So I recently picked up and have been playing Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (in case the title didnapos;t give that away) and although the game is quite fun, I have a couple of "minor" qualms with it.
First, the graphics suck. Itapos;s not that graphics make a game good or bad, but weapos;re talking on par with Morrowind for character detail and GTA 3 for object/terrain detail. I was just expecting more from a new game.
Second, you have to go through a fucking minigame when you want to hijack a Tank, APC, or Helicopter. Itapos;s not that I detest minigames, the lock picking/doingeverythingelseinthegame minigame in Mass Effect wasnapos;t bad, but thatapos;s because how it was set up. In Mass Effect, you get a small diamond with dimmed ABXY buttons in there regular patterns and colors, then they light up when you are suppose to hit them. In Mercs 2, you hit the button to hijack whatever it may be, then at various points (depending on the vehicle) cryptic symbols will flash on the screen. If you donapos;t figure out what the symbol stands for and then hit the corresponding button, you are thrown off the vehicle and must start again. Also, there is know way of knowing how many different times youapos;ll need to make your character do shit by striking keys, they range from one time to four times when hijacking something, with the upper end taking upwards of 45 seconds to go through the combo and actually hijack the thing. Total pain in the ass.
Third, you donapos;t get any good anti-personnel weapons until the end of the game, when you mostly fight helicopters and tanks. I donapos;t have a rant about this one, it just wish I could have my nice Chinese 12.7mm Anti-Material rifle and Fuel-Air RPG in the beginning of the game, when I had to fight hoards of foot soldiers.
Fourth, the game is glithchy as hell. About half way through the game, all civilians and patrolling guards on the west side of my map vanished and never returned. One city went back to normal after a plot event replaced the city with a new one (basically). I still have several deserted islands. Also, if you are near any military units, no matter to whom they belong, they constantly shout things like "HOSTILE IN SIGHT" and "ENEMY, BEHIND THAT TREE", especially when there are no hostile forces around. Not to mention every time I call for my helicopter to pick up some munitions or something, after the pilot leaves, he radios in that he has taken ground fire (even when he has not) and charges me for repairs. However, his repair charge is -$3,000, so I actually get credited some every time. Yeah, that sounds good, but he recharges 50 slower after taking fire, and also in the game I have close to $60 Million, so $3k really isnapos;t worth it.
The game is fun, but there are very few missions, and most of the side mission are either repetitive as all fuck or just blow. Iapos;m almost completely done with the game and Iapos;m not sure I want to finish it.
On another video game note, Iapos;ve preordered Far Cry 2, and by doing so got a free upgrade to the limited edition. Normally special editions suck, they offer a toy of some kind, a "Making Of..." DVD or some bullshit, but this one comes with six extra mission which (according to Ubisoft) is three hours of game play. I like long, sandbox games, so unless they fucked the accuracy to hell and back (like all the Tom Clancy games) it should be pretty kick ass.
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