Mathias, you gorgeous gorgeous man you
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is set to release a hair over 15 days and I am giddy with anticipation. Pandemic Studio’s flagship ’08 release is hyped to nuke the faces off of newbies and vets alike, but will this title go the way of so many ’08 high profile releases that did not have the guts to live up to it all? With such promising ’08 titles like GTA IV, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, and Frontlines: Fuel of War failing to deliver on what initially looked to be great graphics, gameplay, and story arc, Mercenaries 2 could very easily fall in line with the trend. Though Pandemic is building from a foundation as strong as Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, this also gives Mercs 2 a lot to live up to. So what are my initial impressions: I’m a scarrrred!
There is no denying that Mercs 2 looks f-ing gorgeous on the trailers, co-op videos, and pictures. I just watched the recently released co-op videos on IGN.com and I have to say that between the helicopter missles, RPG, and water effects while in the patrol boat, I have never been more excited to blow some shit up. The graphics are obviously competitive to COD4 with most of the environment destruction leaving little to be desired. Mercs 2 takes an immediate step above its predecessor by taking place in Venezuela which allows for a much wider range of environments than the nearly-tan-everything Koreas in the last one. Cities are much bigger and skyscrapers in one city are just BEGGING to have a bunker buster blast out the bottom floor to watch the building come tumbling-tumbling down. I can tell you right now that between the three mercs you can play as, Mathias is my obvious choice with his lack of tactics and stealth making room for outright destruction to get to his target. That is, after all, the beauty of the Mercenaries franchise: blowing shit up.
Despite all the beauty that is Mercs 2, there are some unanswered and graphical questions still in play. Unless Pandemic releases a trailer showing the start-to-finish of a true mission (not the first mission, which they did release), we will not know what the story arc and contracts will look like. Pandemic has a lot to live up to here with Playground of Destruction’s Deck of Cards being an ingenious and fun-as-shit way to chase after the mean old men in North Korea. No matter what, being a mercenary is fun but, as was the case in GTA IV, the missions have the high possibility of becoming repetitive. Go-kill-this-pee-pee-head or go-pick-up-something-uber-important-for-some-reason can become a little unoriginal over time and no matter how many bunker busters, daisy cutters, and napalm you drop, you will get bored if they do not mix it up in some way. The only remaining thing worrying me is the environment destruction. I love that Pandemic took the hint that if you can destroy a 30 story building, you should be able to drive your truck though a gal-darned tree but the tree destruction effect looks subpar. Yea yea, I AM being picky but the devil is in the details. In Crysis or Battlefield: Bad Company, you shoot a tree and it breaks where you shoot. From what I have seen, Mercs 2 has trees that break the same way whether you hit it with a bullet or C-4. General building destruction is also a bit usual. Bad Company set a high standard, and so the dust-particles-covering-screen-fading-in-destroyed-building is very Mercs 1. Though it is still amazing, I guess I just expected a little more.
The bottom line is that Mercs 2 looks gorgeous and it seems like a hell-of-a-lot-o-fun from what I can tell from the previews released from Pandemic. In the end, we will not know what Mercs 2 is like until we get our hands on it. I have had my heart broken at least once this year with the disappointment that was GTAIV and I pray that Mercs 2 is a much gentler lover.
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