Mercenaries is known for taking the concept of what a Mercenary actually does and then exaggerating it to an unbelievable level. It’s a third person action/shooter which allows freedom in how you can deal with your objective. It differs a little from the GTA games, as here you’re in the middle of a warzone, quite literally, where everything is at your disposal, which also makes it unbelievably fun.
It has been three years now since the release of Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and two years since the confirmation of Mercenaries 2, this has definitely been a long winded wait for a sequel as its original release date was meant for mid-late 2007, it has now been pushed back twice (although not confirmed by EA or Pandemic as of yet) for a possible release of August. Yet, although the game hasn’t been released, we have more than enough information about what we will find in this outrageous but explosive shooter.
So far, we know that Pandemic with Mercenaries can cause political controversy, obviously not on purpose, but with both games the government has had some sort of negative outburst. The first game, which was set in Korea with a North & South Korea conflict setting, didn’t go down well with South Korea and was immediately banned there. The second game in the series is set in the South American country of Venezuela; the story here is that the player has been betrayed by a drug lord, who manages to overthrow the government of Venezuela during a military coup and your job is to take him down. This has also produced political controversy, as the Venezuelan government reacted to it, calling it a product of “propaganda”. Not really a good start for advertisement of the game, but nevertheless, it still looks very intense as the following proves.
As mentioned before, the plot outlines that you’re out to bring down another corrupt dictator, but this time it’s personal. After a job given to you by this dodgy drug producer, he fails to give you your payment, and even worse, he attempts to kill you. You soon find out this same drug lord has managed to overthrow the government of Venezuela through a military coup, this unexpected, but convenient, situation has given you the excuse to go out there and kill him, and of course make some petty cash on the way.
The features promised this time around sound quite promising; although not that surprising or mind blowing, they are everything the fans were questioning what should have been there in the first game. However, this doesn’t make the original a bad game at all, as content and features can always be expanded upon, but it’s nice to see the developers listening. The biggest, or at least the most hoped for, change we’re expecting to see in Mercenaries 2, is the introduction to some co-op game play. No, not the dumbed down type, but proper co-op enabled gameplay. It has been mentioned that at any time in the game a second player can jump in and play at the press of a button, so you could be in the thick of a huge battle and it isn’t going your way, or in the middle of a helicopter jacking and you need a partner, you can call in a friend to help you out. This alone will bring the Mercenaries experience to a whole new level, as playing co-op with your best pal is what console gaming is all about, well for me it is.
Game play wise, there won’t be much of a transition, there will be a lot of familiarities when you’re playing the game. You can still perform ridiculously unrealistic hijacks of random tanks and helicopters, and you can still call in tons upon tons of high explosive ordinance on top of an enemy position, there’s just more of it. This has the potential to be a great sequel. The developers have taken the destruction a step forward too, their new motto is “If it can’t be destroyed, then it shouldn’t be there” so everything is destructible basically. Also, the ways things get destroyed has also been improved; instead of things just exploding in a set style they have an act of gravity upon them, within the physics engine. Trees can now be destroyed, buildings will drop realistically and explosions are as epic as ever.
The world you can explore has increased; Pandemic has given you a playground of 8x8 kilometers (estimated) of land to play around in. So you’re not going to be blowing up everything within hours of playing. Little tweaks to enhance the game experience such as an instant transportation system are being put into place, a choice for players to arrive at the action as soon as possible. The world increasing in size and all, traveling from point A to B can, and probably will, take its toll. Also, things which Pandemic felt were missing from the previous installment have now been considered, such as the hijacking being a little harder and more interactive. This time instead of just initiating your take over of a vehicle, you will have to attempt a mini game to take it, which we see a lot of games doing now but obviously it's a feature that is working well.
And of course the game’s mission progression will follow a similar sequence to Playground of Destruction, working for different factions (Allied Nations, the Chinese, the Rastafarian pirates, Universal Petroleum, and the PLAV this time around) and hunting down minor targets before reaching your main goals. You’ll also find yourself calling down a variety of different air bombardments and vehicles to aid your missions (even more than you saw in the last game), or just for the fun of blowing stuff up.
Mercs 2 is really shaping up to be what many of us have wished and hoped for. It seems that this will attract most, if not all the of fans from the previous installment, and due to the amount of information, trailers & images being produced, it should attract a lot more attention. Now, if we could just get some information upon its release date!
Preview By: Lee Burton
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