There were a lot of games going on at Electronic Arts' demo room today. Among the various demonstrations there I had a chance to sit down and get hands on with the sequel to the popular Mercenaries game, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, which moves the action from North Korea to Venezuela.
If you haven't played the first game, Mercenaries 2 is what is popularly called a "sandbox" game. This time, you're in Venezuela. After getting double-crossed you get what's even worse to a mercenary than a failed assassination attempt — nothing, no pay at all. It's time to break out the assault rifles, tanks, and nuclear bunker busters to get the money that you're owed.
If you DID play the first game you're going to see some improvements right away. Obviously, the graphics are better. But that's not all. The UI has been overhauled and now has a "money" theme to it which ties in very well to the game itself. The playing card system of bounties from the first game has been discarded, and amongst various other gameplay changes you've gained a grappling hook which helps you hijack helicopters easier.
Speaking of hijacking, it's changed a bit, too. Instead of just hitting one button to do it, it becomes a mini-game. After shooting the machine gunner out of the turret of a Jaguar tank, I ran up to the tank and hit the "Y" button. That started a cinematic showing my guy climbing onto the tank as the hatch opened and an army officer pulled a pistol on me. Another button push disarmed his pistol and let me grab a grenade off his webbing - that led to a rapid fire "X" button pushing to force the grenade down the hatch after him to kill the crew members. After that, the tank was mine.
The world is much bigger, too. It's four times the size of the original at 8 kilometers by 8 kilometers in size. You've got over 120 vehicles and several dozen types of weapons. Over the course of the game you'll work for several factions, including the Chinese, United Petroleum, some Rastafarian pirates, the Allied Nations, and the guerillas, while the Venezuelan army will act as the North Korean army did in the previous one (i.e. the "bad guy" faction).
While you're making the money, just keep an eye out for what you'll be spending it on. Call in a chopper when there's heavy ground fire and you have to pay to have it repaired — you even pay now for the satellite coverage when you want to call in that rocket artillery barrage, since satellites don't come for free. Don't worry — the nuclear bunker buster, an amazing weapon which just made me very, very happy to use, uses a laser pointer instead.
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames comes out on August 31st of this year for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and the PS2.
I'm a 29 year old senior network and systems engineer for a consulting firm in the DC area. I'm mostly into MMOs and FPSes (on the console), and I'm a big pro football fan. In my other spare time I like to write and tend to read copious amounts of history and military sci-fi. I'm also into cooking and bad action movies.
