Reviewed: January 13, 2005
Reviewed by: Tyler Whitney
Publisher
Lucasarts
Developer
Pandemic Studios
Released: January 10, 2005
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen
8
9
8
7
8.5
Supported Features
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
When you view screenshots or movies of Mercenaries, you instantly think of another LucasArts' title, Star Wars Battlefront -except instead of AT-STs roaming the battlefield, you have to deal with a mess of national powers vying for North Korea in this action-packed game. It may also seem heavily influenced by the Grand Theft Auto series, namely with the ability to jack anything, but GTA fans get ready for a whole new ball game.
Your worst fear was the feds in GTA… well here learn to fear attack helicopters, massive main battle tanks and a seemingly endless reserve of automatic-rifle toting infantry. You take the role of a highly trained agent for hire with money and destruction in mind, all supported by your ExOps company, in a title that could be the next GTA-esque dynasty.
Mercenaries gives you the option of playing with 3 characters, all a bit different; ex-Army man Chris Jacobs, Jennifer Mui and Mattias Nilsson. I preferred the slightly crazy Mattias Nilsson because of, well…he’s just mad insane with the explosives and his hair would make any die-hard rocker green with envy. However, Chris is a brute and can take quite the beating before he's body bagged, just don’t expect him to tap dance around his opponents.
Your main goal is to take down, dead or alive, the “Deck of 52”, a real-life military system of identification, that is used here to mark fictitious threats, such as nuclear scientists and high-ranking military officials. Along the way you can work for the four factions involved in the struggle over N. Korea; The U.S led Allies. the Russian Mafia, the S. Koreans and lastly the Chinese.
Each faction has a rating that can influence your reputation with each; by helping the Chinese you may lose favor with S.Korea and vice versa, it is up to you to choose and adds to the non-linearity of the game. Speaking of the latter, there are various side quests from each faction not pertaining to the Deck of 52, such as take out a S. Korean listening post, or hijack a valuable vehicle and returning to the scrappy, yet cunning Russian Mafia.
You have a host of weapons and vehicles available to you throughout, and all you see, whether manned or not, can be stolen, from tanks to choppers, to fixed artillery pieces. “Playground of Destruction” truly is that; nearly everything can be damaged or destroyed, buildings, trees, lampposts-you name it, it’s gonna get blown da hell up!
Occasionally you will run into obstacles that annoy you, such as sandbags or roadblocks, of course that’s why you have a range of tanks to choose from to mow over anything the enemy throws at you. Early on there is mission where you can use an armored personnel carrier (APC) armed with a rocket launcher, which is impervious to small-arms fire. This turns out to be a cakewalk of a mission, rolling in over and through the enemy as you blow up several buildings using C4, rockets or air strikes.
Eventually you will be introduced to a PDA-accessed store by the name of the “Merchant of Menace”, where you can buy just about any carnage inducing item. It’s money well spent to help you complete your tasks.
The artificial intelligence is a bit of hit and miss. The enemy is fairly smart, they move, dodge, and act realistically as you fight them, but your friendly faction mates can be pretty moronic at times, especially when exiting/entering vehicles. At times some of your buddies may get in and man a gun for you, sometimes not. I wish they added a key or command to tell your yeoman comrades to hop in for support, unfortunately you usually have to commandeer a full humvee to snag a gunner. The latter screams for multiplayer, where your buddy can hop and terrorize the countryside, but sadly, this feature is not included.
Controls are solid and anyone familiar with the similar titles mentioned here will be right at home. At times though, the aim feels a bit twitchy and the crouch functions slows you down to a slower than normal pace. A very “arcady” game, realism purists look elsewhere.
Using the same engine from Battlefield 1942 and Star Wars: Battlefront, this is truly the strong point of Mercenaries; they shine with attention to detail, such as the free roaming environments and desolate war torn country ambiance. You can destroy almost anything too, resulting in brilliant explosions that scatter debris everywhere using the solid physics engine-top notch particle effects here.
The models are very detailed as well, reminding me of Metal Gear Solid 2/3 with the way your body armor moves and grenades sway on your tactical vest. The only annoying area is the automatic disarming sequence that takes you out the action, and the jumping looks a bit off as well. Also, there is a heavy amount of fog effect to make the game run at a smooth 30fps, but Pandemic does a good job of making this feel natural and fit into the landscape. Overall, a very nice looking game indeed.
Mercenaries, like other LucasArts' titles, does a great job in the sound department. The score is composed by Michael Giacchino, know for his work in The Incredibles, adds tracks with serious tones of military action, but nothing too overwhelming. The sound effects are crisp and diverse, although the over abundance of machine gun fire does sound a bit weak and unrealistic. For instance, in the classic Day of Defeat CS mod, they had STRONG gun effects, almost to the point of ear splitting as you thumped on your MG 42, and I wish more games would use real-life samples.
The voice acting is surprisingly good, enlisting actors to play two of the characters. Chris Jacobs is voiced by Carl Weathers, infamous for his Apollo Creed role, and the lesser known but equally excellent Peter Stormare, who played a nihilist in the cult classic “The Big Lebowski,” adds life to Mattias. I applaud Pandemic for going the extra effort to recruit such talent, rather than get stock voice actors. This seems to be more and more of a occurrence in today’s increasingly high profile gaming world. The "stars" want a piece of the industry pie it seems.
This game will keep you busy for weeks, from collecting bounty on all the Deck of 52, to numerous side missions and the general free-roaming mayhem made classic in games like GTA.
Horrifically, however there is NO mulit-player whatsoever; not even on the same box. From the time I saw previews for the game I instantly knew this was a multiplayer must, but sadly the developers opted for a more fleshed out single player game, which isn’t a bad thing considering the recent trend of the Battlefield: 1942, whereby they emphasis a strong multiplayer, but weak “bot” driven single play. This game begs for battling with buddies, especially a co-op mode, with your fellow merc manning the turret guns as you zip around the charred countryside raking in mad “bling bling.”
With extremely solid graphics, sound and non-linear, fleshed out gameplay with some nasty A.I., this game is definitely one of the best titles for the PS2 so far in 2005, and should remain that way for months to come. My only chagrin is lack of Multiplayer, but thankfully the developers intent was to provide a great single player experience, and that they delivered with the force of a tomahawk cruise missile.