture’s upcoming comedy Tropic Thunder, starring Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., and Ben Stiller. Players who reach the end of the scavenger hunt will receive an invitation to join Ubisoft’s VIP Club, a chance to download a free VIP map, and will be entered into a prize drawing for an Xbox 360 Elite system, complete with a one-year Live subscription and a collection of Ubisoft games.
“This is a new and highly innovative use of dynamic in-game advertising and really demonstrates the creativity and marketing power of this medium,” said Cory Van Arsdale, CEO of Massive.
He took the words right out of my mouth. Hit the jump for details on the hunt, which runs through August 25th.
Imagine you’re a publisher, and there’s a problem with the copy protection on the Direct2Drive version of your game. You don’t have time to/can’t be bothered chasing up the unprotected executable for the title (which you should have in easy reach), so you just browse to your favourite crack search engine, whack in the game’s title, and download the appropriate hack.
According to a thread over at Ubisoft’s forums, this is exactly what the publisher did with Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. A savvy user opened the latest game executable (v1.03) in a hex editor, and found the tag for a crack group known as “Reloaded“. The patch responsible was once available from Ubisoft’s support site, but has since been removed… which doesn’t look good for the company.
The only official comment so far has come from a community manager:
Some heads-up details that can just go into one post, rather than separate ones:
• There are two new OctoCamo patterns available for download on Metal Gear Solid 4. Laughing Camo raises your enemies’ laugh emotion when they spot you; Raging Camo boosts enemies’ rage emotion when they spot you. They’re out as of now, reports Gaming Bits.
• The new Rainbow Six Vegas 2 patch is out and available for download. We tipped you to it last week. This download gives you a map-pack and a game patch with lots of tweaks to gameplay and achievements. It is entirely free also. Enjoy.
• Reader Max W. writes to say that the demo for Mobile Suit Gundam: Operation: Troy is out on the Japanese Xbox Live Marketplace. “And it’s awesome”. I’m not in touch with Bash right now to verify, but there’s another freebie to play if you’re on that network. Gundam did wonders for 360′s June sales, as we wrote earlier.
New OctoCamo Patterns Now Available [Gaming Bits]
Hi there! Um, so, Rainbow Six Vegas 2′s nice. I mean, you know, like Diablo III’s totally hot and all but Rainbow Six’s Fan Pack has a super-great personality and is really kinda into you and maybe you could compliment it on its new maps? Cause like everyone here’s hitting on Diablo III and she’s not the only girl at the party. Just sayin’.
OK, so, Ubisoft about a couple days back sent out word on its forums about the DLC coming in the “early July” (not more specific, sorry) release of Rainbow Six Vegas 2′s Fan Pack. There will be several new gameplay details and three maps. It’s all free, and will all be available via Ubi’s site, Xbox Live Marketplace, or Playstation Network depending on your flavour of platform.
Re: the maps (from Ubi’s post). There are three maps included in the free DLC: Murdertown – Dark, CQB Training – Dark and best of all the much-requested fan favourite Calypso Casino! The three map layouts have not been changed. The re-lit “Dark maps” have a very eerie atmosphere, and may require players to use night vision to spot enemies. Calypso Casino returns with updated lighting and textures. The three maps are playable in all Versus modes and Terrorist Hunt.
As for gameplay, there are new ranks, new A.C.E.S., some rebalancing of weapon characteristics, multiplayer tweaks, and a handy-dandy frag indicator to help you not get your arse blown off. The entire announcement is quoted after the jump, plus the video (hosted at Gametrailers) referenced in the announcement.
In case you weren’t put off by the myriad of problems facing the PS3 and 360 versions of Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and went and picked it up on PC, there’s something you should know. If the game crashes (and, like most PC games, it will probably crash sooner or later), don’t just go and restart it. Just…don’t. You may want to do some housecleaning first. Seems that whenever the game does die in your arms (must have been some kind of kiss…), the CrashReport file it leaves behind clocks in at an awesomely-ridiculous 850mb-1gb. That’s an awfully long way of saying “Error, Error, Error”. PC-EACH GAME CRASH TAKE UP ALMOST 900 MB!! [Official Boards]
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the shit. This is the gist of Activision marketing director David Tyler’s recent comments in UK trade mag MCV, where he called out recent EA and Ubisoft shooters for failing to catch the hearts of gamers around the world. “We’re pleased to have Call of Duty 4 leading the way in the FPS genre, with recent launches such as Army of Two and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 failing to inspire. Call of Duty 4 has been a phenomenal success for us and reflects Activision’s commitment to creating truly ground-breaking games.”
[Little old, yes, but largely unseen, so here it is]Sure, in both Rainbow Six Vegas games, the city’s “overrun” with terrorists. Then you, along with your Rainbow Six buddies, bust in and kill them all. Most will see that as a triumph of good over evil. I don’t. What if the poor terrorists weren’t up to any funny business? All I see here are some crazy kids out to spend some dirty money, and everybody’s dirty money’s good in Vegas… [Mega64, thanks Justin!]
Bugs? Hah. Crippled online performance? Whatever. Paying full-price for an expansion pack? You don’t give two hoots. Why? Because Ubisoft announced today that they’ve shipped 2 million copies of Rainbow Six Vegas 2, which when you consider the game’s short gestation period and myriad of problems is good news for the company. Not good news for gamers, since it shows Ubisoft can release any old guff and get away with charging $US 60 for it, but hey, we’re not talking about you. We’re talking about Ubisoft.
Don’t worry, 360 owners, when Ubisoft dropped the ball on the PS3 version of Rainbow Six Vegas 2, they didn’t forget about you, either. While the 360′s problems aren’t as dramatic as the online shambles currently affecting the PS3 iteration, it’s still littered with bugs and glitches, the most annoying of which are stat-tracking issues and a Gamerscore hiccup that prevents anyone who’s carried their data over from the first RSV game from earning some early achievements. As with the PS3 version, 360 owners experiencing issues are asked to complain officially (but politely!) on the game’s forum.
Yeah, broken. Shame. Seems anyone who owns the PS3 version of the game and wants to play online is shit outta luck, with widespread reports flooding into our poor, beleaguered tips box all weekend of problems associated with the game’s multiplayer. Chief amongst these is just finding someone to play against, with most users complaining of an inability to connect to servers for a game, though those who can connect aren’t out of the woods, with a number of glitches and bugs during online play reported. All in all a big fat mess, really. Ubisoft are aware of the problems, and are asking anyone affected to hit up the game’s forums and complain officially and in detail, as “this information will be invaluable in working out and addressing the issues you are experiencing”. Issues [Rainbow Six Boards]
