Description
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is the sequel to
Mercenaries. Rather than a port, compared to the next-gen versions this title was reworked to a large extent by
Pi Studios with fundamental differences in approach. It is set in the country of Venezuela, with a new set of enemies and allies. The game begins with the player choosing one of three mercenaries from the original game, (Mattias Nilsson, Chris Jacobs and Jennifer Mui), and is contracted by a Venezuelan billionaire, Ramon Solano, to rescue a general named Carlos Carmona who attempted a coup d’état and failed. Once the player succeeds, Solano and Carmona refuse to pay and try to kill the mercenary.
Afterwards, Carmona and Solano take over Venezuela, pulling of a successful coup, seizing the countries oil platforms, putting the world on alert as they seize total control of the country. Unbeknown to them, the players mercenary has survived and is now plotting revenge on the pair. The player must take contracts from rival factions such as Universal Petroleum, an oil company who's business is threatened by Solano, the P.L.A.V. (People’s Liberation Army of Venezuela), who are a force of rebel soldiers determined to take back their country, The Jamaican Pirates, who profit from Solano's forces, The A.N. (Allied Nations), who have entered the company to try and bring back stability to the region and The Chinese Army, who hope to take control of Venezuela as well, marking themselves as a true superpower.
The gameplay is basically the same as the previous version, with the control scheme virtually the same, but there are some tweaks as well. One of which is a new way to hijack a vehicle. Whereas in the previous game the player could simply walk up to the vehicle and automatically hijack, now they must kill the gunner of the vehicle and then enter a "mini-game", pressing a certain button or rotating the analog stick in a certain way to successfully hijack the vehicle. Likewise, players can also you a grappling hook to latch on to passing helicopters to make it easier to hijack. Players can now swim, whereas the previous game the player would die the instant they hit the water.
Players now have a "headquarters" of sort, where the player can stockpile weapons, supply crates and vehicles. To obtain these stockpiles the player must recruit three certain soldiers unlockable in the game. A helicopter pilot named Ewan Garrett, who delivers stockpile crates as well as medivacs the player, a mechanic named Eva Navarro, who will repair and stock vehicles when you return them to the villa and is used for artillery strikes and a fighter pilot named Misha Milanich, who is used for air strikes. Players can use these during a mission by calling in Ewan to deliver their supplies via helicopter during a mission. Also Fiona Taylor reprises her role, giving the player technical information during the missions.
There is no more black market contacts to purchase supplies or airstrikes, instead players must take complete jobs for contacts scattered on the island, completing jobs for these contacts will supply the player's headquarters with materials such as weapons, medikits, and artillery support. Players can also stockpile vehicles by driving back to their headquarters, keeping them at the garage for use in missions. Also, players must have gas as well now to bring in supplies or call in airstrikes, which can be obtained by either completing contracts or collecting them scattered throughout the country.
Once again, bounties come into play, but instead of the "Deck of 52" from the first game, they are now "High Value Targets", military leaders that have defected from the Venezuela military and declared themselves independent from Solano as well as competing factions. They are scattered throughout the map, capturing them alive will give the player more money, while killing them will only reward the player half the bounty. There are also "treasures" lying around the island, such as fuel cans, weapons schematics and even pirate treasure chests as well, each has their own monetary value for collecting them.
There are also new vehicles in the game, as well classic vehicles, such as modernized tanks, more powerful helicopters and even for the first time boats and other watercraft such as jet skis as well as civilian muscle cars, high-end racing cars, as well as specialized vehicles for each faction.
The PDA is once again another factor, showing the player the moods of the factions, the map along with other statistics and High Value Target information. The game's story is played out using cinema-style CGI, as well as introductions to missions and contracts, whereas the previous game did not feature cinematic graphics for mission introductions.
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Trivia
Mercenaries 2 has been denounced by it Venezuela president, Hugo Chávez, claiming the game is an effort by the United States government to drum up public support for a real-life invasion of Venezuela. Pandemic has been known to make training aids for the U.S. Army, but has stated that the game is nothing but pure entertainment only and has not been approached by the U.S. government to make this game.
This entry to the MobyGames database was contributed by
Big John WV (23377) on Aug 31, 2008.
