Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

"That Silly Mohawk Isn't Impressing Anyone!"

Like a great many other people, I was patiently anticipating the arrival of Pandemic's follow up to Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. And like a lot of other people, I didn't really want a drastic change of design. All I wanted was a big open world and a bunch of ways to blow the hell out of it. And thankfully, Pandemic delivered exactly that. Unfortunately, they also delivered a lot of other things that nobody wanted (namely glitches and headaches).

Anyone acquainted with the first Mercenaries should know that expecting a grandiose story out of World in Flames is asking for disappointment. And if they didn't, they do now. In a nutshell, one of the original three mercenaries (players pick between Mattias, Chris and Jen) gets for a contract in Venezuela by a man named Solano, who is attempting to overthrow the government in a coup. After completing the contract, he reneges on the payment and attempts to kill the merc. However, all he succeeds in doing is shooting the mercenary in the ass, thus inciting the unlimited rage of a pissed off soldier who wants payment.

Such a simple (and goofy) story might lead some people to believe that the gameplay would follow down the same route. And in this case, they'd be right. The gameplay is simple to a fault, and in fact, faulted to the point of seeming unfinished. But I'll get to that soon enough.

By and large, World in Flames plays out much like its predecessor. There are several factions all with their own interests whom the mercenary will do jobs for, all while bringing down lots of bad guys. There has been a dramatic shift in some details though, namely that the 32-card deck of enemy officials is no longer around. In that sense, the game is a little less open-ended, because players can't just go out and hunt down officials for a bounty.

Regardless of that, players will still be getting missions from factions. This time around these factions are made up by an oil company, a guerilla militia, pirates, the Allied Nations and China. Each faction also has a number of other diversionary activities to do, things such as taking back enemy occupied bases, destroying certain targets, capturing or killing High Value Targets (which works like it did in the first game) and an assortment of random and often hilarious side missions.

As is to be expected, money plays a central role in the game. It accomplishes everything, from buying weaponry to paying off factions that are less than happy with your actions. It is received by doing most anything, from completing missions, killing the soldiers of an opposing faction or just by picking it up in the environment.

That brings me to one of the new additions to the game. While moving through the environment, players will encounter all sorts of stuff – money, oil, weapons of mass destruction – you name it, and the Venezuelans probably just leave it lying around. By tagging the resource and calling a helicopter pilot, you can have the stuff transported to a safe place where it will await further use.

This of course leads me into several more additions to the game. First and foremost, there's the PMC (private military company). Shortly after being double crossed, the mercenary decides that a little help is needed to find and hunt down Solano. Eventually, several people will be recruited to help out and these include a helicopter pilot who can pick up resources and provide transportation, a jet pilot who delivers airstrikes, and a mechanic who can build vehicles out of spare parts.

Another new aspect of the game is the way in which goods are purchased. Unlike previously, where players could simply go into a black-market menu and buy what they wanted on the go and have it delivered immediately, this is no longer an option. Now, players must visit a faction headquarters and purchase what is desired beforehand. This causes a couple of problems, namely that it eliminates the ability to change tactics on the fly. While it's possible to stockpile as much as needed, it's not always possible to buy surplus of every single thing that might be required.

Once there's actually something to be delivered, be it a vehicle or bomb, there's the issue of oil to deal with. Anytime a member of the PMC gets airborne, oil is consumed depending on what is being delivered. Highly devastating weaponry requires more oil than a vehicle delivery. This is actually an interesting way to make sure players aren't capable of endlessly bombing a certain area, as oil reserves will eventually run out. In order to replenish it, just find one of the countless oil tanks strewn across the land and call for a resource pickup.

So far, I've avoided the worst aspects of World in Flames but now it's time to delve into the bottomless well of problems this game suffers from. First, there's the utterly simplistic, mindless and maddening way combat is handled. Like before, combat is largely a run and gun affair that requires little tactical sense (especially since health regenerates quickly). Guns are inaccurate and zooming in actually makes them less likely to hit a target than shooting from the hip. From there it only gets worse – it seems like the standard issue weapon for Venezuelan soldiers is the rocket launcher as nearly every enemy is carrying one. Every fight turns into a mindless fragfest filled with cheap deaths. This is compounded by the brain dead AI of every NPC in the game.

Rocket launcher enemies are so stupid that they'll shoot the merc at point blank range, blowing themselves up. Even worse, they're completely oblivious to their surroundings, and will actually kill HVT's (who are supposed to be their commanders) before the player can subdue them, which halves the possible bounty. Their stupidity is obvious even when not in combat as they constantly get stuck in the environment or stand shooting at a wall. Once, I even walked into an enemy encampment and subdued a HVT, and had him airlifted out before they even noticed I was there.

There are even more moronic design decisions to contend with. Melee attacks are ridiculously overpowered, always amounting to a one hit kill. Once this becomes obvious, the logical course of action is to quit using guns and just pistol whip everyone to death. Then there's the fact that vehicle damage (and mercenary damage) is totally arbitrary. I drove a car off a cliff and it wasn't damaged a bit. Later I hit a small rock in a tank and it took ten points of health from it. Similarly, jumping into a lake from a dock will hurt the merc, but falling thousands of feet out of a helicopter is completely survivable.

One of the more pressing design flaws is the issue of airstrikes. To call in an airstrike, you must toss a smoke grenade at the intended target, then run like hell in order to survive the barrage. What's worse is that you have to get out of any vehicle in order to do this. In the midst of a frenzied firefight, support is as good as impossible to attain if you intend to survive. And I thought we lived in the age of satellite guided weaponry. Silly me! (Though there are sat-guided weapons, but these come in very late in the game and there are only a few)

As much as I wish I could just stop, there's also the fact that the game is monumentally glitchy. There were numerous times in which I called for a resource pickup and the helicopter missed the resource and got stuck in the environment. One time, the chopper missed the resource, picked up a truck, then crashed into a wall, exploded and I had to pay to fix the damn thing. It gets worse. One time I got into a car, which promptly exploded. And I can't even count the times when I called for some sort of supply drop, only to have the idiot pilot drop it in the water, or on top of a building. Achievement hounds will also be disappointed to hear that even that aspect of the game is glitched – Sometimes, achievements are doled out even when the requirement hasn't been reached. After beating the game, I was awarded with several that involved co-op, despite never playing with anyone else. Although that's not nearly as bad as not getting achievements that I did complete.

There's not much redemption to be found with the graphics either. While the game is passable, there are far too many texture problems and fill-in. Water is an awful, pixilated mess. Still, the game does have some impressive destruction going on and the explosions are some of the best I've ever seen. The sudden light burst of an exploding bomb causes everything to become dim, the sky turns orange and smoke obscures everything.

Sound design is almost a high-point as there are lots of funny one-liners, but these are repeated on a minute to minute basis. There are only so many times a person can hear Mattias yell “Bumper cars!” after hitting something before it gets old. Other sound effects, such as engine sounds, are surprisingly good with lots of loud boisterous noises (some of this stuff sounds better than a few racing games I've played)

THE VERDICT
For all intents and purposes, World in Flames is a disaster of design. However, unlike the vast majority of games that score so low, I did actually have a bit of fun with this. But nearly every time I started enjoying myself something stupid would pop up and ruin it all again. If only the many glitches had been ironed out, and (dare I say it?) the rest of the game actually finished, it could have been excellent. As it stands I can barely even recommend this as a rental. If you simply must play World in Flames, that's really the only sensible route to take as it lets you experience the small amount of fun it has to offer without staying long enough to see all its flaws.

HIGHS
- Explosions look great

LOWS
- Braindead AI
- Glitchy
- Stupid, sloppy combat

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/03/09, Updated 03/27/09

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