|
|
|
|
|
|
Mercenaries
|
Game Name:
|
Mercenaries |
|
Console:
|
Xbox 360 |
|
Reviewed:
|
Unknown |
Mercenaries is a Lucasarts game which seems designed to cash in on the popularity of the Grand Theft Auto games. In many ways it is very similar to GTA - however Mercenaries has less of a focus on driving and more of a focus on fighting on foot which is an aspect that GTA 3 didn't do quite so well. The game is set in North Korea - apparently the President was considering turning the country into a democracy and reunifying with South Korea. His son had other plans though and siezed control in a coup de tat. For a while North Korea was communications dead with the new leader enforcing a media blackout. The rest of the world could only wonder at what was happening, until a ship was discovered transporting nuclear missiles for sale to terrorists. Four different factions moved in at that point - the UN, the Chinese, the South Koreans (backed by the CIA) and the Russian Mafia. Each have their own, conflicting, plans for North Korea.
The leader of North Korea, General Song and his underlings have gone into hiding and the UN are unable to locate them easily. In desperation they offer a $100,000,000 bounty for General Song and lesser bounties for his henchmen. This attracts the attention of ExOps, a private security organisation. They decide to send in a single Mercenary figuring they will attract less attention - specifically less attention from the media. There are three mercs to choose from - each has a specific bonus and their own personality. The latter is only relevant during conversations with the faction leaders or with your support officer. One mecs is tougher and can absorb more punishment before death. Another is stealthier and will remain unseen until much closer than the others. The third is more agile on his feet and can run much faster. Your gameplay style might differ depending on which you choose.
The UN has released a deck of cards similar to the one they produced for the recent war against Iraq. The Ace of Spades is General Song, while the other cards represent his subordinates. Each suit represents a different field of expertise. The clubs are all "businessmen" (selling drugs, weapons etc.) to raise funds for Song. The hearts all helped develop WMDs for Song. The diamonds are military while the spades are special forces (all bar the commanders are female). You have to work your way through each suit until you get the Ace. The last suit is, of course, the spades. To find members of the deck you need to complete missions for the various factions and they will tell you where deck members can be found. As you capture deck members you'll get an increase on your Intel gauge, when it gets high enough the UN knows where the Ace is and you can go after them. The members of each deck are all hiding somewhere on your main map but the Ace is always on an island off the coast so you can't go after them prematurely. The main map changes after the first two suits are captured.
Doing work for the factions can be a tricky business. The UN is always a safe bet since they will never do anything underhanded. The other factions though have no qualms about working against each other. This can be a problem as you have a faction rating with each group. Killing soldiers, vehicles etc. that belong to a faction will usually decrease your rating with them. If your rating gets low enough they will stop offering you contracts, if it gets really low they will begin shooting at you on sight. This often means you need to be really careful about how you approach each mission as a single mission can make you an enemy of a faction. There are ways to recover from this though. You can bribe the guard outisde of a faction's HQ (quite expensive though) to try and raise their attitude towards you. Also some factions have a special task they will will appreciate you doing - generally the tasks involve blowing something up or collecting hidden items. Your rating will also improve if you kill enemy soldiers where a faction's soldiers can see you. You can do some rather sneaky things by relying on enemies fighting each other - for one mission I had to blow up Chinese tents, but doing so would make me an instant enemy because of the soldiers killed. By bringing an vehicle with a South Korean gunner (the two sides are hostile towards each other at that point) I could get him to kill the Chinese leaving me with no penalty for blowing up the empty tent.
The game has an odd concept of disguises. Every vehicle in the game has a particular faction associated with it - UN, Chinese, South Korean, North Korean, Mafia and Civiian. As such, you will be disguised when entering one of these vehicles - this might let you be ignored by troops of the same faction or a friendly faction. On the other hand it might see you shot at because you appear to be the enemy. There are several catches though - firstly, certain units with a symbol above their head are officers. If you get too close to them they will see through your disguise. Secondly, if you perform an aggressive act within sight of soldiers you will lose your disguise. Thirdly, your disguise will only "engage" when you aren't within visual range of enemy units. Finally, honking the horn of your vehicle breaks the disguise - it's also what you need to use to invite units into your vehicle which can be a problem. The disguise concept is a bit strange though, if you lose your disguise you are always recognised as being a mercenary. This is even when you are inside things like tanks and APCs where nobody should be able to see your identity.
Your merc is, in many ways, a one person army. Small arms fire like machine guns tend to be little problem if you keep moving as the enemy is generally a really bad shot and your merc is pretty resistant to bullets. Explosives are a different matter however. RPGs, tank shells, grenades etc. tend to reduce your health very quickly. Unlike GTA 3 however, you don't always immediately die when your health is reduced to zero. From what I can see it works like this - if your health is above twenty you can surive a large explosion but your health will drop to 1. While your health is below 20 it will slowly restore back up. If you suffer another major assault though or get shot a few times you will be KO'd. If this happens you can continue the game from an Allied MASH after paying $1000 for medical expenses (that's chicken feed basically). There are a small assortment of weapons in the game - machine guns, submachine guns, a sniper rifle, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, RPGs and anti-armour rifles. There are also two types of grenades - fragmentation grenades do damage while flash grenades stun your enemy for a short time. The latter can be good for temporarily neutralising factions units so that they won't be trying to kill you and saving you having to kill or subdue them which lowers your faction rating. Near the end of the game you can get a prototype assault rifle which has a large clip and telescopic sights. The large clip is handy - the sights are mostly useless though since the rifle has a very large amount of recoil. Interestingly enough, if you are shot while using telescopic sights your aim will be thrown off. This makes sniping only useful when your presence hasn't been detected.
There are a wide assortment of vehicles in this game - cars, troop transports, APCs, helicopters etc. Many can be captured, commandeered or just taken. If a vehicle has a support gunner position you can find an allied faction member, honk your horn and they will jump in (others might jump in to ride with you - this can be helpful as they will fight enemy soldiers when they get out), however having a support gunner limits your ability to be disguised. Support gunners always shoot at any enemy units nearby. If an enemy vehicle has a support gunner and you want to capture it, you'll need to kill the gunner first. You can then hijack the vehicle by killing or tossing out the driver. This works even for vehicles like tanks, you are also immune to damage while hijacking a vehicle which can save your life in some cases and make charging a tank a worthwhile proposition instead of a suicide mission. When you are in a vehicle you are protected against damage personally but the vehicle has hit points which can be diminished by enemy fire. Armoured vehicles like tanks can't be hurt by small arms fire (machine guns etc.) but can be hurt by missiles and other explosives. You can commandeer allied faction vehicles by tossing the driver out, they never object to this for some reason. Vehicles left unmanned can also be claimed without complaint - often you'll be allocated a vehicle for each mission.
Another way to get vehicles and other supplies is from the Russian Mafia website, the Merchant of Menace. Provided you've done at least one mission for them and your rating is high enough the Russians will sell you supplies, vehicles and even airstrikes for a price. They deliver the goods to your location via a transport helicopter - be warned though, North Korean units will shoot at this chopper and if it is destroyed you'll lose $25,000 as compensation and possibly the goods you ordered. You can also sell vehicles to the Russians by driving them into the chop shop garage they have near their HQ. The Mafia sells a variety of supply crates, each with different contents. Health packs will return you to 100% health instantly. Ammo containers are interesting as they will refill the clips of any weapons you have - whether they are a SMG or an anti-tank rocket.
Finally there are challenges in this game which you can try for bonus cash. Llocated around the map are $ signs which represent a challenge - you have to perform a specific task within a time limit. Succeed and you get money and possibly even a faction rating improvement. You can do a challenge multiple times but the score to beat is always your best score so far. There aren't a huge number of challenges either.
If Mercenaries ever makes it to the PC they will have to make it harder I feel. The main difficulty in the PS 2 version is lining up your shots using the analog controller. Since the PC version would, presumably, allow you to use a mouse this would be much less of a problem. One occasional problem this game has is the lack of different POVs. You are always given the same camera angle at all times. This is usually ok, but if you are in a vehicle and have backed up to a tree or something you might find you can't see anything. A first person mode would be handy in these circumstances. Enemy snipers, while rare, are your worst enemy in this game - unlike MG using enemies you can't trace them by their bullets which often makes them hard to locate. This is a problem since they will chew away at your health quickly. The final gripe I have is smoke. Since North Korea is a battlefield the game uses quite a bit of smoke. On the ground this isn't much of a problem, but in the air it's very hard to see the ground once you get far enough up. Possibly this is deliberate as the console might not have enough power to draw all the detail from an aerial POV but it's still a pain as you fly through the air seeing nothing but fog. Smoke also rises from destroyed vehicles which can obscure your vision severely.
Mercenaries has solved some of the problems that haunted GTA. If you abort a contract you can immediately return to the start of the contract to retry it instead of having to drive all the way back. The addition of helicopters is a nice way of getting from A to B in a hurry - just watch out for anti-air units. The game is also much smarter about vehicles staying in place. GTA 3 often had "Dude, where's my car" syndrome where a car would vanish in a short time if left behind. Vehicles in Mercenaries are more likely to stay put. With one catch though, other soldiers aren't dumb and they might jump into a vehicle you have vacated. If they are enemy units they might try to run you over or use the support gunner position to shoot at you. This is a fairly impressive feature IMO. One really nice feature is the crosshairs which turn red whenever an enemy is inside of them - however that doensn't mean you are assured of a hit if you shoot. The crosshairs are a circle and turning red just means there is an enemy somewhere inside that circle.
Mercenaries uses the new bloom effect for graphics which might take a bit of getting used to. The game looks a bit bland in some regards but I suspect that's another memory saving feature. Sound is excellent and the explosions are quite impressive as well. It won't be everyones favorite but Mercenaries is well worth the money if you like third person shooters.
More Xbox 360 Reviews...
|
|
|
|
|
Video Games, Game Reviews and Free
Online Games
|
