Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Paul lights the match

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I really wanted to enjoy Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. I like third-person shooters, I enjoy blowing stuff up, I'm quite happy to abandon strategy in favour of all out assault and I'm partial to games that let me drive loads of vehicles too. On paper I'm pretty much the target audience for Mercs 2. So, when I sat down with the game for the first time was the experience that followed one of unadulterated gaming joy, with Pandemic's perfectly polished game proving to be rich in finely balanced shooter action?

Can you see any winged pigs? Can you?

At the start of the game you get to pick from one of three mercenaries: Mattias Nilsson, Jennifer Mui, or Chris Jacobs. There are small differences between each one but really, whichever one you pick isn't going to change things much. The plot, such as it is, starts off with you doing a rescue job for a wannabe Venezuelan politician called Ramon Solano. Once you're done he proves his baddie credentials by promptly double crossing when you turn up wanting your money. It's actually the worst, most pointless double cross in history and makes no real sense when you stop and think about it (if the filthy rich Solano had just paid you as agreed I doubt you'd have cared what he'd got up to in his own country; you're a mercenary after all). However, not taking kindly to being screwed you grasp the big looming cliché and vow to take revenge. Kafka its not, but then Kafka never included rocket launchers in his work so we'll try not to judge.

As you embark upon your mission for vengeance you'll find yourself operating in a huge open world depiction of Venezuela, populated by five warring factions. Each faction has different missions on offer to you and completing these missions will move the story along taking you step by step towards a showdown with Solano. The thing to remember is that none of the factions like each other, so working for one inevitably involves doing the dirty on another which causes upset and means their soldiers will start shooting at you on sight. The aim is to try and preserve a balance that lets you work for all factions. A nice idea in theory, but these relationships are far too easy to sway even when you've angered them so your actions never have any real lasting impact on the game world or the missions, making it feel like something of a missed opportunity.

Talking of the missions themselves, they're generally pretty uninspiring, often falling into the 'go there, kill everything' trap although there are some well thought out side missions (vehicle racing, target practice, etc.) that spice things up. There are also over a hundred different vehicles (cars, jeeps, boats, motorbikes, choppers to name a few) to be found in the game, all completely usable and almost all good fun as well. Some of the vehicles require the use of an annoying quick time event to hijack, as ever with these things you'll either love or hate them depending on your tastes.

One of the game's big selling points is the destruction you can cause to the environment. So it's a shame to find that while the claim is indeed fulfilled by an engine that does exactly what it says on the box, the game actually discourages you from having too much fun with it. Aimless destruction and stray bullets can cause damage to civilians loyal to friendly factions which tends to annoy their leaders who hate their people being killed (it doesn't help when the aforementioned civilians throw themselves in front of your vehicles kamikaze style). It's at this point where the whole idea of factions gets annoying and you start to wish it was just you against everyone else all the time.

Disappointingly suicidal civilians are just one example of the dreadful AI in Mercs 2. Bad guys sometimes ignore you even when you're stood next to them shooting them in the face, enemies will helpfully destroy the very things they're supposed to be protecting if you simply stand near it and NPCs you're trying to rescue will sometimes run into water and drown themselves. The list doesn't end there either; baddies rarely move around, much preferring to stand still and be shot, support troops have a habit of being dropped off on rooftops where they're unable to find a route to the ground and end up falling to their deaths, friendly soldiers shoot you for no reason and enemies spawn unfairly from places they can't possibly have been.

As if they were actually trying to cripple the game, Pandemic has also managed to turn another of the game's selling points into something of a curse. The vast size of the open world environment is the cause of much frustration because travel between locations is made as irritating as possible. Not only does your GPS never seem completely reliable and friendly soldiers have a habit of trying to blow up your transport (worst is the choppers which seem to come under fire from seemingly unavoidable missiles), but death spawns you back at the start of your journey meaning you have to do it all again.