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The Official Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Thread

Wow! Another review that's so far off the mark. Those quotes from the review above make it seem like the reviewer barely played nito the game at all. They missed so much obvious stuff.

Personally, if I were rating the game, I'd give it a 7 on the technical side and a 9 on the fun scale. :)
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
After looking at that Gamespot video review I'm wondering what was up with this game. That review makes it look like hot steaming crap. I was monitoring this thread for all the impressions. It might be very fun for all I know, but after the great burn of a particular sandbox game I'm keeping my distance.
 

raYne

Member
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Wow! Another review that's so far off the mark. Those quotes from the review above make it seem like the reviewer barely played nito the game at all. They missed so much obvious stuff.

Personally, if I were rating the game, I'd give it a 7 on the technical side and a 9 on the fun scale. :)
This I agree with, as it's a 7-8 game easily. 5 is ridiculous.
 

newsguy

Member
Wow, I remember back in 98-99 when I went to IGN and Gamespot for all my gaming review needs. IGN is still ok, but damn GS has become a fucking aweful website. At some point between the layout change and the scandals, I forgot they existed.
 

VALIS

Member
dark10x said:
So just how large is the game world in comparison to other similar games? Does it even begin to approach the incredible size of the islands in Just Cause?

I'd say it's maybe 40-50% the size of Just Cause. Which sounds small, but Just Cause was so fucking massive I finished the game at near 100% and probably didn't even see 20% of the map. Mercs 2 is a good size. Maybe GTAIV x 1.5, approximately.
 

Sandman42

Member
I'm having a great time with Mercs 2. Sure, you could pick apart the game and compare each individual part to other games that have "done it better", but the game is just plain fun regardless.
 

VALIS

Member
Does anyone have a good system for finding oil in this game and can you ever stop relying on oil at any point? I'm on a mission to take down a whole bunch of target buildings in Merida, I only have one building left, I'm out of oil, and I've been scrambling around for a half an hour to find more oil to no avail. I AM STANDING IN A MASSIVE OIL FIELD WITH OIL RIGS AND THERE'S NO OIL HERE FOR ME TO STEAL.

I've come to like this game quite a lot more since my initial impressions, but I do hate the oil system. I realize the game would be too easy if we could call in endless air strikes, so just make them a lot more expensive. Or have some rhyme and reason as to where the oil can be found (like in an oil field maybe!!!).
 

raYne

Member
VALIS said:
Does anyone have a good system for finding oil in this game and can you ever stop relying on oil at any point? I'm on a mission to take down a whole bunch of target buildings in Merida, I only have one building left, I'm out of oil, and I've been scrambling around for a half an hour to find more oil to no avail. I AM STANDING IN A MASSIVE OIL FIELD WITH OIL RIGS AND THERE'S NO OIL HERE FOR ME TO STEAL.

I've come to like this game quite a lot more since my initial impressions, but I do hate the oil system. I realize the game would be too easy if we could call in endless air strikes, so just make them a lot more expensive. Or have some rhyme and reason as to where the oil can be found (like in an oil field maybe!!!).
Weird, you can usually find one of those huge oil tanks in every camp or just by heading down any road. You do know that they're displayed on the in-game hud, right? Green box with the oil drip on it. Though if you steal from your friends, they may not like it much. ;)

If not, every vehicle in the world that's destroyed drops oil. From bikes to tanks to choppers and ships. Everything. So just find one and toss a grenade or two.
 
Hey guys....my one buddy has a PS3 and a 360, and he bought the PS3 version. He says that there is no rumble in the PS3 version of the game when he shoots his gun. He is wondering if the 360 version has rumble when you shoot? If so he is gonna switch versions....... Thanks in advance for any help
 

newsguy

Member
VALIS said:
Does anyone have a good system for finding oil in this game and can you ever stop relying on oil at any point? I'm on a mission to take down a whole bunch of target buildings in Merida, I only have one building left, I'm out of oil, and I've been scrambling around for a half an hour to find more oil to no avail. I AM STANDING IN A MASSIVE OIL FIELD WITH OIL RIGS AND THERE'S NO OIL HERE FOR ME TO STEAL.

I've come to like this game quite a lot more since my initial impressions, but I do hate the oil system. I realize the game would be too easy if we could call in endless air strikes, so just make them a lot more expensive. Or have some rhyme and reason as to where the oil can be found (like in an oil field maybe!!!).


At this point it's essential to use other means. Strap some C4 to the building foundations, jack a tank and shoot the hell out of it, jack a chopper and shoot the hell out of it. I've been in that situation and all I can say is try to improvise.
 

saunderez

Member
VALIS said:
I'd say it's maybe 40-50% the size of Just Cause. Which sounds small, but Just Cause was so fucking massive I finished the game at near 100% and probably didn't even see 20% of the map. Mercs 2 is a good size. Maybe GTAIV x 1.5, approximately.

Have you unlocked the other half of the map yet?
 

DuckRacer

Member
VALIS said:
Does anyone have a good system for finding oil in this game and can you ever stop relying on oil at any point? I'm on a mission to take down a whole bunch of target buildings in Merida, I only have one building left, I'm out of oil, and I've been scrambling around for a half an hour to find more oil to no avail. I AM STANDING IN A MASSIVE OIL FIELD WITH OIL RIGS AND THERE'S NO OIL HERE FOR ME TO STEAL.

I've come to like this game quite a lot more since my initial impressions, but I do hate the oil system. I realize the game would be too easy if we could call in endless air strikes, so just make them a lot more expensive. Or have some rhyme and reason as to where the oil can be found (like in an oil field maybe!!!).
Have you bought any fuel storage upgrades? My capacity is at 1300 or so and it lasts me for a long time.

Also, with destroying the target buildings, you'd be better off using rocket-armed attack helicopters, or C4. Or even artillery strikes since those hardly use oil.
 

saunderez

Member
Duck said:
Also, with destroying the target buildings, you'd be better off using rocket-armed attack helicopters, or C4. Or even artillery strikes since those hardly use oil.

C4 works best IMO. Throw a couple of packs run and hit the detonator and almost any building goes down.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Wow! Another review that's so far off the mark. Those quotes from the review above make it seem like the reviewer barely played nito the game at all. They missed so much obvious stuff.

Personally, if I were rating the game, I'd give it a 7 on the technical side and a 9 on the fun scale. :)

Mercs 2 definitely retains the same fun explosive gameplay that the original had. That said the technical aspects of the game are extremely poor. It's 2008, Mercs 2 feels like it was made in 04 like the original.
 

VALIS

Member
raYne said:
Weird, you can usually find one of those huge oil tanks in every camp or just by heading down any road. You do know that they're displayed on the in-game hud, right? Green box with the oil drip on it. Though if you steal from your friends, they may not like it much. ;)

If not, every vehicle in the world that's destroyed drops oil. From bikes to tanks to choppers and ships. Everything. So just find one and toss a grenade or two.

Yep, I know all that. It is weird, I can't find a single oil tank in this city or in its outskirts. I have been blowing up vehicles for small amounts of oil, but those usually just go into ammo drops. I need some major oil because my last building left is inside a walled fortress. C4 isn't going to cut it. Well, I could do it with just C4 and guns, but that would take me a while.

Duck: My oil capacity is 700. It just usually when you find oil in this game, you find two tanks next to each other, and you go over capacity.

Saunderez: I wasn't implying that the game world is small. It's big, actually. Maybe even GTAIV x 2 (which would make it San Andreas size, I guess). It's only small compared to Just Cause, which had the biggest open world game map in any game I've ever played.
 

Acid08

Banned
saunderez said:
C4 works best IMO. Throw a couple of packs run and hit the detonator and almost any building goes down.
I put four packs on C4 on four different corners of a building and it didn't do shit :/
 

saunderez

Member
VALIS said:
Duck: My oil capacity is 700. It just usually when you find oil in this game, you find two tanks next to each other, and you go over capacity.
I've got 1300 fuel ATM you really need to buy some PMC Fuel upgrades. The reason an oil rig doesn't have fuel is because the oil has to be processed first so it wouldn't be sitting on site.

VALIS said:
Saunderez: I wasn't implying that the game world is small. It's big, actually. Maybe even GTAIV x 2 (which would make it San Andreas size, I guess). It's only small compared to Just Cause, which had the biggest open world game map in any game I've ever played.
No I understand that I was just asking if you'd unlocked the second half of the map. It seems huge to me.
 

Gigglepoo

Member
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Personally, if I were rating the game, I'd give it a 7 on the technical side and a 9 on the fun scale. :)

Bugs affect people's enjoyment in different ways. When I watched my friendly AI pals walk off a roof to their own death, I laughed. But then again, I enjoy watching bad movies because the unintentional comedy is irresistible. Other people find these random glitches annoying. Mercs 2 is definitely buggy and I think our GS review does a good job of spelling that out to potential buyers. If you (hypothetical you, not Kung Fu Jedi) don't mind, then pick up the game anyway. But if bugs annoy the heck our of you, the review does a good job of spelling out the problems.
 

saunderez

Member
Gigglepoo said:
Bugs affect people's enjoyment in different ways. When I watched my friendly AI pals walk off a roof to their own death, I laughed. But then again, I enjoy watching bad movies because the unintentional comedy is irresistible. Other people find these random glitches annoying. Mercs 2 is definitely buggy and I think our GS review does a good job of spelling that out to potential buyers. If you (hypothetical you, not Kung Fu Jedi) don't mind, then pick up the game anyway. But if bugs annoy the heck our of you, the review does a good job of spelling out the problems.

My issue with the review is pretty much the only bugs I've seen in over 15 hours of gameplay is a couple of airdrops disappearing, a stack of crates hovering and an allied chopper getting stuck on a rooftop. They are nowhere near as prevalent as the reviews suggest, I think the launch patch must have fixed things up a lot over the review copies.
 

Spruchy

Member
Francias Castiglione said:
Sorry can't help with that but how does the PC version look/run?

Runs ok, looks pretty bad improper widescreen FTL. Looked in the manual the icon was jump, durrr my bad.
 

Gigglepoo

Member
saunderez said:
My issue with the review is pretty much the only bugs I've seen in over 15 hours of gameplay is a couple of airdrops disappearing, a stack of crates hovering and an allied chopper getting stuck on a rooftop. They are nowhere near as prevalent as the reviews suggest, I think the launch patch must have fixed things up a lot over the review copies.

I think we did record a lot of the bugs, which goes a long way towards proving we're not crazy. I'm glad it's not happening to you, though. Bugs seem to be pretty random, I guess Aaron was just really unlucky (though I saw a bunch on the PS3 version I played over the weekend).

The review is based on a retail copy of the game, identical to the ones in stores.
 

VALIS

Member
saunderez said:
I've got 1300 fuel ATM you really need to buy some PMC Fuel upgrades. The reason an oil rig doesn't have fuel is because the oil has to be processed first so it wouldn't be sitting on site.

That did occur to me, and I thought, "Wow, maybe they're being real technical here and don't have oil tanks in an oil field since it's useless until it's processed." However, that kind of eye for detail and logic would seem at odds with your ability to find oil tanks on the top of uninhabited mountains! :lol
 

Sectus

Member
What the hell? Did the gaming press have a personal vendetta against this game or something? I'm having a TON of fun with it, especially in coop (although the region protected multiplayer is still stupid). Some of the complaints in the gamespot review are so trivial I don't know what to say.

They say the explosions looks great, but they are too similar. Well, what the fuck did you expect? Waffles to fall down after the second explosion?

They say the game has death animations which repeat. Well, that's how games are! Some games use only ragdoll for death animation, but good old death animations are still very common. I dunno why they don't complain about it in other games too.

You have to press a button to pick up some ammo. Really? Is that worth mentioning at all?

And they end the video by saying Mercs 1 is a better purchase. Which is absolute bullshit. If anyone goes back and actually tried Mercs 1, they'll realize Mercs 2 is infinitely better. Coop alone makes Mercs 2 a billion times better.
 

Gigglepoo

Member
raYne said:
Pre or post day one patch?

Well, he was still playing it yesterday, so I guess the patch was up. I don't remember downloading a patch when I played it this weekend, though. When did it go up?

Sectus said:
What the hell? Did the gaming press have a personal vendetta against this game or something?

I'm not going to speak for Aaron, but I can tell you this was a game he was really looking forward to. So, no personal vendetta here.
 

Javaman

Member
What's the QTE sequence for hijacking helis?

My reflexes are a bit slow these days and the first one I tried ended up getting me killed due to the fall into enemy hands. The first move looked like down on a control stick?
 

raYne

Member
Gigglepoo said:
Well, he was still playing it yesterday, so I guess the patch was up. I don't remember downloading a patch when I played it this weekend, though. When did it go up?
As I said, it was a day one patch.. So it should've been up on the 31st, if not a bit earlier.

I'm just wondering how some people have glitches while other don't. *shrug* That and why the review had a host of complaints that I pointed out earlier that were completely wrong. So I was trying to figure if the pre/post patch playing could be an explanation.

Javaman said:
What's the QTE sequence for hijacking helis?

My reflexes are a bit slow these days and the first one I tried ended up getting me killed due to the fall into enemy hands. The first move looked like down on a control stick?
They're different depending on the type of vehicle. Meaning even the choppers have different variations for each type of chopper.

..and yeah, one of them starts with down on the left stick.
 

Teknoman

Member
Anyone having trouble with missions or running out of resources, the easy answer might be co-op. Havent played online yet...but doesnt the other player maintain their own resources?
 

Pimpbaa

Member
Spruchy said:
Runs ok, looks pretty bad improper widescreen FTL. Looked in the manual the icon was jump, durrr my bad.

What's your setup? Trying to decide between the 360 and PC version.
 

Gigglepoo

Member
raYne said:
As I said, it was a day one patch.. So it should've been up on the 31st, if not a bit earlier.

I'm just wondering how some people have glitches while other don't. *shrug* That and why the review had a host of complaints that I pointed out earlier that were completely wrong. So I was trying to figure if the pre/post patch playing could be an explanation.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the bugs. The bugs are real (we have a bunch on film) but it doesn't seem like everyone experiences them. Programming isn't my thing so I have no idea why that is.
 
32 secs the best I've done yet on the level 3 sniper challenge... still working on it though, but its getting to the point to say.. f* it ... it can really be random on the way the barrels and car explode to take out the portraits

having fun otherwise :)
 

Jubbly

Member
Pimpbaa said:
What's your setup? Trying to decide between the 360 and PC version.

Photobucket squished it down, but you get the idea:

Mercenaries2PC.png


Original image: 1600x1200, all options @ max, 2xAA.
 

raYne

Member
MrTroubleMaker said:
32 secs the best I've done yet on the level 3 sniper challenge... still working on it though, but its getting to the point to say.. f* it ... it can really be random on the way the barrels and car explode to take out the portraits

having fun otherwise :)
Did it in 26, if I recall.

Go for the cars on the left first and hit the left most barrels for both. It'll result in an explosion that will throw debris to the right, taking out more targets. Immediately after lighting the barrels, aim for the cars on the right and hit the barrels to the right of those (same deal will happen, taking out stuff towards the left).

After that, you can concentrate on the targets in the middle and by that time the bonus time statue head on the chopper and the truck will be near the middle as well. So you hit a few middle targets, then hit the heads and finally finish off the rest of the targets.

It also helps when going for the explosive barrels if you click back out of scoped view. That was you can turn faster.
 

Decado

Member
Another pansy ass shooter? No thanks. Not to mention Pandemic is practically the definition of high budget mediocrity in gaming.
 

Pimpbaa

Member
Decado said:
Another pansy ass shooter? No thanks. Not to mention Pandemic is practically the definition of high budget mediocrity in gaming.

Thanks for your worthless input!
 
raYne said:
Did it in 26, if I recall.

Go for the cars on the left first and hit the left most barrels for both. It'll result in an explosion that will throw debris to the right, taking out more targets. Immediately after lighting the barrels, aim for the cars on the right and hit the barrels to the right of those (same deal will happen, taking out stuff towards the left).

After that, you can concentrate on the targets in the middle and by that time the bonus time statue head on the chopper and the truck will be near the middle as well. So you hit a few middle targets, then hit the heads and finally finish off the rest of the targets.

It also helps when going for the explosive barrels if you click back out of scoped view. That was you can turn faster.
thanks for the tips! :)
 

Brashnir

Member
Got the game and have only played for an hour or so, but I'm defintely not impressed by what I've seen so far. Every aspect of the game I've played thus far controls like crap and the whole experience has been awful.

I'll make some adjustments to the camera controls (I assume this is possible, but haven't tried yet) next time and give it another shot, but so far the only adjective I can come up with to describe the game is "blech."
 

Javaman

Member
I joined someone else's game tonight and had a blast (went from $4,000,000 to $45,000,000) but whenever I loaded the game my character is now the mohawk dude instead of the chick. WTF.
 

Eiji

Member
Javaman said:
I joined someone else's game tonight and had a blast (went from $4,000,000 to $45,000,000) but whenever I loaded the game my character is now the mohawk dude instead of the chick. WTF.

Tranny surprise!
 

anddo0

Member
raYne said:
Did it in 26, if I recall.

Go for the cars on the left first and hit the left most barrels for both. It'll result in an explosion that will throw debris to the right, taking out more targets. Immediately after lighting the barrels, aim for the cars on the right and hit the barrels to the right of those (same deal will happen, taking out stuff towards the left).

After that, you can concentrate on the targets in the middle and by that time the bonus time statue head on the chopper and the truck will be near the middle as well. So you hit a few middle targets, then hit the heads and finally finish off the rest of the targets.

It also helps when going for the explosive barrels if you click back out of scoped view. That was you can turn faster.

Great tips!

I did both sniper and pistol challenges yesterday:D
 

raYne

Member
I'm up to the dreaded super bribe numbers..

12.7 million to bribe the Allied Nations so I can start doing their missions. :lol
 
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