One of the most difficult things for a game reviewer to accomplish is to review a title that doesn’t impress them, a game that offers them little enjoyment, and unfortunately I’ve run into that hurdle with the burden of reviewing Mercenaries.
Mercenaries takes the well known Grand Theft Auto formula (minus the hookers) and tosses it into a militaristic environment that is supposedly representing the war torn state of North Korea. For those who have no idea what this GTA formula is, I will mention that in these games players often travel throughout a large "go anywhere" city area in a vehicle of some sort and perform a number of missions given to them by various NPCs spread throughout the area. Pandemic has retained this basic formula in Mercenaries and has attempted to add a few bells and whistles to it by giving the game a militaristic atmosphere and massive in-game environments that are the closest to fully destructible as modern videogames hardware can bring it.
Wake me up when things get interesting
The game’s plot isn’t anything too original compared to anything we’ve seen in the past from a Tom Clancy game. It’s about a corrupt General who wishes to rule the land of North Korea after fragging his father, whom decided that North Korea should move towards becoming a democratic nation. Of course, the Allied Nations cannot let this happen and just to make things more interesting other parties become involved.
I would discuss the details of the plot more in depth, however Pandemic drops the ball when attempting to captivate gamers with good storytelling, so I don’t see the point. All you really have to take into consideration is that the game features five warring factions, each of whom want to take over the Korean land for their own personal gain and profit, and it’s you’re job as a hired gun to help them succeed by eliminating General Song and his underlings, who have been listed by the Allied Nations as the "Deck of 52." On paper all of this sounds find and dandy but the execution is poor and as a result there isn’t much motivating players to play through until very end because of the lack storytelling devices in Mercenaries.
When beginning the game players have the choice of playing as one of three initial mercenary characters. Each character has his or her own unique abilities
"all these bells and whistles don’t make a repetitive game any less repetitive or even more enjoyable"
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(weapons proficiency, being able to communicate with different organizations in their national tongue). As a hired gun, you can accept (or refuse) offers from almost every faction in the game, Throughout the game you’ll be completing various task for each faction, some of which put you on good terms with factions while others put you at odds as other factions become hostile towards you. Luckily, if you wish to make amends with a specific faction, you may, but at a price. Although you’ll never be on good terms with the North Koreans... they seem to be on everyone’s bad side.
Where have I seen this before?
Just like in Grand Theft Auto, players can hijack any vehicle they damn well please. Want to jump into a Hummer-like truck? How about a tank? Or a helicopter? Yup, all of these vehicles are at your fingertips, although I have to complain about controlling these things... they just feel too loose and arcade-like for their own good. In attempt to solve this issue I changed the steering sensitivity, but even then I found myself wanting something more realistic and controllable.
It’s immediately apparent that Mercenaries is more action packed than any of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto games. There’s a lot of time spent running around, firing bullets and making all sorts of things go "boom." Initially, the combat aspect of the game is disappointing because it seems as if the enemy AI is some of the stupidest ever encountered, but as the hours pass and as players complete more and more missions, the enemy AI seems to smarten up a bit as enemy encounters become more challenging and at times even frustrating. No longer will North Korean soldier stand still while I shoot a bullet into the head of the soldier next to him. Unfortunately, even while the combat aspect of the game does improve after going through a few missions, there’s still much to ask for. Most of the missions in the game are easily dealt with running around and firing bullets with little strategy or none at all. Of course, there are a few that require players to think things through a bit by bringing in additional soldiers to assist you or by having additional materials flown into battle but there aren’t too many missions that enforce the planning of a detailed strategy, so veteran fans of military combat and action games won’t find anything too impressive about the action aspect of Mercenaries.
One of the most disappointing aspects about Mercenaries is its repetitiveness. While each mission the game gives you differs in some way, players cannot help but feel as they have all seen and done this before in earlier
"the enemy AI is some of the stupidest ever encountered"
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missions. Most missions have you running into the heat of battle while others are simple driving missions that have you driving from one point to another. After just a few hours of game time you’ll feel as if you’ve seen everything the game has to offer, but alas there’s about 30 - 40 hours gameplay to be experienced with Mercenaries. Depending on whom it is that you’re asking, the game’s length can be a good thing or a bad thing. However, if you were to ask me... it’s a bad thing. It could’ve been possible to withstand hours of repetitive gameplay if there had beeb a strong plot to keep things interesting, but without one, repetitive gameplay is all you get.
I mentioned earlier that you can have war materials flown into battle... that is one of the cooler gameplay features of Mercenaries. You see, aerial support plays an import factor on you succeeding in completing many of the game’s key missions. Whenever a player captures one of their targets, after neutralizing them by putting them in handcuffs, players will have to call for aerial support in order to have the target carried off to the authorities. Mercenaries takes this aerial support feature a step further by having the Russian Mafia in charge of an electronic weapons dealership that allows players to order additional health supplies, weapons, ammunition and even transportation in the midst of battle. Of course, there has to be a clear landing zone for this aerial support; they won’t be able to land in a cramped area, nor will they survive many rounds of heavy gunfire from enemies.
Another one of the game’s key gameplay features is being able to blow buildings of any size to pieces. This indeed provides some entertainment, seeing how chaos is welcomed in almost every kind of game and most gamers love to create chaos. It’s not hard to understand why LucasArts chose these "blow stuff up" advertisements for the game, because blowing stuff up is one of Mercenaries most enjoyable gameplay elements and most impressive graphical feats.
Hooray for technology!
On more technical terms Mercenaries is a pretty damn good package. Visually, the game is above and beyond what we’ve seen in Rockstar’s current generation of Grand Theft Auto games (for comparisons sake) and is an all around beautiful looking game. The game’s environments are incredibly detailed, as are the game’s playable characters, however the real commendable graphical feat is the game’s destructible environments. As mentioned earlier, thanks to to the details put into crumbling buildings (smoke and particle effects, flames, etc...), gamers receive a nice feeling of chaotic satisfaction from seeing these buildings crumble. Couple this fact with Havok physics and you got a package that is pretty damn attractive. Although, the physics of the game is questionable from time to time. For some odd reason when driving over bridges my truck would just crash into the walls of the bridge for no apparent reason.In terms of audio, Mercenaries once again delivers the
"blowing stuff up is one of Mercenaries most enjoyable gameplay elements and most impressive graphical feats"
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goods. The voice acting is well versed and believable, as are the game’s sound effects. While few of you may have handled a firearm or two or flown a helicopter in real life, for us less "fortunate" folk the game’s auditory recreations sound as authentic as we can possibly imagine. As for the game’s soundtrack, it’s epic... comparable to Io-Interactive’s Freedom Fighters. It features powerful orchestrated beats and moody choir hymns. Few may think this type of epic soundtrack is a bit odd for an action game of this nature but I believe it’s very fitting for the subject matter.
Why is innovation feared?
If you’ve played any of the last three home console Grand Theft Auto games then I don’t see why anyone should be impressed with Mercenaries. Sure the game looks great, and sure it may offer some gameplay features not found in the GTA games, but all these bells and whistles don’t make a repetitive game any less repetitive or even more enjoyable. After a few hours of game time you’ve basically seen all the game has to offer and what it has to offer isn’t much fun to begin with. If you’re looking to spend your money on a new videogame than I’d suggest looking elsewhere. Of course, I do realize that some players enjoy games which offer large amounts of busy work like Mercenaries does, and I won’t deny that I did find some enjoyment in the game, but I wouldn’t want drop money for this game, it’s simply not worth it.
