Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction

[Adam]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenaries:_Playground_of_Destruction

Anyone here played this awesome, Sandbox-like GTA-inspired console game?

The Gist: In the Near-Future (prob. 2010), North Korea gets invaded by a force of Allied Nations. One problem: Their rogue leader, some insane chap named General Song, is still running loose across the country and he is holding onto a bunch of nuclear ICBMs that would launched in a matter of weeks. Add to the fact that the NKs are using tunnels to move heavy armor, troops and other equipment around North Korea to stage heavy guerilla offensives against the AN/Chinese/South Koreans/Russian Mafia.

The Game: Grab or cap the deck of 52, at the highest of which is General Song. Kill North Koreans. Do missions and try pleasing every faction (pretty hard, especially with th SKs and Chinese). Run around the Korean countryside, kill people (heavy penalties are imposed if you kill civilians, and your status with the AN/SK/Chinese goes down) and blow things up.

 

[Tyr]

Got it, very good game. Gets dull after a while but fun while it lasts.

 

[Adam]

Got it, very good game. Gets dull after a while but fun while it lasts.

Pretty fun to test out every sort of air strike in your 'shop' inventory (owned by the Mafia; you can see why making the Russians happy is a very important aspect of the game )

My favorite is Carpet Bombing. Calls in a B-52 that drops in a shitload of bombs that'll blast everything in its path back to the Stone Age.

 

[HueyLong]

The sequel is inspiring a bit of controversy, Chavez doesn't like being called a tyrant, and he really doesn't like US invasions.....

 

[Redem]

The sequel is inspiring a bit of controversy, Chavez doesn't like being called a tyrant, and he really doesn't like US invasions.....

Well I doubt a lot of people in the world like being call tyrant and being invade by anyone.

As for the game it look fun but they are no pc version

 

[Adam]

The sequel is inspiring a bit of controversy, Chavez doesn't like being called a tyrant, and he really doesn't like US invasions.....

Well, he doesn't like the US in the first place anyway.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I love the faction ideas-

North Korea: Okay, they're the stereotypical secular-Stalinist even regime. But hey, the game needs 'em.

Allied Nations: I guess they're like the NATO peacekeepers in Afghanistan- got some of the gung ho preemptiveness of the Coalition of the Willing, but legitimized enough so that they're strung up by U.N.-like rules of engagement.

South Korea: The main force is part of the AN, but this faction specifically is a covert military force separate for them. They're made into bit players- and they're puppets of the CIA? Love the intrigue and unflattering geopolitical characterization.

China: Just like in Battlefield 2 and Command & Conquer: Generals, there's just got to be the Red Peril. I like how the game says that the PLA's ultimate objective is to turn North Korea into a Chinese province.

Russian Mafia: The mafiya wants to keep the Norks weak and the war ongoing? And they're considered a faction, just like the U.N./NATO-analogue and motherfreakin' China? Nice.

In short, I thought it was very creative and look forward to seeing what Pandemic has planned for Mercenaries 2.

 

[Wanderlust]

I love the game, and its characters: The Lara Croft-ish Jennifer Mui and the Peter Stormare-voiced Swedish Fruit'n'Nut Mafia-friend Mattias Nilsson I haven't played the American chappie yet but I'm sure he's well-characterised too.

I really don't like the idea of the sequel though. Its a cheap attempt at scoring points off Venezuela - how in any way can they be compared to North Korea?

 

[Adam]

I really don't like the idea of the sequel though. Its a cheap attempt at scoring points off Venezuela - how in any way can they be compared to North Korea?

For starts, its an exotic location you don't really see in many video games these days. They could've set it in Iraq, or Iran, if they wanted to score political points.

And that franchise isn't about North Korea. Its about mercs, and killing and blowing up lotsa people/things in many varied ways.

 

[Wanderlust]

I never said it was solely about North Korea - just Venezuela is nowhere near as repressive and looking for a fall than that country.

If they wanted a varied and exotic location - well why not Zimbabwe? It has a bastard of a dictator, is in even fewer games, and has many outlying factions willing to jump on it when it goes. But Venezuela is just so much easier to target

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Eh, don't worry about it. I'm guessing that aside from a well-meaning but weak Allied Nations (U.N. peacekeepers analogue) force, all of the factions of Mercenaries 2 are going to get the Children of Men treatment- which means besides the brutal old regime, there will be violent anarchic revolutionaries, greedy Union Carbide-esque oil corporation types, narco-terrorists from Colombia, and so on. Barely anyone will be fully sympathetic, if at all. I'm sure there will be a force of puppets that's secretly taking their orders from the meddling Pentagon as well.

I mean, have you read up my summary of the Mercenaries 1 factions above? Aside from the A.N., all of the sides are somehow crooked and corrupt.

 

[Redem]

If they wanted a varied and exotic location - well why not Zimbabwe? It has a bastard of a dictator, is in even fewer games, and has many outlying factions willing to jump on it when it goes. But Venezuela is just so much easier to target

Plus you make up quite a lot of thing about what's going on wihtout anybody people complaing (actually I think some of them might think Zimbabwe is a fictionnal country)

 

[Wanderlust]

Eh, don't worry about it. I'm guessing that aside from a well-meaning but weak Allied Nations (U.N. peacekeepers analogue) force, all of the factions of Mercenaries 2 are going to get the Children of Men treatment- which means besides the brutal old regime, there will be violent anarchic revolutionaries, greedy Union Carbide-esque oil corporation types, narco-terrorists from Colombia, and so on. Barely anyone will be fully sympathetic, if at all. I'm sure there will be a force of puppets that's secretly taking their orders from the meddling Pentagon as well.

I mean, have you read up my summary of the Mercenaries 1 factions above? Aside from the A.N., all of the sides are somehow crooked and corrupt.

Oh I agree. I love the way each of the factions are scum in some way or other (and you're made to rely on the scummier-than-scum mafia if you want the best toys). I'd just like the idea of smacking in Mugabe's nutters over Chavez.

Plus you make up quite a lot of thing about what's going on wihtout anybody people complaing (actually I think some of them might think Zimbabwe is a fictionnal country)

Indeed. We could make up a story about Zimbabwean oil being discovered to make it all plausible too

 

[Adam]

Speaking of different merc settings, how about a post-nuclear war environment?

 

[Redem]

Speaking of different merc settings, how about a post-nuclear war environment?

Well possibly after post nuclear war all civilisation will have crumble hence having stuff like 100 millions dollar bounty pretty useless. Unless maybe it's more mad max esque.

 

[Adam]

Well possibly after post nuclear war all civilisation will have crumble hence having stuff like 100 millions dollar bounty pretty useless. Unless maybe it's more mad max esque.

I was thinking of it being localized, like say, an area of India-Pakistan after a near-future nuclear conflict between the two said nations.

 

[Wanderlust]

As long as you made it really disturbing and creepy. Characters spend most of their time in full NBC gear. Geiger counters chattering constantly. Large parts of the playing area in flattened cities with the ground fused to glass, shadows of people on the few standing walls...

I like the idea of that

 

[Adam]

As long as you made it really disturbing and creepy. Characters spend most of their time in full NBC gear. Geiger counters chattering constantly. Large parts of the playing area in flattened cities with the ground fused to glass, shadows of people on the few standing walls...

I like the idea of that

Not to mention all sorts of military-industrial complexes coming after you, the varied factions of the wasteland and the necessity of a post-apocalyptic setting: mutants.

 

[Wanderlust]

And Pandemic's logo is a gas mask anyway!

 

[dmz23]

Yeah the game is very good. The fuel-air bomb and portable air-strike are my favourite weapons. If you want to be reminded that its simply a game-put on the invincibility cheat and go blow up the supergun behind the black gate. Magically,when you take up the mission to silence the NK artillery,the Supergun will be back in mint condition and firing its horrible shells on the poor South Korean cities.
I also think the game needs:
1]More vehicles.
2]Helicopter gunships[like the one that hovers above the allied HQ on the second map] should be easier to access.
3]Tanks and armour are alright. But the civilian vehicles feel bulky[like the buses] or too light[the car partically flys at top speed over small bumps]
4]The bonus characters should have proper abilities.
5]Jet fighters and bombers. It would be nice to see a bit of aerial warfare.
6]Ability to swim.
7]Less "impossible to climb hills".
8]No indestructable trees. A 40 ton armoured tank should be able to flatten a simple oak or elm.
9]Your targets AI should tell them to stay a fair distance from armour or RpG wielding troops. Its very annoying when you have to capture a guy unharmed. But a group of tanks and RPG wielders unloading masses of firepower on you, just complicates matters.