By Kevin "Berserker" Hall
Player(s): 1
Mercenaries 2 places you in the role of one of three hired mercenaries. All
three mercenaries have the same story - the game simply swaps out one character
for either of the other two and adds some extra dialogue depending on the
character chosen. The overall story was interesting from the standpoint of the
characters that I played with. Character voices matched perfectly for the most
part and the dialogue seemed well written. The in-game full motion videos seem a
bit compressed in their widescreen presentation judging from the on-screen look
however, but this isn't too noticeable.
Upon first inserting Mercenaries 2 and pressing start to begin the game, I
had to wonder if my game had just froze since the screen went black for about a
good 20 to 30 seconds. Thankfully, the black screen was only due to the game's
extremely long load time however - the loading caused me to question freezing on
multiple occasions throughout the game. Once the game loads a full area it is
free of loading for the remainder of the mission, but you sure have to wait
through one might big loading screen beforehand.
The main game starts out with an explosive first mission where you must
rescue a captive under the agreements of a contract. The game showcases
explosions very well as shown in the first mission. The opening mission
basically walks you through much of the basic ways to bomb an area through using
air raids, C4 or the tank vehicle. All of the buildings in the game seemed to be
destructible and the explosions were pleasing for PS2 graphics - buildings smoke
when hit enough times then they slowly sink into the ground and leave behind
damaged remnants of walls.
Gameplay revolves around progressing the story by working your way through
story missions, but there are also many extra missions that become available
throughout the game where your mercenary can gain more money for better arms and
fuel for vehicles. The main area where a good chunk of the story takes place is
rather big and you'll definitely need a vehicle to navigate through it. The
in-game map displayed on the upper right portion of the screen made missions
hard to navigate. I could easily see the target mark for the mission, but the
roads were so very small and hard to see without pulling up the main map through
the select menu.
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