Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

"Warning: Explosions May Be Closer Than They Appear"

Introduction

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is the second installment from the 2005 new IP of the year Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. Now with promises of more explosions, an improved story, and a big improvement overall from the first game, is it worth the wait and money?

EXPLOSIVE...STORY

You're a mercenary. You are hired by a man named Ramon Solano to rescue one of his generals. After you rescue him, he refuses to pay you, and proceeds to shoot you in the glutius maximus, but Solano makes one big mistake...

Everyone Pays.

Redundant one-liner attempts aside, this represents the basic background behind the entire story: Get Solano. In order to locate his whereabouts, you are tasked with exploring Venezuela and collaborating with several "factions", including the somewhat sophisticated and oil-hungry company Universal Petroleum, the Jamaican Rastafarian Pirates, the rebelling P.L.A.V. (People's Liberation Army of Venezuela), the Chinese, and the A.N. (Allied Nations, or Americans basically). You play one of three mercenaries: Mattias Nilsson, the Swedish mohawked madman; Chris Jacobs, the "military veteran"; and Jennifer Mui, the "sneaky" British/Chinese merc. Undoubtedly, Mattias seems to be the more fleshed out of the three, with the majority of his jokes better reflecting his personality than the other two. All three are somewhat likable, but the repetitiveness of their one-liners quickly becomes monotonous.

If you're looking for a deep and enthralling story, don't look here. The characters have little, if any, character development, and no surprises, or anything of the like. The majority of the storytelling runs mainly on humor, which isn't a bad thing, but some feeling of seriousness, like that from Mercs 1, wouldn't hurt. While obviously uncomparable to MGS4's elaborate storytelling, the story is there for the sake of having a story.

EXPLOSIVE...SOUND

BOOM!

You better get used to the sound of explosions going off, because that's what you'll hear pretty often. The sound effects are actually pretty good. The sounds of explosions going off in the distance sound great (if eerily similar to those from Battlefield: Bad Company) and the crackle of gunfire make the weapons sound powerful. The vehicle sounds, including the reving of your car engine, the "vrroom" sound from motorcycles, the whisps from helicopters, and the treads of the tanks, all sound great and realistic. Often times when I'm in the jungles, I stop all the mindless explosions and listen to the chirping of birds and other sounds of wildlife. The sounds in the game really immerses you into the world, making it feel more alive than it actually is.

The in-game music is a mix between orchestral pieces, to some light rock pieces, and a good mix of jazz. The rock and jazz pieces often reflect the Venezuelan setting, with guitar solos and percussion segments. In the really epic missions near the end of the game, the orchestral music kicks in, and really adds to the epicness of the moment. It's definitely satisfying to blow stuff up with the right music.

On top of all this is the voice acting, which overall does its job. The three mercenaries themselves sound convincing, as well as the Jamaican accents from the pirates and what not. My biggest gripe with the voice acting isn't exactly the acting itself, but the fact that the lines are repeated so frequently. Whenever you are reported by a faction, you'll hear the same line every time you're reported. What's also somewhat annoying is the constant repetition of your mercs one-liners. It may have been funny the first time, but it gets old hearing it five other times in one sitting. It isn't as bad as other reviewers have made it, but it is notable.

Ignoring this small issue, the sound is excellent.

EXPLOSIVE...GRAPHICS

The graphics are great for an open world game. The oceans and rivers look enticing, the jungles are lush with trees, shrubs, and bushes, and all the vehicles all have a nice sheen to them. The cities are pretty detailed, with tons of building, civilian chairs, tables, estates, garbage cans, trash bags, and tons of other things. Even the vehicles have little details, such as luggage in the back of their cars. It's evident that they really wanted the environment as detailed as possible, and they succeed.

Gone are the days of a never-ending fog. The draw distance is definitely an improvement from the last game. Your view is fairly large, especially from the view of a helicopter looking over the city. With this, however, comes pop-in, which doesn't detract from the experience, but is noticeable, especially when flying over the ocean and boats appear out of nowhere. There is no day/night cycle, but the game doesn't need one. The developers instead chose to have each area have a distinct feel to them with each area always being a certain type of weather or time of day. For example, the city of Maracaibo, which is the headquarters for UP, has a sunset since the surrounding area is full of islands, the area housing the pirates is always night, and the jungles of the Amazonas are bright and sunny.

The character models are great, from the slight wave of Mattias' mohawk when you move to the shine of Chris's bald head. Sadly, the animations aren't up to par with the models. Some animations look great, such as the hijacking ones, but others look poor, such as the running of certain units. Some of the people you're required to save often run to your car looking like hunchbacks.

With a game with tons of explosions, you'd think they would look great, right? Well, they not only look great, they are easily some of the best looking explosions in any game ever. From the time you land your first surgical strike, to the time you finally acquire the nuke, they look absolutely fantastic. When an explosion goes off, the screens shines a mix of bright red, orange, and yellow, making the explosion pretty much flashy and entertaining.

The destruction of buildings is similar to the last game: they still fall in a downward motion with tons of smoke. But this time around large pieces of the building can fall off, which adds a nice touch to the redundant destruction animations. There is a segment where you are tasked with going through a shanty town, and the easiest way of getting to your objective is through the town. Needless to say, it never gets old to drive through it in a monster truck with pieces of sheet metal flying everywhere.

It's also nice to note that the hud isn't cluttered. When you're not getting into firefights parts of the hud disappear, leaving only the mini-map to the bottom right. Top all this off with a smooth framerate of 60 FPS and some moderate motion blur and you've got yourself a nice looking next-gen feeling game.

EXPLOSIVE...GAMEPLAY

The setting is in tropical Venezuela, which presents itself as a highly entertaining sandbox environment. There are so many sights to see and blow up as well. Did I mention that everything in Venezuela is destructable? One of the staples of Mercs is not only the explosions but that everything can be destroyed, from measly trees (yes, trees are finally destructable if you don't already know) to the high-rise skyscrapers, with a small health bar popping up under your crosshairs to indicate the health of the structures. Venezuela is a massive world. It can take a good long while to travel from one side of the map to the other by car. To help ease the pain of spending forever driving through cities and jungles is a transit system. Early in the game you recruit a helicopter pilot named Ewan who can transport you to several areas of the map, granted that you have acquired that helicopter landing pad, which I'll explain in the recruits section.

In the menu you choose between three mercs, each with different abilities. Mattias is the "tough" merc who regenerates health faster, Chris is the "strong" merc who can carry more ammo, and Jennifer is the "fast" or "sneaky" merc who runs fast. Their are very few differences between the mercs. Choosing a different merc in each playthrough will not change the story. Of the three, it seems that Jennifer is the most jipped simply because stealth is impossible. The AI always know where you are, whether you're sneaking up behind someone with a silenced weapon or sniping from a distant location.

Speaking of the AI, they can be efficient as well as stupid. Enemies are generally deadly while in vehicles or wielding heavy weapons, like rocket launchers. The average foot soldier, however, leaves a lot to be desired. It isn't widespread like other reviewers tend to make it, but on some occasions enemies refuse to shoot at you, despite the fact that they're about to get owned by a rocket launcher. They also don't dodge grenades like they did in the first game, choosing to see whether the grenade explodes or not (100% of the time it does explode BTW). Frustratingly, when trying to capture HVT's (high-value-targets) alive, they often don't hesitate to jump off a high ledge and kill themselves or chuck a grenade only for it to bounce off a wall back to them or detonate a nearby explosive. Despite this, the AI aren't completely brain-dead. Enemies do make use of cover and when they're in helicopters or boats they do pursue you, which leads to some satisfying chase scenes. It's exciting to be on the run from two helicopters and patrol boats in a jet ski ignoring the fact that you're probably screwed.

The basic gameplay mechanics are solid. The controls are easy to learn. There are a good number of weapons (I remember hearing 40, but I haven't even used near that many) including assault rifles, machine guns, smgs, shotgun, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, etc. The shooting feels nice and realistic, but extremely inaccurate at times. You can zoom in with L1 but it feels even more inaccurate since you can clearly see your bullets missing. The more sophisticated weapons from the AN and Chinese later in the game become more accurate. There are over 150 vehicles available for the taking, ranging from sleek sports car to boats to APCs to tanks and to helicopters. The vehicle physics are excellent, striking a nice balance between arcadey and realistic, although when doing jumps, the vehicles feel a bit floaty. Drifting is now possible with the tap of L1 while turning. The hijacking has also been totally revamped. When hijacking enemy vehicles, a quick time sequence initiates, prompting you to press a series of buttons to take control of it. These are pretty satisfying and humorous and don't disrupt the fast pace of the game. When you acquire the grappling hook you can finally hijack helicopters by simply tapping triangle when aimed at and near one. Also when behind a small piece of cover, you can hold L1 to duck down behind it, creating a small cover system.

Your base of operations is known as the PMC, which houses Fiona, your support operative, your stockpile, and your recruitable mercs. What's new in Mercs 2 is the fact that oil is now required to use airstrikes and order vehicles, guns, etc. You can find oil tanks to steal as well as oil packets from destroyed vehicles. Airstrikes are also physically available for the taking in the game world. You can still purchase them from the various factions, but you can also find airstrikes hidden in the world. This presents some interesting situations. Oil tanks can create some devastating explosions to nearby enemies and airstrikes can be set to explodes magnificently. If you don't want it to explode, you can tag it for pickup by Ewan to store in your stockpile. Regarding the recruitable mercs, there are three: Ewan, your helicopter pilot who can pick up oil and airstrikes to send to your stockpile as well as fast-travel you to several areas around the map, Eva, who uses the spare parts you collect to construct modified vehicles, and Misha, your drunk jet pilot who drops your airstrikes. Eva is the least useful because although she is a mechanic, she can't repair any damaged vehicles. All she is there for is to buy modified vehicles she has made with the spare parts you have collected. It would've been nice if she sold vehicle health and ammo drops like they had in the last game. You can take up a number of activities at your PMC. Fiona and the recruits each have a set of challenges that can net you cash, vehicle drops, and character skins. It's preferred to do these along with a co-op partner, which I'll explain in a moment.

There are 5 factions that you encounter, 4 of which you can do "contracts" or missions for (the VZ Army is always hostile). Each faction tasks you with capturing outposts so they can expand their territory. These particular missions can be fun for little while but tend to get a bit repetitive over time, since every faction gives you outpost missions. Only after you capture some outposts will they give you real missions, like escorting people, rescuing hostages, destroying buildings, taking out enemy emplacements, etc. If I remember correctly, the missions in Mercs 1 were far more varied than in Mercs 2. The missions do get more interesting and enjoyable from the middle of the game to the end. There are also tons of side missions, such as racing challenges, capturing HVTs, and destroying target buildings. My gripe against the HVTs is the fact that they automatically appear on your world map. No more trying to find all the HVTs from the first game, which kind of destroys the exploration a bit. Also, each faction has a shop where you can purchase airstrikes, vehicles, and support crates for your stockpile. Certain shop items will only be unlocked if you accomplish certain tasks, whether it be missions, side missions, or challenges.

The faction meters have also returned. This time, you don't automatically lose the favor of one faction for attacking them. Instead, they take a couple of seconds to report in, allowing you to kill them before they do so. If you are already hostile with that faction, they will call for backup, which normally includes APCs carrying troops and helicopters.

The strongest aspect of the game is it's online co-op. Nothing beats blowing stuff up with friends, especially since you can complete the entire story with a friend. Many of the great co-op experiences include winching a tank with the helicopter, roaring through the street guns blazing, flying through the skies in helicopters, one person drives while you man the mini guns, and countless others. If one of you dies, no problem, just run over to them and press triangle to revive them. There are a lot of awesome moments to be had. It's as simple as hitting join game, setting your search criteria, and *BOOM* you're in your partners game. You can edit your multiplayer settings by allowing anyone to join, friends only, or by invites.

EXPLOSIVE...REPLAY VALUE

The story mode is fairly lengthy, varying from player to player based on skill level. The average person would probably beat the game in 20 hours, but throw in all the side missions and co-op, and you've got around a 30-hour game, if not more. The only lacking feature is that you can't start over with your previous stockpile. The previous game had a Playground of Destruction mode, so it would be logical to have a World in Flames mode as well right?

Closing Notes

Before I close, I just want to point out that there aren't nearly as many glitches as everyone says there are. I've encountered a few, such as getting stuck in objects and not being able to zoom in, but none of them ruin the experience.

If you're looking for a fun and unique take on open-world games, check out Mercs 2.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/08

Game Release: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (US, 08/31/08)