Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Did You Know?

• A three-issue comic book series titled Mercenaries was released by Dynamite Entertainment from October 2007 to December 2007 as a tie-in, written by Brian Reed with art by Edgar Salazar and cover art by Michael Turner.
• A Java-based mobile game was released in 2008 by I-play, depicted from a top-down perspective.
• Following Pandemic Studios' closure, EA announced in November 2009 that EA Los Angeles were working on a title called Mercs Inc., which was canceled after Danger Close Games closed in 2013.

Gameplay

The game inherits most elements from its predecessor and adds new features. It is set in an open-world map representing a fictionalized Venezuela with tropical landscapes, urban zones, industrial sectors, military settlements, and fishing villages. As the story progresses, the player gradually unlocks more sections of the map. The mercenary must complete missions for several factions to discover Solano's hideout and weaken his regime. There are primary missions, secondary missions, and minigames; the last can be completed at any time without affecting the story. The player can hunt High-value Targets (HVTs) located in different parts of the map; each faction has its own HVTs. The player can either capture an HVT and call a helicopter from the requesting faction or kill it and take a picture of its corpse; capturing yields a higher bonus but is harder. Besides the returning Allied Nations and China, four other factions appear: the Venezuelan army (VZ or VZA), Universal Petroleum, The People's Liberation army (PLAV), and the Pirates. Each faction has unique armaments, vehicles, uniforms, and architectures. All factions except the VZ can be friendly at first, but relations change based on player behavior; shooting a faction member or stealing its resources can cause a member to alert their HQ, making the faction hostile. If hostile, members shoot on sight and the player cannot complete missions or purchase items. To fix relations, the player must pay a bribe or kill personnel or destroy property of a rival faction.

Plot

After the Second Korean War ended, the Mercenary and their tech advisor Fiona Taylor went independent, leaving Executive Operations behind. Three years on, a Liberian contact named Blanco, who had worked with the Mercenary in Dakar, passed along a job in Venezuela. Blanco set up a meeting with Ramon Solano, a billionaire software entrepreneur whose family was tied to drug trafficking. Solano had used his connections to persuade General Carlos Carmona and much of the Venezuelan Army to stage a coup, but loyalist troops captured Carmona, so Solano hired the Mercenary to break him out. The rescue went smoothly, but back at Solano's estate, payment was refused and an execution ordered. Blanco turned traitor too, and the Mercenary took a bullet in the buttock while fleeing. With most of the military behind him, Solano declared himself Venezuela's new leader, and the Mercenary vowed revenge. Chaos erupted: leftist paramilitaries fought Solano's regime and Universal Petroleum, a U.S. oil company that hired its own mercenaries to resist nationalization. The Mercenary could pick sides or play both, building a private army with gathered cash, gear, and recruits. Violence drew foreign powers—the American-led Allied Nations, under Agent Joyce, and the Chinese, led by General Zhou Peng, both arrived with huge forces. To crack Solano's bunker, the Mercenary needed a nuclear bunker buster, obtainable only by allying with one superpower. After settling the score with Solano, the Mercenary moved on to India.

Marketing and release

Electronic Arts kicked off its marketing push for the game in August 2008 with a commercial that showed off the story in a stylized setting. The ad featured a track that sounded like a hip-hop musical, with lyrics about the main characters getting revenge after being betrayed and left unpaid. That song, Oh No You Didn't, came from the Wojahn Brothers and hit stores as a single on September 23. On launch day, EA turned the Last Stop petrol station in Finsbury Park, North London, into a military bunker complete with sandbags, oil drums, and jeeps, handing out 20,000 pounds in free fuel—up to 40 pounds per driver. Local MP Lynne Featherstone called the whole thing a poorly thought-out publicity stunt after it caused traffic jams. A demo landed on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on September 18. Pandemic Studios later put out a free patch named Total Payback, which brought in six new characters, cross-region co-op, and cheat codes; it arrived on PS3 on October 23 and on Xbox 360 on October 31. A DLC pack called Blow It Up Again dropped on the PlayStation Store on December 12. An Xbox 360 version was supposedly coming soon after, but it got almost no promotion, with only a simple trailer on Xbox Live Marketplace and no formal announcement from Pandemic. Its price also jumped from free to $1.99. Neither the Total Payback patch nor the Blow It Up Again DLC ever made it to Windows.

Reception

Mercenaries 2 received mixed or average reviews on all platforms except the PlayStation 2 version, which received generally unfavorable reviews according to Metacritic. Critics praised its colorful and destructive environments but complained of nagging annoyances that made the game feel rushed and unfinished. Major problems included unintelligent AI for both friendly and enemy NPCs, aggravated by voice acting and repetitive lines. Some reviewers found gameplay mechanisms questionable, such as limited air support and airstrikes, overpowerful melee attacks, and simplistic faction dynamics. Reactions to the co-op mode were divided; while another player added fun, limitations included a tether between players and the passenger's limited role in vehicles. Edge gave the PS3 version a 6/10, saying it is inferior to the original and suffers from poor NPC programming but remains an absolute blast. Famitsu gave the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions scores of one eight, one nine, and two sevens; the PS2 version received one six, one seven, and two fives. The PS2 version was overwhelmingly negative: IGN called it insulting and a half-assed rebadging of the first game, giving it a 3.9/10. GameSpot gave it a 3.5/10, calling it a really bad GTA:SA mod and citing clipping, blurry cutscenes, repetitive buildings, glitches, identical enemies, and a miserable color palette. GameSpot also criticized EA for using footage from newer console versions to promote the PS2 version. Mercenaries 2 was nominated for Dubious Honors: Worst Game Everyone Played and won Dubious Honors: Most Disappointing Game in GameSpot's 2008 awards.