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Review by Siraris
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I did, and I'm sorry. The commercial is too good not to reference, and in some ways is too good for the game it is promoting. You watch the commercial with the catchy yet simplistic tune that many have admitted to getting stuck in their head for days, the beautifully crisp CG, and you are enticed. When I hadn't seen a commercial or even a magazine ad for Mercenaries 2 until only a couple weeks before it's subdued launch, I was worried that the game would struggle to sell even half of what it needed to. I was satisfied with the ad, and felt that it would really draw in a large group of consumers, even if they weren't hardcore.
Let's talk about the actual game. I went in with a pretty low bar, based entirely on the fact that the first game didn't blow my mind, augmented by the fact that the game was delayed for a year, and even with that year, it didn't look mind blowing. At first glance, people had to be scratching their head as to what the past year was spent on. The graphics for the most part are very unimpressive, and had me wondering if they developed for PS2 and ported upwards. The whole world has this weird look to it that almost makes it look worse than it should. The pop-in that you will experience is beyond impressive, and I started to wonder if it was a feature in the engine when the SKY started to experience it; I can't say I've ever seen that happen before.
Graphical hitches aside, the game is very fun, and that's all that matters. You spent the vast majority if your time blowing shit up, which is a welcome departure from most other games where you spend your time walking old ladies across the street, and learning how to bake. Even though this may sound tedious, I actually did not experience many instances of boredom while playing, at least until very near the end of the game, at which point I aquired a nuclear bomb, and I forgot any problem I ever had with the game whatsoever. I think everyone will agree that nuclear weapons make everything better.
The meat of the game finds you going around doing missions to pay back your former mercenary friends, and their new cohort who has taken over the country of Venezuela for his own personal gain. Much of the game, as I stated above, requires you to blow shit up, but there is also a heavy dose of the standard open world mission fare. Many of your employers will ask you to locate and identify HVT's (High Value Targets) from other rival factions, and pay you a hefty some to bring them out alive. Other missions entail the much loved racing missions, a couple helicopter racing missions, and escort missions, but the majority of the time you will be capturing outposts so that the faction you are working for can expand their foothold in Venezuela. It might sound tedious, and for some it might be, but I personally enjoyed decimating the outposts and capturing them for big bucks.
The game is fairly easy for the most part, although I found the difficulty ramped up in some of the later missions. The plethora of unlockable items keeps the game fresh, and fun, especially when you start unlocking laser guided, and satellite guided weaponry. There is something so satisfying about standing behind a building, calling up a guided missile strike, positioning over the target, and watching the building crumble to the ground. The explosions in this game are something else, and I would love to see them implemented in some other titles that involve blowing shit up.
I should also mention the fact that the co-op side of the game works flawlessly. You have a friend jump in game, and the two of you are free to run around and do any mission that you'd like, or just engage in wanton destruction. The only downside to the co-op is that it does not count towards the game of the person who joins; you only get to keep your money. If I want to play with my friend through 10 missions, I will get zero credit, and will have to re-play them again on my own save. I find this to be a pretty poor decision, since it made me not want to play co-op a lot of the times because I wanted to work on my game. It would be a lot more appealing to me if I could jump in with any one I wanted, and actually feel like I was accomplishing something more than just accumulating some cash.
There are a few problems I had with the game. The most glaring problem for me was the QTE events, which actually almost felt broken in the second half of the game. In order to steal vehicles, you have to execute the quick time event, ala God of War, before you are able to drive off in your new prize. The AI is a bit stupid at times, although in an open world game. The story is definitely campy, but is endearing at the same time. I should also mention that the voice acting is quite well done, and I was really happy they got famous Swede Peter Stormare of Prison Break, Bad Boys II, and many other films, to play the role of Mattias Nilsson, the main character who was also Swedish. The down side to the voice acting was that Fiona Taylor, essentially your eyes and ears, did not... shut... up the entire game. She repeated the same thing over, and over, and over again, no matter how far you had progressed. The development team was smart, and didn't allow you to fire your weapons inside your base, or I would have treated her to a bunker buster at my first opportunity.
Mercenaries 2 is a paradox. In some ways it's great, in other ways it's not so great. It came out at the perfect moment before the fall rush, and offered me about 15 hours of enjoyment. It may not win game of the year, but it did surpass my expectations, and was genuinely enjoyable to play both by myself, and with a co-op partner. If anything, I'd recommend buying it, playing it for a week or two, and then trading it in towards another title coming later in the year.
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It's sad that it sounds like Fiona Taylor is suffering from "Crackdown Narrator Syndrome". :)