OurColony.net

Lots of fun, if not completely polished

Customer Rating:
This game is a lot of fun. If you liked the first mercenaries, this one continues the party with lots more vehicles, weapons, and airstikes. The vehicle hi-jacking minigame is kinda silly, as none of them are so hard that you simply won't be able to do them, even for the best vehicles (most require mid-tempo button-mashing), and if you fail, you can easily try again with little to prevent it. Money is rather silly in this game, as you can earn 5 million in a very easy task in your HQ that takes about 2 minutes, and the best faction units and airstrikes in the game only cost like $250k-400k. The only time you really need cash is to bribe factions (upwards of $10million). Another odd point is the relative invincibility of your merc. You can fall from hundreds of feet or stand in the middle of an airstrike and survive (though my experience is with Nielsen, who is the "tough" one).

Pros:
-Lots of vehicles (170+)
-Game world is very large
-It is easier to control faction opinion than the first game. You can kill whomever you want, as long as you don't get reported (the games gives you 10 seconds to take out reporting units)
-Physics engine is very realistic
-Everything actually CAN be destroyed (though most respawn at some point)
-You can afford all the vehicles and airstikes you could ever want without having to "work" for money

Cons:
-BUGS. This game literally locks up my Xbox 75% of the time when I try to load a save. However, it appears this has been fixed through Xbox live.
-Missions are too redudant. Most missions actually have you repeat the exact same task 3 times, though increasing difficulty and increasing reward.
-Voice acting is annoying. Everyone says the same things over and over again. A pirate unit sharing your tank will continually say something like "hey mon" every 5 seconds. I'm not kidding.
-There are not enough core missions. I would estimate there are 12-15 between the 5 factions. The other "missions" are more like errons (drive from A to B)

The only real deal breaker for me in this game was the locking up while loading. As I said, an Xbox live update will fix this, but if you don't have live, make sure you are a patient person.

Flawed but fun!

Customer Rating:
Mercenaries 2 is a great, fun game. However, there are elements that simultaneously improve and reduce the experience.

M2 is usual on-foot/vehicle sandbox fare - main missions can be completed at your leisure and completing side quests offer you bonus artillery/info/ammo that can aid with the main missions.

Graphically, well it's sub-par. It has moments of brilliance such as the sun glinting over the sea as you fly around in a chopper, but the graphic pop-up and sparse, bitmap-tiling of the greenery is very evident. Whilst it does the job it sometimes borders on very gamelike Mario-esque looking effects, so there's no real immersion, no sense of you 'in the game'. Does it matter? Not really; it's a 3D platformer/driving game, not Far Cry 2.

Sound has problems too. Your main character has the weirdest accent I've heard and this 'Nordic Viking' also tends to say the same thing over and over again. Jump out of a helicopter two feet from the ground and he shouts "Who neeeeeds a 'chuuuute!" whilst he's standing next to a landed chopper. Would it have been so hard to code in a test to see how far he's about to fall? Your cohorts also repeat the same dialog far too often. Call in chopper support and you get the same line delivered chosen from maybe three available. The barks your enemies issue are equally inappropriate and repetitive and become tiresome fairly quickly.

Gameplay - well this is where M2 shines. It's simply a fun game with lots to do and many ways to do it. You're free to experiment with your current arsenal and free to tackle the task at hand anyway you choose and I love that. My only gripe is the QTE (Quick Time Events) - these are situations where you must complete a series of set button pushes in a small amount of time. For example to hijack a tank, you might have to press B then mash X then hit LT then A. It's all very antiquated and tedious. A next gen game with Dragon's Lair controls? Awful... buuuut - it's also awesome in Co-op.

Co-op, is, as I opened with the element that sends M2 into the stratosphere in terms of fun. Your friends can jump in at any time and help out, then leave without impacting your mission. At one point my colleague was attempting to delivery some packages in a truck and was repeatedly being killed so I jumped in, summoned a powerful chopper and destroyed all bad guys in his wake. He completed the mission successfully and I logged off. Marvelous. The QTE events are funny as heck too, especially if your partner simply can't do them. My friend tried to hijack several helicopters only to fail and be thrown two hundred feet over and over again and it was hilarious and never got old (fortunately in M2 you can fall from any height and not die, you just have one bar of health).

Of course, co-op comes with a price and that's the sour with the sweet. That price is bugs. The game is already fairly buggy in single player, with you getting stuck under objects, or not getting into vehicles properly etc. When in co-op though things fair much worse, with buggy debris from a recent co-op game being carried back over to my single-player save and other such unforgivable bugs. Save first to a new slot before joining a friend's game!

So all in all, nothing ground-breaking, no amazing graphics, and some sometimes amusing bugs. But bloody hell it's a lot of fun, and double so in co-op. M2 is very recommended especially if you know someone who also has it. Go git 'em killer.

Blowing-Up Fun but Light on Gameplay

Customer Rating:
Mercenaries 2 lets you loose in a large map of Venezuela, playing a male or female mercenary who is out for cash and revenge. There's a lot of things to blow up, but not a lot of plot.

I appreciate that you can be a male or female character, and that they customize the dialogue and situations around the type of character you have chosen. The graphics are reasonably OK, although not nearly up to the level of most other current release games. For example, I was convinced there were leaves falling around me in one scene, but eventually realized they were bizarre moth creatures which were "clipping" into the ground.

You have minimal choices at times - do you kill your targets, or bring them in as prisoners? Most of the time you are just tracking down more weapons, blowing up more items, gathering up more money.

There are mini-games that help you hone your skills, but even these are pretty simple - shoot at some targets, blow up some statues. We cranked the dollar value for each game up to the maximum and got through them rather easily.

That's not to say the game isn't fun if you simply take it as a destruction game. It can be fun blowing up buildings, blowing up cars, shooting things of course. However, as an actual mission based game, along the lines of Grand Theft Auto, Saint's Row or even Just Cause, there is a lot missing here. It's sort of like a "light" version of those games.

If you really enjoy blow-things-up game then certainly this game could be perfect for you. Not every game needs a plot! Heck, I love Super Mario games. If you're on the fence, though, rent this one first and see how long the appeal lasts for you. It might be that a weekend of it is enough. On the other hand, if you find you really get into the game and enjoy that let-loose aspect of it, you can then buy it.

For me, though, there's enough blow-up aspects in several other games I own that I would rather play them than to play this one.

this rules

Customer Rating:
mercenaries 2 is a very cool sequel. you can choose more cars and the city is not bad at all. The cut seens are unreal. The guns are outstanding. I personally love the nuclear strikes alot. very cool 3 person shooter. If you like the first one you will love this.

Find another game.

Customer Rating:
This game had it's bright points. The story is fun and it's a good time blowing stuff up.

But that's about where the fun stops.

The game is incredibly buggy. It freezes on a fairly regular basis, or allows your character to get stuck in situations that require a reboot of the system.

And the game play has some serious flaws. The single most annoying element a game can have is rampant in Merc 2. Often, when you die, you respawn on the other side of the world map and have to spend the next 5 to 7 minutes walking or driving back to the mission where you died. That drives me insane. I understand that you can't go undefeated in the game, but at least respawn somewhere near the death point!