Mercenaries

"An excellent, unique game at the forefront in a genre of mediocrity"

Commercials can often be deceiving. This is more then apparent to most of us gamers. I can't even count how many times games can mask a terrible game with cinematic play and empty promises (Fable, anyone?). A game that promised so much : steal any car, use any weapon, destroy The first time I saw the Mercenaries commercial, the first comparison that popped into my head was Grand Theft Auto meets Battlefield 1942. I ended up scrounging up enough money to buy Mercenaries. My expectations were pretty low, I was thinking this game would keep my attention long enough to hold me over until Gran Turismo 4. However, this game blew me away. Read my review to find out what makes Mercenaries such a great game, and really stands out in a genre of GTA clones and mediocrity.

Story overview/Plot (9/10): Mercenaries tosses you into the shoes of one of three different mercenaries who are employed by a company called Executive Operations, whose job is to dispose of terror overseas in the battle torn land of present day North Korea. Upon selection of your character, you are tossed into a war against terrorism. Your goal is to make ties between several factions (Chinese, Allied Nations, South Korea, and the Russian Mafia) in hopes to dispose of each of the infamous "Deck of 52" as you make your way to your ultimate goal, General Song.

Graphics (9/10): Overall, the game looks clean. The animations are well done. Characters have fluid movement and cinematic animation is great. The frame rate stays consistent, even during heavy combat and huge explosions. As I just mentioned, this game has some pretty wicked explosions, and trust me, there is A LOT to blow up. Anything from a jeep to a tank to a huge tower, it can all come tumbling down with the right weapon into a cataclysmic fireball. When you're close to some buildings, you can notice some graphical flaws, like large polygons and the texturing is a little grainy, but trust me, it's nothing to lose sleep over. In short, the graphics visually stimulating.

Sound (9/10): Just like Mercenaries' visual presentation, the game sounds awesome. The character dialogue is executed well and there are tons of hilarious exchanges between characters, especially if you select Mattias Nilsson as your character. He's a riot. The music selected for the game has a more subdued, "easy going" feeling to it, but it strangely ties well into the flow and feeling of the game. Most would expect some crappy "Nu Metal" to litter the game, but luckily we got some awesome music to match up well with the action of the game.

Game play/Controls (10/10): Honestly, if Game FAQs let me give a high score, I'd give the game play a 15. Man, where to begin. Well, let me say that it took me about 30 seconds to acquaint myself with the controls. In no time, I felt right at home with the default controls, and no alterations were needed. Your mercenary can carry two throwing weapons and two guns. There is a huge variety of weapons to find and choose from, so you won't feel restricted to using one or two weapons. You use both control sticks to move your character around the massive environments and also to aim your weapons. Jump with the circle button to fly over obstacles and use square for melee attacks. Press the triangle button when you're adjacent to a vehicle, and I mean any vehicle to hijack it. I've heard many people complain about the driving controls. Personally, I feel if people are concerned about "realistic driving" wait for Gran Turismo 4 or Forza Motorsport. The vehicles handle like you expect them to, pretty crappy. They're military vehicles, people! Overall, the controls are very user friendly, and with a short learning curve, I will almost guarantee that you'll be sucked in immediately to the game.

The way missions are set up compare greatly to the GTA series. Players can run around in the huge free-roam environments, stealing any car, annihilate any building, and cap literally anyone that moves. However, unlike GTA which awards you with money for shooting civilians, Mercenaries penalizes you. Remember, you're a professional! You work for an important faction, so it's frowned upon whenever you mutilate a hoard of civilians. Another comparison with the GTA series (mainly, GTA 2 for the PS1) is the "respect meters" for each faction. How much respect each group has towards you dictates if you can help them out on a mission. Remember, if you're not on good terms with the group, don't try to do a mission for them! They'll blow you away before you can escape, and it costs you $1,000 every time you are killed. The game has tons of missions, challenges and side quests that will take you at least 30 hours to complete. Just like GTA, this game is going to take you a long time to complete, and will be really, really hard to put down.

I know that I've made plenty of comparisons to GTA, but this game is actually quite different in many respects. The AI is ahead of GTA in leaps and bounds. Your enemies will use the surroundings to hide themselves from gunfire and explosions, they'll use the mounted weapons to annihilate you and your allies, whether you're on foot or in a vehicle. Also, your ally AI is much smarter then in most games. Near-by friends will hop in vehicles with you and mount guns in hope to blast your enemy to bits.

Another stark contrast from GTA are the completely malleable surroundings. Any, any I mean any building can be taken out with an air strike or heavy weapon such as an RPG. Towers can come crashing to the ground with a C4. Heck, why not make a huge pile of vehicles and guys and see what happens whenever you introduce a rocket to the equation. Sheer pleasure, that's about as plainly as I can describe it. The depth doesn't quite match that of Red Faction, if you're familiar with that series, but hey, it's better then in GTA whenever you shoot a building with 15 rockets and nothing happens.

Replay value (9/10): Like I stated earlier, this game is pretty close to impossible to put down. The missions to unfold in a fairly linear sequence, but hey, you'll be so busy running around blowing buildings to bits, calling in air strikes, and mowing down North Korean baddies with your assault rifle that it'll take you 10 hours to get 3 missions into the game. Your butt is gonna be glued to your sofa for quite sometime, so tell your mom to make you a plate of brownies and bring you some Mountain Dew, because you're going to be pulling some all nighters. Forget that math test later this week, you'll be too busy kicking terrorism's ass.

Overall (9/10): In a genre of mediocrity, Mercenaries easily stands in the forefront with Grand Theft Auto. The game is a blast to play. The aura of the game is very encompassing. The characters are memorable, the game play... mind blowing. If you're still skeptical after my review, why not rent it for a weekend. I'm pretty sure that after a few hours, you'll be hooked. Mercenaries is well worth its $49.99 price tag.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/05