I've been playing the OXM demo the last day and in the demo you have to infiltrate a North Korean base and capture the Queen of Hearts (There are 52 enemies you have to capture in the game and they are named after a deck of cards). It is awesome. The demo is simply brilliant. The amount of choices the game gives you at tackling the task is amazing. Grab a tank, grab a chopper, go back and get some support, air strikes, apc drops, sniper drops, heavy weapon drops, amazing. Plus it seems like practically everything is destructable. The 3rd person perspective works well too. One of the most fun demo experiences I've had. I want to play this game more than any other January release right now!
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction -- The Thread
- Thread starter Matlock
- Start date
IGNXBOX review is in:
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/578/578647p1.html
9.1
Another stellar review for this game. I tried to create a thread on the IGN review but it became a haven for trolling. Hopefully those trollers stay away from this thread!
Game is here soon!
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/578/578647p1.html
9.1
Another stellar review for this game. I tried to create a thread on the IGN review but it became a haven for trolling. Hopefully those trollers stay away from this thread!
Game is here soon!SolidSnakex
Member
Short impressions.
The games definetly set up just like GTA. You're thrown into a big map and as you complete one persons mission you'll either get an email the person you're working for then will tell you who else you should meet up with to set up your next mission. The main goal is to capture/kill 52 people that are on a deck of cards. You'll be doing alot of odd missions in between the main ones though. I've only went on 1 card mission, the rest so far have been missions that get me in good with people.
As far as gameplay goes. Anytime you get into a vehicle it'll automatically disguise you as whatever that vehicle is designed for. So if you jump into a Korean units tank, you'll be disguised as them, jump into a regular car and you'll be disguised as a civilian. Aiming does remind me a bit of GTA, so if you struggled with that aiming system this might cause you some trouble. The AI at the moment seems really dumb. They really just stand around and let you shoot them.
When you complete missions you'll get a certain amount of money for the contract you just completed (sometimes during the mission you'll get money for enemy vehicles and such that you destroy). This can be used in your Merchant of Menace store found in your PDA among other places. You'll be able to buy vehicles, supply and Air Strikes. You'll also lose money depending on if you kill civilians or your own troops. It's important to keep your money up because in you have special feature in your DPad menu that require money per use, like an Air Strike for example, that's vital to certain missions. As of now, money seems easy to come by. I'm sitting on 189k at the moment.
The destruction aspect is definetly there. In one mission as I was protecting an area I was aiming at hummer coming along the side of a building and the shoot missed and completely blew the wall down (the wall looked like the side of one of those big prisons).
The first mission is especially awesome.
The game has one of those free cams which I sometimes don't like since it seems like you're having to fight with the camera alot of the times in certain games. This one doesn't really seem to have that problem. It seems to be in the right place.
There's a team aspect to the game that I haven't really gotten into yet.
Graphics are what you expect from this genre. Nothing great, but they get the job done.
Voice acting is really good.
I have the PS2 version so here's a little something about that. Once you accept a mission, the load times seem to be about as long as GTA3/VC took to load up another part of a city. It's pretty long. The other loading (entering buildings, going through menus, saving ect) are all fairly quick. MrBob has the Xbox version so he can address how they're on that.
So far it looks like it could be the only one of the GTA style games that could actually be better than GTA.
The games definetly set up just like GTA. You're thrown into a big map and as you complete one persons mission you'll either get an email the person you're working for then will tell you who else you should meet up with to set up your next mission. The main goal is to capture/kill 52 people that are on a deck of cards. You'll be doing alot of odd missions in between the main ones though. I've only went on 1 card mission, the rest so far have been missions that get me in good with people.
As far as gameplay goes. Anytime you get into a vehicle it'll automatically disguise you as whatever that vehicle is designed for. So if you jump into a Korean units tank, you'll be disguised as them, jump into a regular car and you'll be disguised as a civilian. Aiming does remind me a bit of GTA, so if you struggled with that aiming system this might cause you some trouble. The AI at the moment seems really dumb. They really just stand around and let you shoot them.
When you complete missions you'll get a certain amount of money for the contract you just completed (sometimes during the mission you'll get money for enemy vehicles and such that you destroy). This can be used in your Merchant of Menace store found in your PDA among other places. You'll be able to buy vehicles, supply and Air Strikes. You'll also lose money depending on if you kill civilians or your own troops. It's important to keep your money up because in you have special feature in your DPad menu that require money per use, like an Air Strike for example, that's vital to certain missions. As of now, money seems easy to come by. I'm sitting on 189k at the moment.
The destruction aspect is definetly there. In one mission as I was protecting an area I was aiming at hummer coming along the side of a building and the shoot missed and completely blew the wall down (the wall looked like the side of one of those big prisons).
The first mission is especially awesome.
For those that have played through the final missions of GTASA, that's basically what the opening of the game starts up as. Except with tons of explosions to go along with all the people running around firing at you.
The game has one of those free cams which I sometimes don't like since it seems like you're having to fight with the camera alot of the times in certain games. This one doesn't really seem to have that problem. It seems to be in the right place.
There's a team aspect to the game that I haven't really gotten into yet.
Graphics are what you expect from this genre. Nothing great, but they get the job done.
Voice acting is really good.
I have the PS2 version so here's a little something about that. Once you accept a mission, the load times seem to be about as long as GTA3/VC took to load up another part of a city. It's pretty long. The other loading (entering buildings, going through menus, saving ect) are all fairly quick. MrBob has the Xbox version so he can address how they're on that.
So far it looks like it could be the only one of the GTA style games that could actually be better than GTA.
Kabuki Waq
Member
Graphics on the xbox version seem stellar.
Heh, looking for this thread and couldn't find it. Didn't realize it got stickied. SSX has some nice opening thoughts and I'm just going to try and expand upon them for now.
Like he mentioned, the map is open to you GTA style where you have the whole area to use. There are different spots marked on the map where you can do side missions are main missions. Side missions are usually around 5K-25K per mission. At least, what I've seen so far. One side mission had me driving a journalist to a battle within a certain amount of time so he could report on it. Main missions have you infiltrating bases, destroying certain landmarks, capturing or killing the top 52 Fugitives. Usually paying you 50-100K (So far. I know this will go up). Nice thing about this game is you get money for taking out almost any type of enemy landmark you can find. One base I infiltrated with a tank I started taking out extra buildings, statues, warehouses. Completely leveled the base. I got serious money for taking out all the extra stuff. Ammo and health placement seems to be pretty prevalent so don't hold back as there is always extra to find.
The gameplay cursor is set up like GTA, but you don't fight like GTA. In GTA you have a lock on button to lock on your targets. In Mercenaries everything is free roaming and the control is much tighter so you don't need to worry about locking on. In the menu you can adjust the movement turning speed. It starts the setting in the middle but I think that is too slow for the turning speed. I cranked it up to almost max and it works well, especially since the on foot action plays like a 3D action shooter. Like Max Payne or Armed and Dangerous. The ability to call down extra air strikes and support strikes are cool too.
Loading times after you accept contracts seem fairly quick. I didn't count but if I had to guess I would say around 7 seconds or so. Graphics are smooth and the fog is fairly distant. Looks pretty good. I have to take off so I'll post more later when I have the time.
Like he mentioned, the map is open to you GTA style where you have the whole area to use. There are different spots marked on the map where you can do side missions are main missions. Side missions are usually around 5K-25K per mission. At least, what I've seen so far. One side mission had me driving a journalist to a battle within a certain amount of time so he could report on it. Main missions have you infiltrating bases, destroying certain landmarks, capturing or killing the top 52 Fugitives. Usually paying you 50-100K (So far. I know this will go up). Nice thing about this game is you get money for taking out almost any type of enemy landmark you can find. One base I infiltrated with a tank I started taking out extra buildings, statues, warehouses. Completely leveled the base. I got serious money for taking out all the extra stuff. Ammo and health placement seems to be pretty prevalent so don't hold back as there is always extra to find.
The gameplay cursor is set up like GTA, but you don't fight like GTA. In GTA you have a lock on button to lock on your targets. In Mercenaries everything is free roaming and the control is much tighter so you don't need to worry about locking on. In the menu you can adjust the movement turning speed. It starts the setting in the middle but I think that is too slow for the turning speed. I cranked it up to almost max and it works well, especially since the on foot action plays like a 3D action shooter. Like Max Payne or Armed and Dangerous. The ability to call down extra air strikes and support strikes are cool too.
Loading times after you accept contracts seem fairly quick. I didn't count but if I had to guess I would say around 7 seconds or so. Graphics are smooth and the fog is fairly distant. Looks pretty good. I have to take off so I'll post more later when I have the time.
Belfast said:
I bought it at an EB Games today around 1:30. I'd say I was in the store for 20 minutes (had to throughly browse the used stuff, of course) and seven people came in during that time and bought Mercenaries (6 for xbox, 1 for PS2). Seemed pretty remarkable for 1:30 on a Tuesday afternoon for a non-Halo/GTA/Zelda/Madden title.
SolidSnakex
Member
Mrbob said:
Enjoy that while it lasts.
I'm now to the point where i'm constantly having to call for energy/weapons packs. The AI ramped up pretty quickly. Well, back to jacking tanks.
Well, I guess this game isn't always straight run and gun action!
Just completed an interesting mission earlier. I started to form a good repoire with the Russian mafia. My repoire meter is pretty high with them (You get a meter which shows your repoire with the Russian Mafia, Chinese, and South Koreans). Now, my repoire with the Chinese is near the middle so I figured doing another mission would help out. It definitely did, but the mission put my in an interesting position. I had to infiltrate a russian mafia controlled city in the south and take out 3 of their henchmen which have been giving the Chinese trouble. As I found out, once you go onto Mafia controlled territory, no matter how good your repoire is, if you don't have clearance they will shoot you on site. And if you take out any of the mafia thugs close up your repoire starts going down at a rapid rate. Thankfully the mission equips you with a sniper rifle, and you have to slowly go around this city and snipe the 3 henchmen. At the same time they have a bunch of thugs tagging along with them. It was definitely an intense mission. Crouching around in the city, sniping guys at a distance, hiding from vehicles and other mafia thugs so you don't get detected. I wanted the cash but I also didn't want to lose my repoire with the Russian Mafia! :lol Fun mission.
And I had the loading times off before. They are about 13 seconds after you accept a contract.
Just completed an interesting mission earlier. I started to form a good repoire with the Russian mafia. My repoire meter is pretty high with them (You get a meter which shows your repoire with the Russian Mafia, Chinese, and South Koreans). Now, my repoire with the Chinese is near the middle so I figured doing another mission would help out. It definitely did, but the mission put my in an interesting position. I had to infiltrate a russian mafia controlled city in the south and take out 3 of their henchmen which have been giving the Chinese trouble. As I found out, once you go onto Mafia controlled territory, no matter how good your repoire is, if you don't have clearance they will shoot you on site. And if you take out any of the mafia thugs close up your repoire starts going down at a rapid rate. Thankfully the mission equips you with a sniper rifle, and you have to slowly go around this city and snipe the 3 henchmen. At the same time they have a bunch of thugs tagging along with them. It was definitely an intense mission. Crouching around in the city, sniping guys at a distance, hiding from vehicles and other mafia thugs so you don't get detected. I wanted the cash but I also didn't want to lose my repoire with the Russian Mafia! :lol Fun mission.
And I had the loading times off before. They are about 13 seconds after you accept a contract.
picked it up tonight.. so great.
Just did the chinese part too I'm driving all up in the NK zone, taking fire like crazy (from infantry)...
Tank armor: 100%
take a few more hits... 100%...
What ensues is a tank mowing over a lloottt of infantry.
Unless they get a rocket on your ass, then your screwed.
It's like GTA with all the unfun stuff stripped out and replaced with more rockets :lol
Just did the chinese part too
I'm driving all up in the NK zone, taking fire like crazy (from infantry)...Tank armor: 100%
take a few more hits... 100%...
What ensues is a tank mowing over a lloottt of infantry.
Unless they get a rocket on your ass, then your screwed.
It's like GTA with all the unfun stuff stripped out and replaced with more rockets :lol
Pedigree Chum
Banned
I picked it up yesterday, and promptly played it for 5-6 hours straight. First off this game rocks, hard. The missions, controls, gameplay and all fun FUN FUN.
Since a lot of the positives have already been discussed I'll point out the negatives. Tank controls are a bit messed up for the tank, the framerate is a bit bothersome (but very rarely), and the load times are a bit bothersome (PS2 version). On the plus side, the R2/L2 buttons make weapon switching on the fly MUCH more intuitive than the Xbox version...this is really important IMO.
The game ROCKS, go get it now.
Since a lot of the positives have already been discussed I'll point out the negatives. Tank controls are a bit messed up for the tank, the framerate is a bit bothersome (but very rarely), and the load times are a bit bothersome (PS2 version). On the plus side, the R2/L2 buttons make weapon switching on the fly MUCH more intuitive than the Xbox version...this is really important IMO.
The game ROCKS, go get it now.
Musashi Wins!
FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
Really fun game...didn't get to play it too much after RE4. How do I unlock Indiana Jones? Beat all the challenges? I went with the Xbox version purely for graphics and the framerate is silky smooth. Changing weapons isn't as nice, but...it's pretty damn easy, I never thought about it once and I don't think it's a big deal in the least. Building effects (demolitions that is) wowza. Pretty good character models too. I like the mechanic for relations between the factions...that's a nice touch. Seems like a big game, I look forward to exploring it more soon.
Oh, the tank controls are sort of lame. And I'm not crazy about the grenade tossing.
Oh, the tank controls are sort of lame. And I'm not crazy about the grenade tossing.
Can you hold more weapons in the PS2 version? You can only hold onto two at a time in the Xbox version, and use the black button to switch between the two. Ah well not a dealbreaker.
Sniping has become my friend in this game. I'm hitting missions where you have to enter different faction territory to complete your objective. With the sniper rifle if you take them out from a distance your repoire with that faction won't go down 'cause no one can see you.
Sniping has become my friend in this game. I'm hitting missions where you have to enter different faction territory to complete your objective. With the sniper rifle if you take them out from a distance your repoire with that faction won't go down 'cause no one can see you.
About 3-4 hours in and I'm quite impressed thus far. Framerate is better than I would've expected (xbox version). At this point it feels like Freedom Fighters mashed into GTA- something about the way the characters animate and the shooting bits gives me heavy FF deja vu. Very freeform environment, lots of territory to run around exploring in between contracts and whatnot. Vehicle controls could be tighter. Action Hijacking is fun as heck- high point so far is hijacking a kiowa light helicopter as it came around to strafe. Fun stuff.
Outstanding sense of being in a warzone. Some of the conflicts that you stumble upon or get caught in the middle of really raise the chaos level. Trying to extract your prisoner while two warring factions are pinning you down with cross fire, and then seeing a camera man watching you loading your hostage and realizing you are on TV; that's truly modern warfare!
Lemming_JRS
Member
I'm having a blast with this game too, but I have a question - has anyone noticed a major difference between the way the three characters play? I chose the woman b/c I tend to play these things with a stealthy approach. I'm not far in the game yet (I've done one mission for each of the major factions and captured two cards) so maybe later on their differences become more apparent. I did notice that since she speaks Chinese, when you talk to the Chinese faction, everything is in English, whereas the Koreans and Russians speak in their native tongue.
Oh, sorry if everyone knows this already, but since I finally bothered reading the manual, I learned that honking the horn on your vehicle will call friendly troops. It was fun filling up an APC with troops, driving to a hotspot, then getting out and having my fellow soldiers open up on the enemy.
[edit] of course, everyone else is probably playing RE4 now, so I might have to answer my own question...
Oh, sorry if everyone knows this already, but since I finally bothered reading the manual, I learned that honking the horn on your vehicle will call friendly troops. It was fun filling up an APC with troops, driving to a hotspot, then getting out and having my fellow soldiers open up on the enemy.
[edit] of course, everyone else is probably playing RE4 now, so I might have to answer my own question...
Played for about 6 hours last night and loved every minute of it. Captured the entire first suit of cards except for the Ace, which is a complete bitch of a mission. I like that, though, as sometimes it feels a little too easy because as long as you have the money (and the geography ), you can keep calling in health/ammo drops.
The only bothersome point for me so far is, like GTA: SA, you often spend a decent amount of time just travelling to where you want to/have to go next. That's a minor nitpick, though, and it's fun driving around the war torn areas and past roadside skirmishes and what not.
One of the best facets of this game is there's no one way to do anything. You have to capture or kill your target - you can sneak up behind the group and snipe off the guards, or call in massive airstrikes (but risk killing your target which is less money), or steal an enemy vehicle and try for a stealthy extraction or etc.
Mad fun. I'll probably play it for another 6+ hours tonight.
), you can keep calling in health/ammo drops.The only bothersome point for me so far is, like GTA: SA, you often spend a decent amount of time just travelling to where you want to/have to go next. That's a minor nitpick, though, and it's fun driving around the war torn areas and past roadside skirmishes and what not.
One of the best facets of this game is there's no one way to do anything. You have to capture or kill your target - you can sneak up behind the group and snipe off the guards, or call in massive airstrikes (but risk killing your target which is less money), or steal an enemy vehicle and try for a stealthy extraction or etc.
Mad fun. I'll probably play it for another 6+ hours tonight.
Warm Machine
Member
Just bought it, looking forward to playing it.
VALIS said:Played for about 6 hours last night and loved every minute of it. Captured the entire first suit of cards except for the Ace, which is a complete bitch of a mission. I like that, though, as sometimes it feels a little too easy because as long as you have the money (and the geography
Damn, we're in the exact same boat. I played all night and reached the Ace of clubs, when I tried to switch my files from the hard drive to the mem. card, I accidently overwrote the old save to the hard drive. This meant I had to play an extra 4 hours to get where I originally was. with ANY other game I would have quit and been pissed, but the fact that you can do the same mission 100 different ways made it even more enjoyable! Anyway, I beat the mission with the ace of clubs, but I killed him. I haven't killed any of the cards yet (a little goal I set for myself) so I'm going to replay that mission until I catch him. Although it's a hard mission, it's the best so far. You can fly through it in a stolen chopper, snipe the entire map, and EVERYTHING in between.
VALIS said:
I hear you, what I do its go by that bridge (not sure which one sorry) where there are scout choppers patrolling. Then I shoot a couple of rounds to get their attention, and when they give chase, jack the chopper and take it everywhere. This is so much more convenient, and remember, everytime you accept a new mission it repairs your chopper and gives you full ammo. Another thing I didn't learn until recently is that if you hit the black button on the scout chopper, you have 2 anti-tank missles... those things come in handy for that Ace mission.
FrenchMovieTheme
Member
easily game of the year for me so far*
*this is the only new game i have played this year
*this is the only new game i have played this year
SolidSnakex
Member
My main gripe with the game so far is that the vehicles seem really light and floaty. Even when you ram something with a tank instead of the tank crashing and mowing the thing you're hitting down it bounces up like its light.
Kabuki Waq
Member
Cain said:
I have both games.
Mercenaries is good but RE4 is the best single player Experiance this gen IMO.
Get RE4.
Kabuki Waq
Member
well renting would be TOO obvious and answer, Mr Bob have you played RE4?
Kabuki Waq
Member
hmm ok how about best first 10 hours of a game i have played this gen?
Most fun i have had in a single player game this gen so far.
Most fun i have had in a single player game this gen so far.
I totally would rent them, but the video store here is independently owned and run, so the guy doesn't get new games too often. Plus, he just got some new ones like two weeks ago, so I'd have to wait... I'd say a few months for these. Maybe I'll pick up the Mercenaries demo and see how much I enjoy it.
Musashi Wins!
FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
Mercenaries is really great. It's a well done military themed GTA clone just like the reviews are telling you. It seems huge and I'm sure it will last you a long time. But I've had them both sitting here since yesterday and RE4 is an experience all its own. If it hadn't released this month, even more people would be talking about Mercs. Let your current tastes decide of course (sort of feels like Xmas again!) but RE4 is indeed living up to the hype.
Apharmd Battler
Member
Hats off to Pandemic once again. These developers know how to do war games RIGHT!! This game is a blast to play and fun as hell. And they didn't skimp on details. There enough meat in this game to keep you busy for a while. Pandemic did a fantastic job. This game is SCREAMING multiplayer (LAN, Splitscreen, on-line...SOMETHING!!), but I won't knock it for it, becuase we all know damn well that the option will be in the sequel (like they aren't working on it right now). If you don't have the cash, then at least go and rent this game, it is truly a lot of fun to play.