Mercenaries - Video Game Review (Xbox, PS2)

[killer 2]

Mercenaries Review By Killer 2 The New Order Registered User Overview mercenaries is a third person shooter where you play as one of three mercenaries. The three mercenaries have different abilities one runs faster, one has more health and the final one is stealthier than the others. unfortunately the game doesn't seem to want you to know its secrets and it doesn't tell you this... EVER. The game takes place in Korea where a struggle for power has broken out. You have been recruited to help stop the chaos, and make as much money as possible along the way. Part One: Gameplay The Gameplay in this game is actually very nice. It starts out as a tutorial mission, Which is pretty boring but teaches you the mechanics of the game efficiently and quickly. After the boring tutorial, you are thrown out into the world on a slightly liner path. At the beginning it seems you are still in the tutorial level, as you need to do 4 missions to continue. After the 4 missions you are generally free to go wherever you want, do whatever you want and kill whoever you want. Now I'm guessing I should tell you th factions, the four factions are: the russian mafia, and underground operation who specialises in stealth and sabotage missions, sometimes stealing second there's the Chinese who basically blow shit up, thirdly theres south Korea who only attacks north Korea and finally the allies, a bunch of losers who just want Song (leader of North Korea) dead or captured. The missions vary sometimes, but in the end lots of them are the same, kill these guys, kills tis base, kill this building. That is only a small complaint though because only about 1/3 are all the same, the rest are original. Some of the things I hate about it is the enemies can see you while your on top of a freaking mountain and takes away the stealth bonus money you get. During the game, you may find that your pea shooter just isn’t enough to take down and enemy tank, which is why pandemic introduced the store, its online so you get everything mail ordered to your doorstep. Another part of the game is capturing the “deck of 52” the deck is a group of officials who work for song and must be killed or captured to get extra money. I personally hate going hunting for the deck which sometimes you have to do but thankfully the game gives you a general idea of their locations for completing missions. The main problem with hunting the deck is that if an enemy shoots and rpg at you and it kills the commander, that’s it you lose half the money. That may seem like a little complaint but I have been frustrated many a time by getting the commanding officer killed by accident. After getting enough of the minor deck killed/captured you go on special missions that seem to hate you, making everything that can possibly go wrong, go fucking chaotic! The difficulty of these missions doesn’t add up why make 4 spikes in difficulty curve during the game then bringing it back down? After these special missions you go after another group of the deck, this repeats 4 times making it get old fast. Pandemic did make a partial solution, switching the map halfway through the deck so it didn't get TOO boring but still boring. Overall, the gameplay isn’t bad but it isn’t the best ever Total score: 7/10 Part Two: Weapons The weapons in mercenaries aren't the best but they get the job done, I'll be listing and reviewing them below. Supressed SMG: this gun is not very good at all, terrible range, bad damage, not recommended except for stealth missions AK-47: pretty decent weapon, moderate damage and accuracy> Recommended Carbine:High damage but low accuracy and rate of fire. Despite its flaws carbine is still recommended RPD:Very fast and powerful low accuracy Highly recommended RPG:Super damage but horrible fire rate and accuracy, recommended only for anti-vechicle use Sniper Rifle: High Power and Accuracy, Highly recommended Pistol:terrible damage, terrible rate of fire and terrible accuracy DO NOT USE This about sums up the weapons, they are good but if you use the RPD and sniper you can basically break the game, easily. Total Sore: 7/10 Part three: vehicles A big part of this game are the vehicles, power fast and easy to obtain they are some of the most enjoyable things to use. they are listed below Trucks:good handling medium armour fast low damage, recommended for going somewhere fast Light helicopters: Fast, deadly and lightly armour these helicopters are some of the best vehicles in the game Heavy helicopters:rarely you'll find these, if you find one game=broken. These behemoths are deadly armoured and fast, just pray you don't run into a SAM site! Light Tanks:Very powerful, slow fire rate and slow. these are recommended if yo are attack a base. Heavy tanks:normal tanks but better in every way. these are recommended for attacking bases SAM sites: Low Speed only attacking aircraft and almost no armour DO NOT USE. This Just about Covers Up the vehicles, they can be broken just like the guns. Total score: 7/10 Part Four: Enemies Mercenaries has a shitload of enemies in my opinions and I love it. The diversity is amazing! Enemies can enter any vehicle but will mainly stick to their own. The AU us pretty smart, taking priorities and splitting troops between you and the other enemy faction. The enemies will chase you forever though, which ia very irritating! Total score: 6/10 Part Five: The factions Mercenaries contains four factions which have been listed at the start of this review. I will start by listing the leaders and some of their characteristics. The allies are led by one colonel Gereld and basically start of friendly towards you since they asked you to come to them in the first place. The Allies are your central hub for advancing the plot because its only through them can you collect the bounties and do special missions to advance the plot. The Russian mafia is run by Sergei a russian crime lord trying to get a foot hold in north Korea. The russians are essential, they own the online shop that gives you airdrops carpet bombs etc. so you want to keep the Russians on your good side. China is basically a generic faction an exact match of the south Koreans, they do nothing special and only want some of north Korea. South Korea is led by an ex-CIA operative who wants south Korea to get some of north Korea, just like china. The final faction is North Korea, who always is hostile no matter what, they give you no missions. Total score 8/10 Game total score: 28/40=70% Mercenaries is a good game but falls short sometimes. Still worth a buy though.