Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

The logical ending point is the stage in a movie or TV show where you think the show will end but it goes on just a little bit more. The Wire did it on occasion – Smallville usually has a couple of logical ending points in a single episode. It’s not a terrible thing – you think the show is over and it turns out you’ve got a little more coming. The opposite is worse – The Bourne Conspiracy game demonstrated this quite well.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is a game with a logical ending point. About eight hours into the game you’ll complete a mission which in the grand scheme of video games should be the end – you’ve hired the mechanic and the chopper and jet pilots, you’ve unlocked most of the map and you annihilate an army to face down the game’s main antagonist and then BAM – the game decides not to end and throws you back into the thick of things.

It’s not like the game F.E.A.R. where you reach the top of the building only to be booted back to the basement again for another trip up. Instead the game map fully opens up and two new factions enter the fray – two super-powered factions.

The game revolves around these factions – after being betrayed on a job in Venezuela and inadvertently helping a coup you do jobs for each of the factions as they struggle against the new government – in return you get copious amounts of money and information to fuel your revenge.

The ideal way to play the game is to balance working for each of the factions so you don’t wind up annoying them all. As long as you don’t kill too many soldiers of any faction and provided you don’t let them report into HQ you can easily stay on everyone’s good side. Of course, this is easier said than done, and if you’re as trigger happy as I am you will find yourself utilising the Bribe Faction option quite a bit to get in people’s good books.

The more jobs you do for a faction the more equipment they’ll sell you – anything from C4 supplies all the way to a MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) or nuclear weapon – but only if you’re friendly with them. It won’t take long before you begin to work out which factions you can vaporise your bridges with to maximise your earning potential.

Vaporising things is a big part of what makes this game rock as well. The game looks amazing – crystal clear water, great looking islands and excellent models all combine to make travelling through Pandemic’s rendition of Venezuela worthwhile. Still, the real beauty is in blowing it all to pieces. Getting your hands on a Fuel-Air bomb or a Laser Guided Rocket shows off the game’s HDR lighting effects – blow up something near by and wait while your eyes readjust to the lighting.

Strategically annoying certain factions can become an important part of the meta-game. All the equipment you purchase in the game costs fuel to be delivered – and you can’t buy fuel. You have to find it in the world, and then steal it. Stealing fuel annoys whichever faction it belongs to, so finding a fuel source located in an inconsequential faction’s base will become a necessity – especially when the bigger factions’ bases load up on SAM launchers.

Mercenaries 2 doesn’t portray itself immediately as a game revolving around a great deal of thought – it’s a sandbox game which revolves around blowing just about everything up – but you’ll often find yourself carefully planning your next move. Whether it’s loading up on Cruise missile strikes because you don’t think you can take on all the Anti-Air defences, or simply rushing around before the mission gathering fuel the game actually gets intellectually stimulating.
Not everything is perfect - the build I received had a few flaws, with repetitive dialogue and some annoying bugs. Even assuming these don't make it into the final game there are some interesting design choices - like the lengthy quick time events which permeate the game and your merc's decision not to wear a parachute. These issues though are barely dots on a horizon filled with beautiful explosions.

Mercenaries 2 is a must play game. It’s not a story-driven masterpiece experience like Grand Theft Auto IV, but it is genuinely fun. The game has full online coop – one of the drawbacks of playing a game on a developers Xbox 360 is that you can’t experience the multiplayer side of things, but even single player you’ll be heavily addicted in no-time. The graphics, the variety of vehicles and the all around excellent gameplay are enough to keep you coming back for more.