Difficulty:

Very Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Total letdown"

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction had made it's mark a few years ago, by showing gamers the fun in mindless destruction. The sequel, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames keeps your finger on the trigger, but...it doesn't really do more than that.

In Mercenaries 2, you can play as 3 different mercs, although none of them really have much difference whenever it comes to story or gameplay changes. The only difference is the minor change in dialouge during scenes, and when I say "Minor", I really mean minor. Each character only has maybe a page of dialouge, but it doesn't really matter, because what each character says is pretty much the same thing as any other.

On the subject of dialouge, you will learn one of the most important facts about Venezuela: every civilian is voiced by the same actors, and hearing them say the same line everytime you hijack a vehicle, gets extremely annoying.

Sound design is definitely a problem in Mercenaries 2. A game that bases itself on guns, destruction, and explosions shouldn't be filled with guns that honestly sound underpowered and that, in my opinion, sound very unmasculine. (No offense to any female gamers.) Explosions don't sound nearly as destructive as they could be, and it leaves you thinking you barely did any damage. Music can be okay at times, but the whole hispanic theme gets kind of old after a while. It just doesn't have the epic feel that the first game's orchestral soundtrack instills in you.

Before I move on to gameplay and visuals, you may be thinking, "Isn't it unfair to grade the next-gen versions of Mercenaries 2 the same as the PS2 version?" Well, you're completely right. It is very, very unfair. I expected the PS2 version to have a pretty good likeness of the next-gen version, with the exception of graphics. But if you play both of them, you'll find that they can be almost completely different in every way.

The PS2 version is a complete stripdown of the next-gen version, taking out a whole armada of different vehicles, weapons, missions, and all around "Bang" from the game. By the time you've been playing for a few hours (if you make the game last that long), you'll begin to notice something familiar about some of the vehicles and weapons in the PS2 version. In my honest opinion, the whole game is just one big port with a texture change of the first game, just dumbed down to disastrous levels.

Visual-wise, the games graphics are extremely poor, especially on a system that has potential for better looking games. Civilians load on the spot, appearing as PS1-style polygon characters, until you walk up to them, but even so, it's not much of an improvement. Character models may look somewhat nice, but other than that, there's nothing that makes this game visually appealing.

If you're looking to compare gameplay to the first game, you'll find that the gameplay has been kept alive, to an extent. But of course, the gameplay is riddled with bugs, glitches, and overall unbalance. Enemies seem to appear from out of nowhere, and can be mowed down by the time they appear. But weapons-wise, the PS2 version has the exact same weapons from the first game, just with different names to some, and complete omissions from others. The weapons you DO have are inconsistant and sometimes extremely unaccurate. The game is made even less fun when you have the ability to pick up the best gun in the game, the Prototype Rifle from the first game, at the very beginning, never needing to change weapons after that. Take that as a positive or negative, because that will save you the time from traversing from one side of the entire country to the other, buying the weapon to put it towards your stockpile, and having to get it airlifted in. Once you run out, tough luck, go buy some more.

Vehicles in the game are very bland and unimaginative, as I mentioned before, about 90% of them are the same from the first game, but with a texture change. The vehicles themselves are just completely unrealistic in any way, not saying that the game was meant to be that way, but in comparison to the first game, Mercenaries 2 doesn't amount to it.

In it's entirety, Mercenaries 2 isn't a really good game. It had potential, but only 10% of that potential was actually used. It could've been worth the money I paid for it, but Mercenaries 2 just isn't worth the 20 dollars to buy it. But if you must play this game, wait for it to be under 10 dollars, or for a good fix for all your Venezuelan free-roaming needs, buy "Just Cause". Otherwise, just leave this game's world in flames.