Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is a video game that consists of 8 releases

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The awesome destructive potential of Mercs 2 is hamstrung by a litany of technical shortcomings and clunky design.

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The follow-up to LucasArts' Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, takes these guns-for-hire to Venezuela. This sequel introduces drop-in, drop-out online co-op with the availability to play through the entire single player campaign with a friend.

Overview

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is the sequel to 2005's Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, and is being developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Electronic Arts. The game was released in North America on August 31, 2008 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and PS2. Featuring the first game's propensity for explosions with a design mantra proclaiming that "If an object can't be destroyed in the game world, it doesn't go in the game", Mercs 2 had players once again take control of three gun happy, RPG toting Mercs as they lay waste across a fictional Venezuela. The game was released to mixed critical reception, mostly due to some prominent bugs, odd control choices, and shallow design.

Story

This game takes place in Venezuela where the player, one of three Mercenaries available at the start of the game, is hired for by the local drug lord Ramon Solano to free a captive VZ general. After Solano's coup puts him in control of Venezuela and its oil supply, he betrays the mercenaries; refusesing to pay the bill for the job, Solano shoots the player in the rear( which the game will gleefully point out throughout the rest of the game) . Now that Solano is in control of vast oil reserves, the Allied Nations, China's PLA, the Rastafarian Pirates, the VZ Rebels and the Universal Petroleum Corporation's private army have entrenched themselves in Venezuela in a bid to wrestle control its oil. Now the mercenaries must decide who to ally themselves with and where to tip the balance of power.Players will be able to take missions from the five different organazations as they recover funds and information neccesary to take Solano down.

Gameplay

Things go BOOM!

The gameplay will remain faithful to the original, which essentially put a war-torn spin on the open-world, GTA style of gameplay, though Pandemic promises to make many changes to the game. Hijacking will now include a minigame that will range in difficulty depending on the vehicle. In addition to choppers and ground-based vehicles, you'll now be able to commandeer boats as well. Mercenaries 2 promises a greater focus on destructible environments, allowing you to knock holes in walls, take down entire buildings, and set foliage and oil spills on fire.

The player will be able to build his own private military company by recruiting different mercenaries, each giving the player unique abilities such as calling in air strike, vehicle repair, or chopper evac. Destruction is no longer a singular activity. Mercs 2 will feature online co-op action, any person on your friend's list will be able to join in on the chaos with a click of a button. Some examples of certain situations include one player assaulting a Government base on foot while the other rains hell from the sky in a helicopter. Then to top it off both players can call in a Fuel-Air Nuke. Boom.

Controversy

Bono, Help Venezuela!

Because of the games setting (Venezuela) combined with its content there has been some controversy surrounding Mercenaries 2. In a somewhat paranoid way the Venezuelan government saw Mercenaries 2 as a propaganda tool from the US and accused the US government (and more specifically the CIA) of working with Pandemic studios. The Venezuelan Solidarity Network also called for Bono (U2) to help stop production of the "Anti-Venezuelan Shooter" in March of 2007. They received no such help. Venezuela is notorious for being the world's largest proved Oil and Gas reserve outside of the middle east. It is also known for its President Hugo Chavez who became sort of famous in the US after making several anti-Bush and paranoid (see above) anti-America remarks at the United Nations Assembly in 2005.

System Requirements

Minimum System Requirements (Windows Vista)
Processor: Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading/AMD Athlon 64 X2
Memory: 2 GB
Hard Drive: 10 GB Free
Video Memory: 256 MB with Shader Model 3.0 (nVidia GeForce 6800 GT/ATI Radeon X1600)
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c Compatible
DirectX: 10
Keyboard & Mouse
DVD Rom Drive (8X)
Internet Connection

Minimum System Requirements (Windows XP)
Processor: Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading/AMD Athlon 64 X2
Memory: 1 GB
Hard Drive: 10 GB Free
Video Memory: 256 MB with Shader Model 3.0 (nVidia GeForce 6800 GT/ATI Radeon X1600)
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c
Keyboard & Mouse
DVD Rom Drive (8X)
Internet Connection

Recommended System Requirements
OS: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.66 GHz/AMD X2 4600 2.4 GHz
Memory: 2 GB
Hard Drive: 10 GB Free
Video Memory: 512 MB with Shader Model 3.0 (nVidia GeForce 6800/ATI Radeon HD 2600)
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c
Keyboard & Mouse
DVD Rom Drive (8X)
Internet Connection

Xbox 360 Game Installation

Mercinaries 2: World in Flames requires 6.7GB of space to install on an Xbox 360 HDD.

General Information Edit

Game Name	Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2 Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 PC
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Developer(s)	Pandemic Studios Pi Studios, LLC.
Genres	Add a new genre Action Adventure Shooter
Themes	Add a new theme Modern Military Crime
Original US Release	Aug. 31, 2008 need a fuzzy date?
Original US Release	know the real date?
Aliases	Mercs 2
ESRB	ESRB: T
PEGI	PEGI: 16+