Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
Developer(s)	Pandemic Studios Pi Studios (PS2)
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Designer(s)	Cameron Brown (creative director)
Composer(s)	Chris Tilton
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter Sandbox
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is a video game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to 2005's Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, and it was released in the United States on August 31, 2008 and in Europe on September 5, 2008. The game is a third-person shooter set in an open world environment of a war-torn, highly detailed, and modern-day Venezuela, following the story of a mercenary getting revenge at the man who betrayed him/her, while causing mayhem and destruction in the country.

Plot

The game features three playable characters, all from the original game: Jennifer Mui, Mattias Nilsson and Chris Jacobs. All characters follow the same storyline that centers on the player's character of choice.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is set in August 2010 in Venezuela. The story begins as the player approaches businessman Ramon Solano's villa. The player is greeted by a man named Blanco, who apparently once worked with the player but left him when he stopped making money. In the meeting inside the villa, Solano hires the player to rescue a top Venezuelan Army General named Carmona, one of Solano's friends, who is being held prisoner by the Army after a failed coup attempt. A small faction in his army did not agree with the coup, captured him, and has taken him prisoner in an old colonial fortress on an island off the coast of Venezuela. The player uses weapons and air strikes supplied by Solano to infiltrate the fortress and rescue Carmona. Once Carmona is rescued, however, Solano attempts to murder the player to avoid payment, and to make sure there is no interference with his plans for Venezuela. The player is able to escape, despite being "shot in the ass", and begins to plan revenge on Solano.

Following a second, successful coup by Carmona, he chooses Solano as the "civilian leader of a military government". Solano begins a forceful attempt to seize control of the country's oil supply, which is held by a company called Universal Petroleum, who tricked the former government into giving UP full control of Venezuela's oil. Fierce fighting ensues throughout Venezuela between Universal Petroleum's hired mercenaries and the Venezuelan Army (referred to as the VZ in the game) under Solano's control, resulting in a collapse of the country, driving people from their homes and causing widespread property damage. In response, a rebel group called the People's Liberation Army of Venezuela (PLAV) rises up against both VZ and UP forces. After taking control over Solano's villa, the player establishes his private military company (PMC) and helps the causes of the factions in exchange for money and information on Solano. This includes capturing VZ outposts, 'verifying' high value targets (or 'HVTs'), destroying structures, and doing other work that the faction's forces cannot accomplish.

Upon verifying Blanco and destroying the oil platform that he was on per request of the PLAV, the player learns where Solano is hiding. The player attempts to destroy Solano's hidden bunker at Angel Falls, but fails as it is hardened against normal bunker buster weapons. Shortly after, the player is forced to defend his own headquarters and recruits from Carmona and his VZ troops. After repelling the attack and verifying Carmona, it is revealed that sinking the oil platform triggered an international response to the crisis in Venezuela. A large force of American-led Allied Nations (the AN faction, a parody of the UN) and the People's Republic of China move into the country. The AN is supposedly a peacekeeping and nation-rebuilding force for the war-torn country, but the player finds out that at the center of the operation is a CIA agent named Joyce, who was ordered to secure the oil supply when it became clear that their allies, Universal Petroleum, could not do so. The Chinese Army initially supported the PLAV, hoping that they would come into power and give China oil. When it became clear that the PLAV leader only wanted to stop Blanco and Carmona for personal reasons rather than overthrow the new government, the Chinese began a direct assault into the country. The Allies' and the Chinese' different plans for the oil results in a struggle for control of Caracas and the oil supply.

The player sides with one of the factions and completes contracts for them in exchange for the nuclear bunker buster needed to destroy Solano's hardened bunker. Consequently, the player succeeds in verifying the other faction's leader (Agent Joyce or General Peng), but Solano destroys the HQ of the faction the player allied with a nuclear bomb (if you worked with the Allies, he uses a neutron bomb to minimize civilian deaths, but if you worked with the Chinese, Solano uses a plutonium bomb). The player returns to Solano's bunker in a second attempt to destroy it. After fighting through Solano's defenses, the player uses the nuclear bunker buster to destroy a large portion of the bunker. Solano almost escapes the ruins in a helicopter, before the player hijacks it and kills the pilot. The player confronts Solano and kills him. If the player has captured all of the game's HVTs, prior to capturing Solano, then he is knocked out and captured by the player's character, who calls the faction leader of the side assisted in the battle for Caracas, and informs them of this fact. The end cutscene does not change, however. The game ends with Fiona declaring Solano "Verified" on her laptop and talking about moving to India for their next contract.

Gameplay

Mercenaries 2 expands upon the original's third-person shooter gameplay through contracts and side missions using a large variety of weapons, vehicles, air support, and airstrikes. The game has approximately 170 types of vehicles; this includes monster trucks, bikes, heavy tanks, and helicopters. To complement the new swimming mechanic, new vehicles such as boats have been added. Hijacking still plays a large role in gameplay, but instead of being a fixed cinematic, now consists of a small minigame with difficulty relative to the value of the vehicle being hijacked. A grappling hook has been added to allow the player to hijack helicopters. The game has a large and diverse arsenal of weapons and airstrikes, including various sniper rifles and assault rifles, and a fuel air RPG, a rocket-propelled grenade that releases a cloud of fuel and ignites it. The game contains a number of air support and airstrike options, such as tactical nuclear weapons and the M.O.A.B.

Players have the ability to build a private military company and recruit mercenaries with it. There are three mercenary NPCs that may be recruited: Eva Navarro, a mechanic, who can supply custom vehicles and unlocks access to the grappling hook; Ewan Devlin, a helicopter pilot who has the ability to pick up valuable objects the player may encounter and also provide transport and extraction; and Misha Milanich, a fighter pilot, who can be hired as your source for airstrikes. Prior to use, support items have to be purchased from faction outposts, rewarded from missions, or found in the field, for Ewan to extract. Stockpiled vehicles, items, or weapons can then be called in from anywhere in the field.

The player can gain money between missions by killing or capturing various "high-value targets" for each of the factions. Additionally, "destruction" targets allow players to raise a building for rewards and to raise faction standings. All factions have both high-value targets and destruction targets available. Some of the high-value targets are members of another faction, so accosting them can possibly lower the player's standing with that faction.

The game includes numerous side missions that can be completed to increase the player's reputation with a faction and earn him or her extra cash. Similarly, some missions will harm the player's reputation with a faction. However, loss of reputation may be avoided by preventing the faction's soldiers from alerting the faction boss. This mechanic limits the pool of missions available to the player. In addition, each faction requests the help from the player to secure outposts for them. After capturing an outpost, the player can then revisit the outpost to purchase support items. Each outpost has a helipad so the player may fly directly to them once captured, so long as the players standing with the outpost's faction is neutral or higher.

The Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows versions of the game include a co-op mode that allows two players to play through the game together online from separate consoles, using a "drop-in, drop-out" system. Every mission and activity in the game can be completed in co-op. A half kilometer tether is present in the game to keep the players from straying too far away from one another.

Factions

There are a total of 6 factions in the game. They are; the Venezuelan Army (Carmona's Army); UP (Universal Petroleum), the PLAV (People's Liberation Army of Venezuela), the Rastafarian Pirates, the AN (Allied Nations) and the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Unlike the first game, the player is able to control a faction of his own, the PMC faction.

Venezuelan Army

The Venezuelan Army is the national army of Venezuela under the control of Solano's government is the same army that staged Carmona's coup. They are hostile to everybody and have the most land under their control. The VZ are most likely based on various right-wing dictatorships of South America during Operation Condor.

Universal Petroleum

Universal Petroleum (UP) is a privately held petrochemical company specializing in mining and prospecting crude oil. Since Solano took control, UP has seen many of its assets seized as part of Solano's Nationalization Programme, and have begun openly waging war against the Venezuelan Army in order to protect its investments. UP is the player's first contact in the game to find (and kill) Solano. To this end, UP has hired private security company, Tactical Solutions. UP soldiers generally use the M4 carbine, and RPGs, although their McDonnell choppers are too lightweight to be of much use against the heavier firepower of the Venezuelan army, the Mantis light tank has amazing firepower. There are certain missions in which UP will deploy guided missile weapons to defend vital ground or resource assets. UP is arguably the weakest faction.

People's Liberation Army of Venezuela

The People's Liberation Army of Venezuela (PLAV) is a self-styled left-wing (Marxist-Maoist) insurgency fighting the right-wing capitalists (UP) and fascists (VZ) and their "death squads". Headed by Marcela Acosta, most of the PLAV are recruited from the disenfranchised portions of Venezuela. The guerrillas are probably based on real-life leftist movements such as 26th of July Movement or FARC.Their soldiers use assault rifles and automatic rifles,and most of the vehicles(including their jeeps)are outdated equipment from the US,and most of their tanks and APCs resemble old Vietnam-War-era equipment such as the M48 Patton and Model 113.

Rastafarian Pirates

The Rastafarian Pirates are disenfranchised Jamaicans, although there are pirates of every nationality, and make up most of the pirate population in the islands north of Caracas. They offer no story-related missions to the player, but completing their bonus missions unlock more shop items. The pirates indiscriminately attack all other factions, and like-wise, they are detested by every faction save the player's own PMC faction.

People's Liberation Army of China

The People's Liberation Army of China is a formidable military power focusing mainly on ground based weapons and most of its weapons are on par or even surpass those of the AN. The faction is equipped with fairly powerful weapons and vehicles, but lacks a strong air support. The Chinese soldiers use the Type 95 rifle, along with guided weapons and SMGs.

Allied Nations

The Allied Nations (AN) is an international group of countries that handles high-level diplomacy, and in times of crisis, limited and contained conflicts. Although technically an ambassadorial entity, the group's muscle consists primarily of superpowers like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia (China would also normally be in the A.N. but in this case has a conflicting agenda). In the Solano incident, the United States uses the A.N. as a front to meddle in the affairs of Venezuela. The faction has top of the line technology and equipment. The AN soldiers generally use the XM8 rifle and occasionally light machine guns. Instead of RPGs, guided weapons are routinely used by heavy weapons squads to take out choppers and tanks. While A.N. vehicles are fast, tough, and well-protected, they are also harder to hijack. Also, the AN provides the most powerful (and expensive) air support in the game.

Drug Cartel

The unnamed Drug Cartel is an organized crime syndicate based in the jungles of Southern Venezuela, but most likely also active throughout the cities and other countries. The cartel's soldiers wear white suits and are armed with sub-machine guns or assault rifles, and drive black or silver sports cars. They seem to get along with the Venezuelan Army.

Characters

All three mercenaries from the first game have made a return. However, they have left their prior employer, ExOps, to pursue a freelance career. Though all three can be seen in a cutscene shortly after Solano's betrayal, only the player's mercenary factors into the story from that point forward. Each of the three mercenaries (Mattias Nilsson, Christopher Jacobs, and Jennifer Mui) have their own special bonuses.

• Mattias Nilsson (Peter Stormare): Born in Arvidsjaur, Sweden. After participating in Sweden's Arctic rangers, Nilsson was involved in criminal activity and was a member of a local biker gang. He takes pleasure in large explosions and is known to start a fight. After escaping from a Swedish prison, he became a mercenary to satisfy his thirst for destruction and money. Nilsson is also featured on the game's cover. His bonus as the tough Merc is to regenerate health faster.

• Christopher Jacobs (Phil LaMarr): Born in San Jose, California. Raised in a military family, Jacobs also joined the Army when he was older, where he was accepted into the Delta Force. During his service, Jacobs' mind became more and more darkened as he saw his commanding officers show unethical behavior towards his fellow troops. When his tour ended, Jacobs left the Army and became a mercenary. His bonus as the strong merc is to carry more ammo.

• Jennifer Mui (Jennifer Hale): Born in Hong Kong, China to a British cultural attaché and a Chinese diplomat. Her parents divorced when she was ten years old. Mui moved to Britain with her father when he got a promotion but still remained close to her mother who was in Hong Kong. She excelled at studies and athletics as a child. When she joined the British Army, her talent was noticed by an MI6 member. She was accepted into MI6, but was not satisfied by her pay. She left MI6 and became a mercenary. Her bonus as the quick merc is that she runs faster.

• Ramon Solano (Jim Ward) is a Venezuelan multibillionaire technocrat and the antagonist of the game. At the start of the game, the player is tricked into aiding Solano in a political coup in which the leader of Venezuela is overthrown and top Venezuelan Army General Carmona becomes president. Carmona appoints Solano "civilian leader of a military government".

• Fiona Taylor (India Dupre) is an Australian ex-ExOps employee responsible for the coordination of contracts.

• Ewan Devlin is an Irish helicopter pilot operating in Venezuela. When the player meets him, he is working for Universal Petroleum, but soon joins the player's PMC.

• Eva Navarro (Gwen Copeland) is a Mexican mechanic and engineer. Ewan suggests to the player that she be recruited because "everybody hates her... seems right up your alley." She is brought into the PMC as a vehicle specialist.

• Misha Milanich is a Russian jet pilot who is hiding from his former Venezuelan employers with the local pirates. He is then recruited into the PMC to conduct airstrikes for the player. Misha is constantly drunk, insisting that "if you saw my plane, you would not fly it sober."

• Carlos Carmona is the leader of ther Venezuelan army, and Solano's right-hand man. In the first mission of the game, he has been kidnapped by Renegade VZ troops. After being rescued, he turns on the mercenary and leads a coup to install Ramon Solano as the leader of Venezuela.

• Blanco, either an African or Jamaican mercenary, working for Solano as a go-between. As soon as Carmona is rescued, he turns on the player's mercenary.

• Dr. Lorraine Rubin is the CEO of Universal Petroleum, and head of the faction.

• Marcela Acosta is the leader of the Guerrilla faction.

• General Zhou Peng is the Chinese General, in command of the army in Venezuela.

• Agent Philip Joyce is part of the CIA, heading Allied Forces in Venezuela.

Development

After the critically and publicly well-received original was released in 2005, Pandemic Studios quickly began the development of the sequel to its popular game. The game was first announced in the summer of 2006, and an early demonstration was shown at E3 2006. The demo showcased a new setting of Venezuela, and introduced Mattias, returning with a new costume and a mohawk, and Eva, an all new playable mercenary. Many new gameplay mechanics were shown, including grappling, water vehicles, the hijacking mini-game, and co-op play. On the technical side, the game was initially developed for PlayStation 3 console, which at the time had not been released yet. For the next-gen console, a new game engine written in-house was planned to incorporate dynamic shadows, day and night cycles, and dynamic damage and destruction system involving real-time physics.

On February 1, 2007, it was announced Electronic Arts would publish Mercenaries 2 some time that year. Three weeks later on February 22, EA and Pandemic further announced a multi-platform release for Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and PS2.

In E3 2007, a stage demo of a newer build featured a fire effects engine that allows the player to ignite material such as foliage and trees. Pandemic also recently upgraded to the Havok 5.5 physics engine for realistic movements of vehicles and debris during large-scale destruction. As for the playable characters, the three mercenaries from the original game were brought back. no Producer Jonathan Zamkoff stated that writing was being improved to emphasize story and character development, aiming for a "Bruckheimer meets Tarantino action movie" feel. In September after the E3, however, Pandemic delayed Mercenaries 2 to early 2008, but stated that all the contents had already been put into the game and extra amount of polish would be added until release. In April 2008, the release date for all versions was again delayed but finalized to August 31, 2008 in the US and September 5 in Europe.

The game was extensively featured in E3 2008 for the last time prior to release. The characters that can be employed for the player's private military company were revealed. The Nuclear Bunker Buster airstrike and the M.O.A.B were also demonstrated.

Media campaign and release

In preparation for the release of Mercenaries 2, Electronic Arts opened a commercial campaign in August 2008, with scenes of the plot of the game in a stylized world, featuring background music reminiscent of a "hip-hop musical" singing about how the protagonists are going to get revenge for getting shot in the buttocks and getting no pay to boot. The official Mercenaries 2 website offers a full version of the song that is written and performed by the Wojahn Brothers. When downloaded, the title of the MP3 is simply "Oh No You Didn't".

EA took over the Last Stop petrol station in Finsbury Park, North London, on the release day of the game in order to give away £20,000 worth of petrol for free, with each driver receiving a maximum of £40. The petrol station was transformed into a military bunker, with sandbags, oil barrels and jeeps. The area's member of parliament, Lynne Featherstone, described the campaign as an "ill thought-out media stunt" after it created unnecessary traffic congestion.

The demo of the game became available after-release on September 18 on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.

Downloadable content

On September 30, 2008, Pandemic Studios announced that they were working on a free patch, called "Total Payback", that would add six new playable characters, cross-region co-op, and cheats. It was scheduled to be released on October 13 on Xbox Live, but was delayed until October 23 and again until "early November." The patch was released on October 23 for PS3 and October 31 for 360 users. On December 12 2008, the Mercenaries 2 DLC content pack "Blow It Up Again" was accidentally released for download on the PlayStation Store. Pandemic have stated this to be an error on Sony's behalf and that they are "working with Microsoft" to ensure that the Xbox 360 content pack is released promptly, to follow Sony's sudden release. The DLC had relatively little advertising and failed to even have an official announcement from Pandemic aside from a simple trailer available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace. On top of this, the DLC was met with a cold reception by fans on the Pandemic Studios Community Forum, complaining about a lack of depth and inability to free-roam in the new areas of the game world. The "Total Payback" patch and "Blow It Up Again" content pack have not been released for the Windows version.

Controversy and criticism

The game has been criticized by the Venezuelan government, accusing the U.S. government of trying to drum up support from the American public for a real-life invasion with the purpose of overthrowing Hugo Chávez. Pandemic Studios had previously developed training aids for the U.S. Army. In response to the criticism, the official website of the game includes the following disclaimer:

Pandemic Studios is in the business of entertainment. It has not been contacted by a U.S. government agency concerning the development of Mercenaries 2. All persons, storylines and events are purely fictional and bear no relation to real events. As with any number of games, movies and books, the decision to choose interesting events and locations is purely designed to tell a compelling story, as well as provide a fun and rich experience for the gamer.

Easter Eggs

All of the Trophies/Achievements are titles of classic rock songs such as Billion Dollar Babies by Alice Cooper, ...And Justice for All by Metallica & Highway to Hell by AC/DC also, at the UP mission where you have to protect an official that is trying to destroy sensitive documents, when you die enough times, he will say: "oh my god!... i am bleeding... no wait i am not!.. damn you t for teen rating!...

Reception

Reception

Review scores

Publication	Score
1Up.com	B+
Eurogamer	5/10
Game Informer	7.25/10
GameSpot	5/10
GameSpy	4/5
IGN	7.9/10
Official Xbox Magazine (US)	7.5/10

Reception of the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows versions of the game has been fair, with an average critic score of 72% at Game Rankings and 72 out of 100 at Metacritic.

Though praised for its colorful and destructive environments, many reviews have complained of "nagging annoyances" throughout the game that occasionally feel rushed and unfinished. One of the major problems was the unintelligent AI of both friendly and enemy NPCs, and the issue was aggravated by voice acting and repetitive lines. Some reviewers found several gameplay mechanisms questionable, such as the air supports and airstrikes being of limited value, over-powerful melee attacks, and simplistic faction dynamics. The reactions from the new co-op mode were divided; while another player added to the fun, there were limitations, such as the tether between players and limited role of the passenger when in a vehicle.

The PlayStation 2 version was heavily criticized, with an average score of 49% at Game Rankings. Some even called the PlayStation 2 version inferior to the original Mercenaries on PlayStation 2, criticizing its underwhelming visuals, foggy environments caused by short draw distances, and one of the "worst pop-in rates ever seen."

There have also been many complaints about rampant bugs and glitches (especially for the PC and PlayStation 2 versions) such as falling through the map, underground swimming and calling air strikes with no response, these could even stop the player from continuing normal gameplay and advancing the storyline. Most of the most serious of these bugs were fixed in a patch for Windows.

Mercenaries 2 was nominated for "Dubious Honors: Worst Game Everyone Played" by GameSpot in their 2008 video game awards, which was a category for games with large sales that had been panned by the critics. In addition, it won "Dubious Honors: Most Dissapointing Game" by GameSpot.

External links

• Official website
• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames at IMDb