First Impressions of Pandemic Studios’: Mercenaries 2 [Xbox 360]

The gang's all here... except everyones favorite Aussie, Fiona

So yesterday I headed over to the local game store and picked this up (which ate a chunk out of my weekly grocery budget). After doing a little bit of my school work (working on A+ Certification for PC hardware/software repair among other certifications), I sat down to play a game I have been looking forward to for some time. After a year long delay, it’s finally here. Now straight up I’m going to tell this isn’t the next Gears, GTA, or Halo, but it is a very fun and rewarding IP at that.

The game is a non-direct sequel to Mercenaries which debuted in January 2005, which I personally thought to be a great game (especially the whole deck of 52 theme). The story was believable (not saying Tom Clancy believable) and had very interesting scenarios for each of the factions (South Korean, Chinese, Russian Mob, and United Nations), while the second takes place in Venezuela immediately following a coup de ta, the factions I have discovered so far include: People’s Liberation Army of Venezuela (P.L.A.V. for short), Universal Petroleum (UP) and PMC. For those of you who haven’t played either game yet, the gameplay is a very soft version of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto, instead of gangbangers trading drugs and prostitutes players will be involved in somewhat complexed political scenarios with witty characters.

From a developer/publishing standpoint between the two games there is only one minor change in publisher, from LucasArts to Electronic Arts. Now I generally dislike EA games (all of EA games, especially games developed by EA), but I have to say the marketing for this game has been fantastic. Otherwise Pandemic is the one still developing the game (while not many of their games get big buzz, they usually turn out alright).

Although, I generally approve of this second title, Mercenaries 2: World In Flames, there are a few things I wish to express discontent with. First while I like the deck of 52 system, I am disappointed to see it leave, but I can cope with the developers change of heart on this one. The second thing I am disappointed with is the whole concept of running around town and calling in your Irish Helicopter Jockey to come and pick up random munitions around the area, I’d rather pay the price and have it on demand, like the MOD website via your PDA in the original game. Probably the third and final thing, are the graphics. Now anyone who has read previous game blog entries or spoken to me in person should be shocked. Yes, I do have a high-end gaming PC and love graphics, but at the same time, I would rather take quality over quantity, gameplay over graphics. I think from what I have played of Mercs 2 there is a slight imbalance on this scale, the gameplay is there but the graphics lack. Now like it was stated around the release of GTA IV, you have to sacrifice graphics, for performance, especially in a massive open world game. To be honest, however, I can’t give you a number as to how big the world is in scale, but I think Grand Theft Auto and maybe even Just Cause have better graphics than this game.

Overall, I would recommend the game to open minded gamers, I’m surprised even my hardcore gaming sidekick/co-writer Max bought the game. But this one is defiantly worth a play through, I don’t think (as of now) a $60 USD play through, but a play through for sure.

Come back next week for a look at Spore.