Video Gamer is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more
It’s based in a fictional near-future setting, where North Korea has been invaded for selling nuclear weapons to terrorists. It isn’t as realistic as Pandemic’s last offering Full Spectrum Warrior. In Mercenaries you can hijack any vehicle you see and go anywhere you want on the map, but don’t expect it to be like GTA – seriously. Knock your freeform sandbox ideas out of your little head and open your mind to a more concentrated, streamlined style. GTA-lite, if you will. In a war. Mixed in with a hell of a lot of fun. That’s how Mercenaries has played so far.
Hell – it has Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) as a character in it. If that doesn’t put the game at the top of most people’s wish lists then they must be dead inside. A lot of people wouldn’t actually care what the game was about, being interested purely because of Carl’s involvement. Though he does look like he’s been pushing too many pencils…
Anywho, early play shows a game that includes smile-inducing huge explosions, satisfyingly meaty weapons and some of the best tanks in a game since Tanx on the Amiga. Mercenaries is another game that seems to be following the worrying trend of being ‘a lot of fun,’ ala a fair few recent releases. Though the massive freedom found in the (dare I mention it again…) GTA series isn’t present, there is still more than enough scope to carry out missions as the player sees fit.
Example: Instructed to search for some downed chopper pilots deep in North Korean held territory (very Blackhawk Down), the Swede with a penchant for having a total disregard for subtlety – Mattias Nilsson (just one of the three initially selectable characters) – decides to visit South Korean private territory. Though friends with the Southerners, Nilsson is not allowed on their private property – he will be shot on sight. He decides to procure a heavy APC, which makes short work of the wire fence surrounding the private region. Avoiding Korean defensive fire, he runs towards a LHX Light Attack chopper and makes good his getaway in the nippy little blighter. Approaching the target area by air means the hazardous route up a mountain trail is completely avoided and the North Korean troops are left shooting their little rifles aimlessly into the air. All is good in the world as the pilots are found taking heavy fire and cornered, without the LHX chopper having so much as a scratch. A beep, a warning and a bang is all it takes, and the anti-air defences that took out the transport chopper have now taken out the attack whirlybird. Nilsson bails just in time and takes a fair bit of damage from the fall. He gets up and clears the immediate area of enemy ground troops, before spying a North Korean APC training its gun and he is the target – dashing for cover he makes his way to the vehicle, flips up on top of it, drops a grenade in the driver’s hatch and takes the beast as his own. Approaching the still-hiding Allied troops, the horn is honked, the troops enter the vehicle and the escape through the hazardous mountain path is avoided again – this time by disguising Nilsson and the troops in the NK vehicle. The poor fools simply let the vehicle pass, believing it to be one of their own. The troops are returned home safely and Mattias gets his reward.
That is just one way in which the mission could have been carried out, and as such the game opens up a whole load of replayability options. Direct, indirect, stealth – hell, call in a surgical airstrike if you want. Do whatever you can to complete the mission. The game is subtitled Playground of Destruction for a reason. Looks wise, it’s a good one, though there is a fair bit of (understandable) fogging – everything runs at a more-than-fair pace (a much better pace on the Xbox) and, well – it’s just a lot of fun! Look for the review when we get the full European version, sometime in February.
