Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Mercenaries 2)

I'll never understand the fascination with mercenaries. I mean, overall. I don't get what's likeable about a lackey who merely doesn't have to wear a uniform. So you get paid for doing either illegal odd jobs or violent requests? If you wanted to do that, you could simply work for a corporation. But I digress.


Being a watch tower guard just isn't worth it.

Mercenaries 2: World In Flames is brought to us by developer Pandemic Studios. They made a few memorable Star Wars games, like Battlefront II, brought us the first two Destroy All Humans! games, and even were behind the very first Mercenaries title. However, unlike the first title, this is not published by LucasArts, but instead published by Electronic Arts. If you know what to expect by now from Electronic Arts, you don't have to read the rest of the review.


Why fire a rocket-propelled grenade launcher when you can just hit people with it?!

The game starts off with you picking one of the three mercenaries from the first game: Jennifer Mui, Mattias Nilsson, or Chris Jacobs. Each merc has their own special gimmick. Mattias can heal the faster than the other two, Chris can carry more ammo than the other two, and Jennifer's running speed is greater than Chris and Mattias. I started the game not knowing that fact and was glad that I did because I would've been bored of it faster if I had chosen Mattias, who is pretty much the "Easy Mode" of the whole game. The extra ammo of Chris is helpful until you figure out that the enemy will drop whole cases of additional ammo every so often, making his gimmick semi-pointless; while Jennifer's extra speed is also pointless as you could easily dodge bullets with any three of them, and the enemy will always be slow to react. Overall though, whomever you choose, you'll notice that the game is easy no matter what, and that all of their stories and most of their lines are shared and there is no difference between the three of them.


Stealing chips will be the least of your sins before you're finished with Venezuela.

After choosing a character, you'll approach some old friend of the character named Blanco, who chickened out on a previous mission once he no longer got a paycheck. You meet a businessman named Ramon Solano, who hires you to save a captured Venezuelan Army General named Carmona. Solano and Carmona attempted a coup of the Venezuelan government but failed miserably. You rescue Carmona and are soon betrayed by Blanco as Solano states that he'll soon rise to power and can't have a merc possibly take any bounties that would be placed on his head. Your character escapes and vows vengeance against Solano and Blanco. The story really isn't the strength of the game, and you'll soon find yourself not caring about it as you continue to play. Near the last parts of the game, you'll have to align yourself with one of two world powers who offer you the means to take out Solano. This is where the game tricks you into thinking you'll have two different endings, but, essentially, they're the same. The only noticeable difference is one or two final missions you'll undertake, but it's nothing of grave importance.


Prime Venezuelan real estate.

Graphically, it's not an impressive game, but there is a small bonus in knowing that almost everything is destructible. You'll encounter tremendous pop-in and visual glitches, especially in co-op mode. These glitches can also badly affect your gameplay as well, since sometimes vehicles you're in or next to will randomly explode. Sometimes they'll even anger allied units and soon you'll be hunted down by enemy and ally alike. Overall, the atmosphere is also underwhelming as the weather is eternal; it will always be sunny and partly cloudy. From time to time, it likes to give the illusion of different times of the day with different lighting effects, but this is a very sad attempt. The character models are very dull, even in the FMVs that play for some of the cutscenes.


"If you boys can't share the grenade, I'll just have to take it away."

You'll notice, off the bat, that the voice acting is pretty unsatisfactory with the exception of Jennifer Hale and Phil LaMarr. The very sexy Jennifer Hale does the voice of Jennifer Mui and, honestly, as expected, does a very good job. Phil LaMarr voices Chris Jacob and does an outstanding job, in my opinion. Peter Stormare does Mattius Nilsson, but every line that comes out of his mouth is said a billion times better by Jennifer and Phil. The game also has one memorable orchestrated theme, but that's about it. I really didn't hear any other music outside of the gunshots, explosions, and one-liners.


"Is it hot in here, or is it just me?"

The main gameplay is one of the few good things about this game. It's a third-person shooter with some Grand Theft Auto similarities. You can drive cars, helicopters, tanks, motorcycles, and a lot of other vehicles. The driving controls are strong depending on the car you're driving. A lot of the cars that civilians are driving are horrible, but expensive purchases you make, and the vehicles that your allies and enemies drive around, are vastly superior. The helicopter controls are also very good, and I found really no problem with them or their mobility. Tanks are a bit unrealistically mobile, but that's nothing really to gripe about. Your character can run(and never get tired), jump, swim, and shoot, and I found no real problems with the way they controlled, but the aiming sensitivity, even though it's changeable in the options, can sometimes be too sensitive or not very sensitive at all.


Tank treads on a motorcycle. Crude, but effective.

Each mission nets you a good deal of cash, but the real money comes from jobs within your own base, as you can wager a good deal of money to do tasks. With this money, you can purchase weapons, vehicles, back-up, and airstrikes, but for the latter two, you probably won't use them that much. Most of the time, enemies will have anti-air weaponry, and you'll end up killing almost all of the enemies to destroy this weaponry, ergo, airstrikes and back-up turn out to be useless. And, if you need a little advice, never bother buying a tank buster, because you'll either end up hijacking it, having it randomly blow up, or destroy it yourself. Speaking of purchases, you'll also end up having the very best items near the very easy end of the game, and never really have to use them. The game boasts all of these damned airstrikes and bomb drops, but they hurt more than help in a ton of situations. You get more money for having bounties taken in alive, and you won't usually be able to escape from the blast radius. And these also blow up much needed fuel tanks you could retrieve in the field; they're necessary for bringing in weapon and vehicle drops. But maybe it's a personal preference of yours to make the game a little harder by using them; whatever floats your boat, I suppose.


Mattius Nilsson invented the "gangsta" way of shooting RPGs.

The multiplayer aspect of the game is co-op only. You can choose to invite a friend, let yourself be interrupted randomly by people looking for an online partner, or randomly team up with a stranger online. While playing this with a friend and with good communication between the two makes the game fun, playing this with a random stranger usually turns out different results. You'll either play with someone who loves to screw around, someone who will kill every single living person(enemy, ally, you) you encounter and spam airstrikes like there is no tomorrow, or you'll deal with a kid who doesn't even know he's co-oping with someone and proceed to drive out of co-op regulated distance and disconnect the two of you.


Remember to always buckle up, kids.

The game is about four hours long, and after completing this once, you'll be left with nothing to do besides starting a new game, for the other copied and pasted ending, or working towards achievements. Both endeavors WILL most likely leave you bored though. There is really nothing else to do though. Mercenaries 2 is a very buggy and very disappointing sequel and, honestly, one of the worst games I've had to endure, even though I DID have fun playing with my friend via co-op. But a game shouldn't rely on that alone. This game is a rental at best, but only if you really have nothing else better to do. I can't really blame Pandemic though, as Electronic Arts is known for having games rushed to completion. I DID hear that a sequel was in the works, but I don't really believe it will be something worth my time. But I've been wrong before.


It's MY tactical nuke, bitch. I earned it.

Well, not many times.