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Mercenaries 2: World In Flames!

The enjoyable and slightly unappreciated Mercenaries has spawned a sequel, but will World In Flames be able to enjoy anymore success then the original did?

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Oil War: The story of Mercenaries 2: World In Flames is not the most fleshed out story a game could have, but does do a sufficient job of carrying you through an understandable storyline.

Venezuela has been torn apart by an oil crisis that has governments, armies and other political figures fighting for a chance to take advantage of the situation.

Once again you will be able to play as one of the three returning Mercenaries from the original game.

You will be able to play as Mattias Nilsson, a mad shooter who thrives on destruction and chaos. Chris Jacobs, a larger then life character, and Jennifer Mui, a former Chinese Agent that only cares about money and questions anyone who doesn't.

After you choose your character, you will be able to enjoy a gorgeous cutscene that helps showcase some of the outlandish and often funny personalities that you will encounter throughout the game.

When your Merc is nearly killed and does not get paid by his employer, (the richest man in Venezuela who is attempting to seize power and become president) you will be drawn into a revenge plot that has you tracking him down until you make him pay...with his life.

The characters in Mercenaries 2 are all colorful, varied in every way and very unique. With such large personalities you will undoubtedly find someone who appeals to you.

Portable Chaos: The gameplay of Mercenaries 2 has not really changed much since the original and still has you destroying everything in and off your path simply for the shear joy that you feel when you blow up an offshore oil rig with an RPG.

You will have access to a large variety of weapons that can range from Machine Pistols, to AK-47s, Carbines, RPGs, Grenades, Grenade Launchers, Turrets, and even your own fists that will destroy nearly everything in the environment.

You will also have access to an absolutely massive array of vehicles that range from a huge variety of civilian cars to SUVs with turrets mounted on the back (that your Co-Op partner can man).

You will also be able commandeer a wide variety of military jeeps and even a few tanks too. Each vehicle feels and drives differently and has different characteristics, which is a great touch.

Mercenaries 2 is boasted for allowing you to destroy absolutely every aspect of your environments and the game mostly keeps its promise.

With the right firepower and enough rounds, you will be able to shoot holes in walls that stand in your way, destroy entire fuel depots, lighting it aflame, and pretty much destroy everything in the environment.

However, oddly enough you cannot even damage walls or building or such with anything other then a tank round. Ramming a tank into a tiny hut at full speed does nothing, and actually damages your 50-ton killing machine.

Unfortunately, to take full advantage of Mercenaries 2 destructibility it seems that you have to roll around in an extremely slow tank just to destroy anything semi-large.

While the game's weapon variety is quite strong and the weapons all feel great to use, the RPGs and Grenade Launchers feel a little ill-equipped compared to their real life counterparts.

Unfortunately Mercenaries 2: World In Flames is home to a couple of bugs and glitches. Most of them do not hurt the experience but can occasionally become a little bothersome.

One of the bugs include a truck getting stuck in a wall and being unable to move and also unable to be harmed.

Another glitch occurs when you fire at an object. Most of the time the object you shot at gets damaged or completely destroyed, but sometimes your fire will simply go straight through what you shot at.

The bugs fixed themselves to some degree as the truck became damageable and the object was able to get hit, but the glitches were rather unfortunate.

Say What: Most of the graphics in Mercenaries 2 do not look as you would expect them to look for a next-gen title. The game can look just a tad last gen as the game seems to lack the polish of a next-gen game.

However, whenever you drop carpet bombs or a nuke on someone, you tend to forget about those flaws for just a moment as the fire engulfs your enemies.

Mercenaries 2 cutscenes are amazing and have beautifully rendered characters with tremendous voice acting that really set the game's storyline up perfectly.

Unfortunately strong voice acting is absent during the actual gameplay when your character is constantly shouting increasingly repetitive one-liners.

Your character will spout out a one-liner like "Amateurs" and "Tell Salano I'm Coming" mostly whenever you kill someone. Combined with the lack of variety of the one-liners and the poor effort of the voice actors make the character's comments quite annoying after a couple of hours. Fortunately you can learn to tune it out or simply play with the TV muted.

Team Destruction: Mercenaries 2: World In Flames also features an online "jump in jump out" Co-Op mode that allows you to play through the entire campaign with a friend or stranger alike cooperatively without any hitches or menus.

The Co-Op in Mercenaries 2 is a blast to take advantage of and you can choose to either join another person's campaign or you can simply play your campaign while connected to the EA servers and someone will eventually join you.

Mercenaries 2 Co-Op is incredibly seamless and works perfectly. Many of the missions feel substantially more enjoyable with another person playing with you.

Also, many of the game's missions become much easier when you have someone that can drive and a partner that can man a turret or provide cover fire.

Another impressive accomplishment that Pandemic Studios achieved is the fact that your game does not hitch at all when your partner leaves. You will simply keep playing alone until you notice someone else joined.

Rent vs. Buy: Mercenaries 2: World In Flames is a great title that is well worth the long, one-year wait that we all suffered through.

The sufficient story, tremendous and completely seamless Co-Op, mass destructibility of the environment around you, and an engrossing and absolutely open-world to explore make Mercenaries 2 something most everyone should try.

If you were a fan of the original Mercenaries or just like action filled titles, you will feel right at home here and should absolutely pick Mercs 2 up.

If you are not extremely interested in being able to destroy everything or want a Final Fantasy-like story, then you should only try before you make a purchase. Either way, you have to try Mercenaries 2: World In Flames.

Report Card

If you were a fan of the original Mercenaries or just like action filled titles, you will feel right at home here and should absolutely pick Mercs 2 up. If you are not extremely interested in being able to destroy everything or want a Final Fantasy-like story, then you should only try before you make a purchase. Either way, you have to try Mercenaries 2: World In Flames. (Krakrabbit.com)

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