ince Ubisoft brilliantly recreated the Ghost Recon experience with GRAW, my expectations as an avid Rainbow Sixer for the series’ first Xbox 360 title were sky high. After seeing the gorgeously rendered Vegas strip from a helicopter, rappelling through casino windows with guns blazing, and exchanging lead volleys across a row of slot machines, it’s hard to say that Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas didn’t match or exceed all of those expectations.

The story is classic Clancy: After a terrorist group hatches a dastardly plan to siege Sin City, a Rainbow team led by rookie Sixer Logan Keller is sent in to give hundreds of mercs lead baths and to protect the city’s blessed slot machines, gamblers, and ladies of ill repute. As in Ghost Recon, the plot unfolds within the game engine via digital feeds apprising Keller of the situation.

This wouldn’t be a Rainbow Six game if tactics didn’t spell the difference between life and death. The enemy AI is smarter than ever; they unload suppressing fire and move to flank you once they lock down your location. Positioning your team is critical to your success when the lead starts flying. Luckily, Ubisoft has improved the squad control by simplifying the system from Rainbow Six 3 and borrowing elements from GRAW. Directing your team is as simple as pointing your reticle to a location and pressing a button. If your team arrives in a context-sensitive area like outside a door, a new menu of commands will become available. Keeping yourself alive is also easier with the vastly improved cover system, which pulls the camera out to a third-person view so you can examine your surroundings and peer around corners.

Given the game’s difficulty, Ubisoft Montreal smartly implemented a more forgiving player damage system like the one in Call of Duty 2. This will keep players in firefights longer, which is crucial because the game relies on checkpoints rather than manual game saves. If masochistic FPS veterans need a tougher challenge, the hardcore Realistic mode won’t be as forgiving.

While the single-player mode is great, the multiplayer may be the best thing to come to Xbox Live since Halo 2. Borrowing several front-end aspects from Battlefield 2, RSV features a ranking system that rewards combat exploits. Fraggers can level up to unlock new weapons, costumes, and gadgets while earning ribbons, medals, and achievement points for their online skills. Even the character customization goes deeper than ever before, with clan tags, face mapping via Xbox Vision, and armor customization that will make players balance protection versus mobility.

RSV features all of the classic multiplayer modes and a great mix of old and new maps that will keep clans and lone wolves striving for medals well into the next year. The best addition in the game, though, is without a doubt the four-player co-op. You and three of your friends can now experience the entire single-player campaign together as one Rainbow Six squad. Note to game developers: Every first-person shooter should feature this mode from this day forward. The only way Ubisoft could improve this mode would be to include the story elements, which it inexplicably cut out.

Fans of Rainbow Six, and first-person shooters in general, should not miss this game. As a co-op experience and as a tactical shooter, Rainbow Six Vegas sets a new benchmark for the gaming industry.