Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
Developer(s)	Pandemic Studios Pi Studios
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Designer(s)	Cameron Brown
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter, sandbox
Mode(s)	Single player, cooperative, multiplayer

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is a video game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to 2005's Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and was released in the United States on August 31, 2008 and released in Europe on September 5, 2008. The game is set in Venezuela.

Plot

The game features three playable characters, all from the original game: Jennifer Mui, Mattias Nilsson and Chris Jacobs. All characters follow the same storyline that centers around the player's character of choice.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is set in August 2010 in Venezuela. The story begins as the player approaches businessman Ramon Solano's villa. The player is greeted by a man named Blanco, who apparently once worked with the player but left him when he stopped making money. In the meeting inside the villa, Solano hires the player to rescue a top Venezuelan Army General named Carmona, one of Solano's friends, who is being held prisoner by the Army after a failed coup attempt. A small faction in his army did not agree with the coup, captured him, and has taken him prisoner in an old colonial fortress on an island off the coast of Venezuela. The player uses weapons and air strikes supplied by Solano to infiltrate the fortress and rescue Carmona. Once Carmona is rescued, however, Solano attempts to murder the player to avoid paying him. The player is able to escape, despite being "shot in the ass", and begins to plan his revenge on Solano.

Following a second, successful coup by Carmona, he chooses Solano as the "civilian leader of a military government". Solano begins a forceful attempt to seize control of the country's oil supply, which is held by a company called Universal Petroleum, who tricked the former government into giving UP full control of Venezuela's oil. Fierce fighting ensues throughout Venezuela between Universal Petroleum's hired mercenaries and the Venezuelan Army (referred to as the VZ in the game) under Solano's control, resulting in a collapse of the country, driving people from their homes and causing widespread property damage. In response, a rebel group called the People's Liberation Army of Venezuela (PLAV) rises up against both VZ and UP forces. After taking control over Solano's villa, the player establishes his private military company (PMC) and helps the causes of the factions in exchange for money and information on Solano. This includes capturing VZ outposts, 'verifying' high value targets (or 'HVTs'), destroying structures, and doing other work that the faction's forces cannot accomplish.

Upon verifying Blanco and destroying the oil platform that he was on per request of the PLAV, the player learns where Solano is hiding. The player attempts to destroy Solano's hidden bunker at Angel Falls, but fails as it is hardened against normal bunker buster weapons. Shortly after, the player is forced to defend his own headquarters and recruits from Carmona and his VZ troops. After repelling the attack and verifying Carmona, it is revealed that sinking the oil platform triggered an international response to the crisis in Venezuela. A large force of American-led Allied Nations (the AN faction, a parody of the UN) and the People's Liberation Army of China move into the country. The AN is supposedly a peacekeeping and nation-rebuilding force for the war-torn country, but the player finds out that at the center of the operation is a CIA agent named Joyce, who was ordered to secure the oil supply when it became clear that their allies, Universal Petroleum, could not do so. The Chinese Army initially supported the PLAV, hoping that they would come into power and give China oil. When it became clear that the PLAV leader only wanted to stop Blanco and Carmona for personal reasons rather than overthrow the new government, the Chinese began a direct assault into the country. The Allies' and the Chinese' different plans for the oil results in a struggle for control of Caracas and the oil supply.

The player sides with one of the factions and completes contracts for them in exchange for the nuclear bunker buster needed to destroy Solano's hardened bunker. Consequently, the player succeeds in verifying the other factions leader (Agent Joyce or General Peng), but Solano destroys the HQ of the faction the player allied with with a nuclear bomb. The player returns to Solano's bunker in a second attempt to destroy it. After fighting through Solano's defenses, the player uses the nuclear bunker buster to destroy a large portion of the bunker. Solano almost escapes the ruins in a helicopter, before the player hijacks it and kills the pilot. The player confronts Solano in the helicopter which is now spinning out of control inside the bunker. The player kills Solano and jumps off the helicopter moments before it crashes. In the final cutscene, the player and the PMC recruits are shown discussing a potential client in India; Solano's picture is shown on a laptop, with the word "Verified" over it.

Gameplay

Mercenaries 2 expands upon the original's third-person shooter gameplay through contracts and side missions using a large variety of weapons, vehicles, air support, and airstrikes.

Players have the ability to build a private military company and recruit mercenaries with it. There are three mercenary NPCs that may be recruited: Eva Navarro, a mechanic, who can supply custom vehicles and unlocks access to the grappling hook; Ewan Devlin, a helicopter pilot who has the ability to pick up valuable objects you may encounter and also provide transport and extraction to and from various locations; and Misha Milanich, a bomber pilot, who can be hired as your source for airstrikes. Support items also have to be purchased, or rewarded, to the player prior to use. The player can no longer just request for the support item. The player now must purchase the support from a faction outpost, which will then be placed into the player's stockpile. Stockpiled items can then be called in from the field. It's very similar to the first Mercenaries system, but instead of paying for the support as the player needs it, items must be bought or obtained beforehand.

The total number of vehicle types has been increased to approximately 170. Vehicles can be transported anywhere in the game area. In the first Mercenaries, if the player did not clear an area of enemies before calling in a vehicle, the helicopter dropped the vehicle when fired upon, regardless of how close it was to the designated drop zone. In this edition, however, the vehicle is delivered regardless of damage to the helicopter. To complement the new swimming mechanic, new vehicles such as boats have been added. Hijacking still plays a large role in gameplay, but instead of being a fixed cinematic, now consists of a small minigame with difficulty relative to the value of the vehicle being hijacked. A grappling hook has been added to allow the player to hijack helicopters. Another new feature mentioned was the ability to switch from driver to gunner at will, although this feature is not present in the final version of the game.

The arsenal of weapons and airstrikes is larger and more diverse than the one in the previous game. New to the game will be a variety of air support and airstrikes, such as the use of tactical nukes. The Nuclear Bunker Buster airstrike and the M.O.A.B were demonstrated at E3 2008.

Instead of a structured bounty system, such as the Deck of 52 from the last game, Pandemic has instead opted for a smaller roster of bounties in a simple high-value target system. Along with the high-value target system, another type of bounty is available. Destruction targets allow players to raze a building for rewards and to raise faction standings. All factions have both high-value targets and destruction targets available. Some of the high-value targets are members of another faction, so accosting them can possibly lower the player's standing with that faction.

The game includes numerous side missions that can be completed to increase the player's reputation with a faction and earn him or her extra cash. Similarly, some missions will harm the player's reputation with a faction. However, loss of reputation may be avoided by preventing the faction's soldiers from alerting the faction boss. This mechanic limits the pool of missions available to the player. In addition, each faction requests the help from the player to secure outposts for them. After capturing an outpost, the player can then revisit the outpost to purchase support items. Each outpost has a helipad so the player may fly directly to them once captured, so long as the players standing with the outpost's faction is neutral or higher.

The game also features a new co-op mode that allows two players to play through the game together online. Co-op implements a "drop-in, drop-out" system. When a player joins anothers player's game, the player is able to choose which mercenary to play as. The player will join the host no matter what they are doing in their game. Every mission and activity in the game can be completed in co-op. Consequently, there are no co-op or single player exclusive missions. A half kilometer tether has been added to keep the players from straying too far away from one another. However, the PS2 version lacks any multiplayer capabilities.

Characters

All three mercenaries from the first game have made a return. However, they have left their prior employer, ExOps, to pursue a freelance career. Though all three can be seen in a cutscene shortly after Solano's betrayal, only the player's mercenary factors into the story from that point forward.

Mattias Nilsson (Peter Stormare): Born in Arvidsjaur, Sweden. After participating in Sweden's Arctic rangers, Mattias was involved in criminal activity and was a member of a local biker gang. He takes pleasure in large explosions and is known to start a fight. After escaping from a Swedish prison, he became a mercenary to satisfy his thirst for destruction and money. Mattias is also featured on the game's cover.

Christopher Jacobs (Phil LaMarr): Born in San Jose, California. Raised in a military family, Chris also joined the Army when he was older, where he was accepted into the Delta Force. During his service, Chris' mind became more and more darkened as he saw his commanding officers show unethical behavior towards Chris' fellow troops. When his tour ended, Chris left the Army and became a mercenary.

Jennifer Mui (Jennifer Hale): Born in Hong Kong, China to a British cultural attaché and a Chinese diplomat. Her parents divorced when she was ten years old. She moved to Britain with her father when he got a promotion but still remained close to her mum who was in Hong Kong. She excelled at studies and athletics as a child. When she joined the British Army, her talent was noticed by an MI6 member. She was accepted into MI6, but was not satisfied by her pay. She left MI6 and joined ExOps as a mercenary.

Development

After the critically and publically well-received original was released in 2005, Pandemic Studios quickly began the development of the sequel to its popular non-Star Wars franchise. The game was first announced in the summer of 2006, and an early demonstration was shown at E3 2006. The demo showcased a new setting of Venezuela, and introduced Mattias, returning with a new costume and a mohawk, and Eva, an all new playable mercenary. Many new gameplay mechanics were shown, including grappling, water vehicles, the hijacking mini-game, and co-op play. On the technical side, the game was initially developed for PlayStation 3 console, which at the time had not been released yet. For the next-gen console, a new game engine written in-house was planned to incorporate dynamic shadows, day and night cycles, and dynamic damage and destruction system involving real-time physics.

On February 1, 2007, it was announced Electronic Arts would publish Mercenaries 2 some time that year. Three weeks later on February 22, EA and Pandemic further announced a multi-platform release for Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and PS2.

In E3 2007, a stage demo of a newer build featured a fire effects engine that allows the player to ignite material such as foliage and trees. Pandemic also recently upgraded to the Havok 5.5 physics engine for realistic movements of vehicles and debris during large-scale destruction. As for the playable characters, the three mercenaries from the original game were brought back. Producer Jonathan Zamkoff stated that writing was being improved to emphasize story and character development, aiming for a "Bruckheimer meets Tarantino action movie" feel. In September after the E3, however, Pandemic delayed Mercenaries 2 to early 2008, but stated that all the contents had already been put into the game and extra amount of polish would be added until release. In April 2008, the release date for all versions was again delayed but finalized to August 31, 2008 in the US and September 5 in Europe.

The game was extensively featured in E3 2008 for the last time prior to release.

Media campaign and release

In preparation for the release of Mercenaries 2, Electronic Arts opened a commercial campaign in August 2008, with scenes of the plot of the game in a stylized world, featuring background music reminiscent of a "hip-hop musical" singing about how the protagonists are going to get revenge for getting shot in the buttocks and getting no pay to boot. The official Mercenaries 2 website offers a full version of the song that is written and performed by the Wojahn Brothers. When downloaded, the title of the MP3 is simply "Oh No".

EA took over the Last Stop petrol station in Finsbury Park, North London on the release day of the game in order to give away £20,000 worth of petrol for free, with each driver receiving a maximum of £40. The petrol station was transformed into a military bunker, with sandbags, oil barrels and jeeps. However one local resident described the decision as "irresponsible" as it created unnecessary congestion in the area.

The demo of the game became available after-release on September 18 on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.

Patches and downloadble content

On September 30, 2008 Pandemic Studios announced that they were working on a free patch, called "Total Payback", that would fix various glitches, add six new playable characters, cross region co-op support and cheats. It is slated to be released on October 13th for the Xbox 360 and October 20th for the Playstation 3. Pandemic Studios has also annouced that they are planning to release downloadble content for the game sometime in November. [1]

Controversy

The game has been criticized by the Venezuelan government, accusing the U.S. government of trying to drum up support from the American public for a real-life invasion with the purpose of overthrowing Hugo Chávez. Pandemic Studios had previously developed training aids for the US Army. In response to the criticism, the official Mercenaries 2 website includes the following disclaimer, "Pandemic Studios is in the business of entertainment. It has not been contacted by a U.S. government agency concerning the development of Mercenaries 2. All persons, storylines and events are purely fictional and bear no relation to real events. As with any number of games, movies and books, the decision to choose interesting events and locations is purely designed to tell a compelling story, as well as provide a fun and rich experience for the gamer."

However, most of these criticisms have proven false after the release of the game. Throughout Mercenaries 2, the developers often show a neutral or sometimes pro-Chavez stance. For example, the dictator of Venezuela in the game is in fact a corrupt billionaire, one of the factions that the player character can side with is a Maoist rebel group, the Allies seem more interested in the aquisition of oil while the communist Chinese seem to care more about the Venezuelan people, and, most importantly, in the ending credits, the first item in the special thanks section (in Spanish) reads: The Bolivarian Revolution: Necessary for a Better World .

Reception

Reception

Review scores

Publication	Score
1Up.com	B+
Eurogamer	5/10
Game Informer	7.25/10
GameSpot	5/10
GameSpy	4/5
IGN	7.9/10

Reception of the game has been favourable with an average critic score of 75% at Game Rankings and 75 out of 100 at Metacritic. Though praised for its destructive environments, many reviews have complained of its simple strategy throughout the game and, by and large, its unintelligent AI. Other complaints include the lack of functions for the co-op mode, wherein situations involving a vehicle do not even grant the passenger player anything to do, as well as rampant glitches.

There have also been many complaints about the rushed feel of the game and the PC and PlayStation 2 versions which are full of bugs and errors such as falling through the map, underground swimming and calling air strikes and nothing happening. Some even called the PlayStation 2 version inferior to the original Mercenaries on PlayStation 2, criticizing its underwhelming visuals, foggy environments caused by short draw distances, and one of the "worst pop-in rates ever seen."

External links

• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Official website