Cons: Graphical fog is annoying sometimes...can't save during missions
The Bottom Line: Mercenaries has the potential to be a sleeper hit. The winning combination of GTA-style gameplay with the destructive nature of a war zone is a perfect match.
I know I won't be the only one to say this but I'll say it anyway...Mercenaries is basically Grand Theft Auto 3 set in war-torn North Korea. There. That's all you really need to know.
Story
Alright, I'll tell you more. To begin with, there is a story to this game...and it's not half bad. In a fictitious near future, the leader of North Korea has the intention of turning his country into a democracy and joining the free world. His son, General Song, doesn't like this idea at all and kills his father in a coup and seizes control of the country and it's formidable weapons...including nuclear warheads. As expected, General Song is ruthless and evil and word gets out he's willing to do whatever it takes to stay in control and with nuclear bombs at his disposal; the world is not willing to wait around to find out what. They invade the country and an all out war ensues.
This is where you come in. Your character (you have a choice of three...more on this later) is a hired gun working for a company called ExOps. In the war going on there are multiple factions all with their own agenda and you are more than willing to work for any of them as long as they pay well. The overriding motive for them all is to take General Song out of power. This can only be done by dismantling his hierarchy from the ground up. There is a set of 52 people each represented by a card (a la Iraq) that you must either capture or kill. Throughout the game your main mission is to collect all 52 cards...with the Ace of Spades being General Song of course. During your stay in North Korea you can also take part in a plethora of side missions to earn some cash as well as accept contracts from the various factions and do their dirty work.
Gameplay
Mercenaries is relatively easy to pick up, especially if you are familiar with video games in general, as it eases you into the game from the get go. There is no tutorial nor is there much help from the game in terms of the control scheme. This is where I recommend reading the manual so you are somewhat familiar with the basic controls. What the game does do to guide you through the first couple missions rather than just drop you off in the middle of the map and expect you to know what you're doing. In the process you get an understanding of the mechanics of the game as well as get used to the controls and get to know the map a little better too. Also, the game will send you "emails" which can be read on your PDA that lets you get insight into many aspects of the gameplay. Overall the game does have a learning curve and you will likely have this clunky feel with it at first but it will go away in due time as things become second nature.
Backing up a little bit...when you first start the game you have a choice of three different characters to play as the mercenary. There is Chris Jacobs who is American. He is a little more of the run-and-gun type as he's able to take a little more damage than the others. He also speaks Korean. There is also Jennifer Mui who is British. She is a more stealthy character and speaks Chinese. Lastly there is Mattias Nilsson, from Sweden, and is the quickest on his feet. He speaks Russian. In general you will play the game the same no matter what character you choose but there will be some small differences due to the physical abilities and languages of each character. The languages come into play because of the different factions in the game.
To list them, there are essentially 5 different factions represented in the game all with their own characteristics and motives...
North Koreans- these guys are always your enemy and will always be hostile to you wherever you go. Your ultimate goal of the game is to capture General Song, leader of the North Koreans.
Allied Nations- these guys are kinda like the United Nations. They represent a multinational force that is trying to oust General Song and prevent going to nuclear war. They are constantly under watch by the media so they like to employ you to distance themselves from certain tasks.
South Korea- their main goal is to try and unify the two Koreas and install a Western-friendly government. You quickly find out they are pretty much being run by the CIA but that doesn't matter to you...as long as they pay well. Chris Jacobs, fluent in Korean, is able to understand conversations not meant for his ears here.
China- they have sent an army of their own into Korea in hopes of absorbing Korea into their borders once General Song is out of power. They have a powerful but not as technically advanced army. Jennifer Mui can understand their conversations.
Russian Mafia- the mafia has made a presence in the region for the sole purpose of making money. As long as you are on good terms with them you can buy a wide variety of vehicles, supply drops, and air strikes from them...for a price of course. Mattias understands the Russian language.
Other than North Korea who is always your enemy, you have a fluctuating relationship with the factions based on what you do in the virtual world. Successfully complete a couple contracts for the Chinese and they will provide you with some equipment but shoot a couple of their officers or blow up one of their tanks and they might decide to start shooting you on site. Using your PDA (your information lifeline in the game), you can see with bar charts how each faction feels towards you. It always is preferable to keep them all on your good side but that is often quite difficult...especially since some of the contracts with the factions require you to be hostile towards other factions.
Incase you do fall in bad favor with some of the factions there are multiple ways to get back on their good side. The easiest is a bribe...money goes a long way in this game. You can also join skirmishes you find though out the game and give factions a helping hand. They recognize this and give you credit where credit is due. There are also many side missions that not only get you money but gain you favor with factions. Finding treasures, destroying listening posts and monuments, and delivering food are among some of the many mini-missions always available to you.
The Russian Mafia is a faction that I personally always try to keep on their good side as they are a good supplier. Using your PDA, you can access their website called the Merchant of Menace. From there you can purchase pretty much anything you need at almost any time during the game. There are simple things like various supply drops to supply you with health, ammo, and weapons. There are also over two dozen vehicles you can buy ranging from just a simple civilian car to Humvees to APCs and even helicopters. Lastly, you can purchase air strikes. Not only are these loads of fun but are extremely useful during missions. The game somewhat prides itself on it's air strikes so you have a large variety of them at your disposal depending on your needs. You can do a simple surgical strike to take out a single target. There are varying degrees of artillery barrages to just mess up large areas. Bunker buster bombs for fortified structures. Cruise missile attacks...tank buster runs...gun ship support...stealth fighters...and carpet bombing! That last one is a real pleasure to watch. In total there are 16 different air strike options and all of them are a blast...no pun intended. Of course there are a couple hitches to this. One, you don't automatically get the option to purchase all of these supply drops/vehicles/air strikes from the get go...that would just be too easy. As you make your way through the game, these options open up to you, often by completing contracts. The second hitch is these things all cost money. Supply drops and some of the smaller vehicles are all relatively cheap but some of the larger, more armored vehicles and most of the air strikes are quite costly so you can't just be all willy-nilly about buying them.
So I've talked a lot about spending money...now you ask how do you make money? Well there are really only two ways and that is to 1) complete contracts for the factions and 2) capture the Deck of 52. There are lots of mini-missions and bounties in the game that pay money but they are mostly pocket change. They are still worth doing for the fun factor and side benefits though (like cheat codes). The contracts for the factions tend to be your run-of-the-mill missions like destroying targets, killing certain people, escort missions, etc. Despite this I never felt they were getting repetitive plus there are a small handful mixed in that are quite unique. The strand that ties the whole game together is the Deck of 52 which consists of General Song and all of his top ranking military leaders, scientists, and supporters. This is also where the game has a somewhat linear approach. This is because you are only going after one suit at a time. You start at the beginning of the game by going after the Clubs which are pretty easy since they tend to be businessmen. By capturing them alive you get their full bounty but only half the bounty if you kill them. As you complete contracts for the factions and capture Cards, you gain intel on the face cards of the suit and ultimately the Ace. The number cards (2 through 10) can pretty much be captured at any time as long as you can locate them. The face cards can only be captured through contracts handed out by the factions. Once you get enough intel doing all of this, you are offered the contract by the Allied Nations to go after the Ace of whatever suit you are working on. These are fairly special since Ace mission are played in separate, smaller areas made just for the mission. In a way it's like your typical "boss" level in other games. Once you successfully capture the Ace of a suit, you move onto the next suit keeping up the Number Cards->Face Cards->Ace pattern until you go through all four suits.
Another close similarity between this game and the GTA series is the ability to do what you want, when you want. I even surprised myself sometimes during the game when I said to myself, "I wonder if I can do this..." and I could! For example, any and every vehicle in the game is drivable. This includes the simple cars in the street to the baggage carts at the airport to the wide variety of tank, helicopters, and even artillery pieces. Anything that can be manned by the enemy can be manned by you...no NPVs here. Also like in GTA, this means they can all be hijacked. Just place your character in the right spot (often designated by circles) and get in. Even tanks can be hijacked with a nice animation of you climbing on top, opening the hatch, throwing a grenade in, and taking over. Heck, as long as a helicopter is low enough to the ground, you can hijack that too!
Vehicles are fun and all but the tagline of the game is "Playground of Destruction" and the game lives up to that in every way. With the free form gameplay, you can do whatever suits your mood. Add in the fact that virtually anything unnatural is destructible and you have the recipe for fun. That building blocking your view? Call in an air strike and level it! Enemies chasing you over a bridge? Lay some C4 and blow the bridge! Is that civilian jaywalking? Show 'em who's boss! The game doesn't go without consequences though. Almost any time you do something destructive, someone gets angry at you (i.e. one or more of the factions) so they either like you less...or in the case of the Allied Nations, they like you less AND take money from you to pay for the PR mess. It's a very fragile system. Of course, nothing is stopping you from just blowing up whatever you want...just don't save it and reload the last save when you are satisfied.
The map for the game is fairly large. The easiest comparison is to say it's about the size of the map in GTA: Vice City. For those not familiar with Vice City, then it's truthful to say the map is a good few square miles. It's large enough that you will often have to refer to your PDA to know where to go but small enough so that you can know the main roads in due time. There are a ton of nooks and crannies on the map and it's really fun to just go around and explore. You might be surprised with what you find. Now wait! The fun doesn't stop there. After getting halfway through the game, a second map is opened up to you...just as you were getting familiar with the first. So yes, that's two maps for the price of one with the bonus of 4 extra smaller maps for the Ace missions.
The AI for the game is pretty good. At first, enemies are relatively easy to kill but there is a noticeable increase in difficulty as the game progresses. (Side note on the difficulty: there is no setting for this but it was in the average range in my opinion). Enemies will take cover when you shoot them...they will run from grenades...they will try and run you over with vehicles. They are hardly stupid. On a scale of 1 to 10 for "AI Quality" I would give it a solid 8.
Some other odds and ends...the game keeps track of quite a few statistics for anyone interested. You can find out your total play time, favorite vehicles, total kills and subdivided into factions, best times on the mini-missions, total number of bounties collected, etc etc. It's neat to look at and a nice feature. The other thing is the save system. The general rule is as long as you aren't on a mission you can save whenever you want. This is ok except for two things...1) you will lose any vehicle you might have after loading a saved game. Loading a saved game doesn't start you from exactly where you left off. Instead it will start you in a "safe" area near where you left off and so if you had an Apache helicopter you were hoping to keep with you...forget it. You're just gonna have to find another. And 2) you can't save during missions...most notably the Ace missions. Most of the time this isn't a big deal but the Ace missions are an exception. They tend to be longer AND harder than any other contract mission. One took me a good hour to do. If I had died towards the end of it, I would have had to restart from the very beginning of the mission (which isn't uncommon...especially if you tend to die a lot). I don't know if this was intentional but it's potentially very frustrating to certain people. Just a heads up.
Graphics & Sound
In my last review for Ghost Recon 2 I said it probably had the best graphics for any game out right now on Xbox. I may just have to revise that statement just a mere few weeks after writing it. The graphics in this game are just stunning especially when you consider the size of the maps and everything going on. All the vehicles are highly detailed, your character is right up there in the graphics dept, explosions are just beautiful, and the landscape is dramatic. Even though the map isn't grandiose, there are lots of microregions that all have their own climate or tone set by the lighting, color, weather, etc. It's a simple yet effective way to make the map not seem so bland and also is a visual cue for keeping your bearings. The downside to all of this is the fog...the game industry's little compromise for all the graphicky goodness. It seems you can never see all that far at any time during the game since the ever-present fog prevents that. This is especially noticeable while in a helicopter. It's not a huge detriment to the game but it's something quite noticeable and sometimes annoying. It's hard to blame the game itself since the game is no doubt pushing the Xbox hardware to its limits. Despite the burden on the Xbox, I noticed very few graphical glitches and the load times are better than average. The only times you see a load screen is going into or out of a mission or when you die.
The sound of the game is good but not quite great. In general all the weapons sound unique and explosive...vehicles have screeching tires and throaty engines...jets are often heard passing overhead. All the sounds are in the game but to me they often lacked the punch I like. I just have my TV speakers to use but even at higher volumes, the chugging sound of the helicopter blades is barely there and the giant boom of big bombs was lacking. I would hope that with a full 5.1 sound system (which the game supports) those might show up but for the rest of us...we'll just have to settle for "pretty good". Voice acting is heard a lot in this game and it all seemed quite good. There are a few familiar voices in there. I'm not a stickler for voice acting myself so it doesn't take much to satisfy me but the game seems better than average in this department.
Multiplayer
Just kidding. There is no multiplayer to be found in this game but this is hardly a downside. Given the game's close similarity to GTA 3, multiplayer would be hard to implement and probably just be a gimmick. The game also doesn't support Xbox Live so not only will there be no future downloadable content but you also won't show up on anyone's friends list. Once again, this isn't really a negative but this would have been a nice feature.
Summary
This is GTA on the Xbox...if GTA was in a war zone. In many ways this is better than GTA on the Xbox. In the graphics area alone Mercenaries is leaps and bounds ahead of even GTA:SA. The game doesn't have a multiplayer but that won't stop you from playing this well after you beat the game. Speaking of which...the "story" should take you around 25-30 hours to beat depending on how often you get sidetracked and/or how focused you are on capturing your Cards. You could potentially beat this game in half the time but you would be missing out on the real fun of this game. Don't fret though. Once you beat the game, you don't go back to square one. You do start again but this time with all the money, bounties, and shop items you collected your first time around. There are even some bonus extras for doing things right.
This game is already being talked about as Game of the Year for 2005 but I think it's way too early to be making that statement. It is a great game though. If you have been holding off on getting it because you wanted to see if it was gonna flop or are waiting for GTA:SA to come to the Xbox...wait no longer. Go to your nearest game store and buy this now. If you're not so sure but like the idea of the game, this game surely deserves a rental. Between games like Halo 2, SW:KOTOR II, Ghost Recon 2 and others there are a lot of great games out for Xbox right now and Mercenaries has managed to climb to the top right up there with them...and this one isn't even a sequel! Given the quality and fun-factor of this game, I sure hope they make one for the next Xbox generation.
Flexible, action-packed missions as you go after everyone on the Most Wanted list Explosive combat as you draw from a huge arsenal - you have the fire...More at Amazon Marketplace
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