DBoy

For developer Pandemic and publisher EA, releasing Mercenaries 2 at the front-end of the holiday rush seemed like a wise decision on their part. The first game, released in 2005, was well received by critics and gamers alike for its over-the-top but solid gameplay, impressive storyline and diverse and eccentric cast of characters. For the second game, the guys at Pandemic promised a bigger and better playground of destruction, with more explosions and, of course, more fun. They did deliver on the bigger part, but sort of missed the boat on the better part.

Mercenaries 2 is a botched-up, bug-riddled mess of a game. One has to wonder what the testers on this game were on to miss all of the glitches that oftentimes hinder the gameplay in frustrating and annoying ways. You’ll start off by picking your Merc from the cast of returning characters. Each one has a special ability: Mattias Nilsson’s health regenerates faster, Chris Jacobs can carry more ammo and Jennifer Mui runs faster. No matter who you choose, the storyline will remain exactly the same throughout the course of the game. Bottom line, you get double-crossed by Ramon Solano, a power-hungry political figure who takes over as dictator of Venezuela after a militaristic coup. After hiring you for a job, he doesn’t pay up and even tries to kill you, which is a big no-no when you’re dealing with a mercenary. You’ll then go on this ridiculous quest for revenge which will eventually bring you face to face with Solano. The premise is out of place for a game like this, making the story an ambiguous mess.

As you try and find where Solano is hiding, you’ll need to take on jobs for the different factions in the game so they can give you information on his whereabouts. Although they drive different vehicles and offer different types of supply packages for you to pick up, all of them possess the same braindead AI. In fact, every non-human controlled character in this game has the AI of a lemming, if not worse. Soldiers from a friendly faction will often lunge themselves in front of your bullets or rockets, making said faction hostile towards you and often bringing the mission to an abrupt end. Enemy soldiers will just stand there and not notice you even though you’re standing right next to them. Even worse, they will disregard their own faction’s equipment or companions just to gun you down. As for Venezuela’s denizens, they’ll casually run in front of your car when you’re driving down the road, costing you some money each time. Instead of running away from danger, they’ll rush right into it and most likely die from your bullet fire or artillery strikes. All of this horrendous AI make the game more frustrating than it should be.

As for the gameplay proper, there are some fun moments to be had, if you disregard a host of other annoying glitches and bugs and some repetitive sequences. Launching an artillery strike on a building and watching it crumble to the ground will leave you in awe and put a smile on your face. Sadly, that feeling fades away much too quickly because the buildings or structures crumble in the exact same way every time. Your Mercenary also has the ability to hijack tanks and helicopters during the course of the game, but once again, these scripted button-mashing sequences are recycled throughout and are identical each time you decide to hitch a ride. Of course, since this is a third-person shooter, you’ll be packing some heat. Although there is a wide variety of guns to choose from, the subtle differences between them aren’t enough to differenciate one from another. The fact that you need to press a button to pick up ammo is ridiculously annoying to boot. Overall, the shooting and driving mechanics work well and are very easy to get into.

Sadly, other annoying bugs hinder some gameplay mechanics which should’ve flowed seamlessly. For starters, the map is huge and, even though your helicopter pilot can pick you up anywhere, he can’t drop you off where you’d want him to, meaning that you’ll have to find other ways of transportation to make it where you want to go. If you die, you’ll respawn at the faction’s camp for which you were doing the contract for, or you’ll respawn in your home base, which means that you’ll have to trek all the way back to your destination once again. Speaking of your helicopter pilot, he will sometimes deliver supply crates on top of buildings, out of your reach. At other times, soldiers will glitch in a window or next to a vehicle, making it impossible to kill them. I’ve even seen a helicopter disappear in thin air while I was riding in it.

There exists one saving grace to this game, it’s the online co-op. Having a human counterpart playing with you makes a world of difference and adds an extra coat of fun to the proceedings. Those long car or helicopter rides can be spent chatting with your buddy, for example. The online is lag-free and works extremely well, although the same bugs and glitches from the single player component will always be present while you play. If it wasn’t for the co-op, this game would’ve fallen under the “bad memory” section of my video game stockpile.

In the end, there’s this uneasy feeling that Pandemic and EA rushed this product onto store shelves to benefit from the early seasonal rush, making it a tangled mess of bugs and glitches that could’ve easily been avoided with just a little bit more care. The bad voice acting, cringe-inducing story and ugly graphics don’t help matters any. This game could’ve been so much more. Thankfully, it’s quasi-perfect online mode is there to save the day and make us temporarily forget how broken the actual game is.

If I wanted to make this review short and sweet, I'd probably just say "If you like blowing stuff up and killing a bunch of people while doing it, then Battlefield Bad Company is the game for you." But since I like to add a bit of professionalism to my reviews, I'll delve a bit more into the game and give you a more enlightened point of view on this first-person shooter.

Battlefield Bad Company comes from developer EA DICE and publisher Electronic Arts and chronicles the adventures of B-Company, a band of rejected, misfit soldiers used by the army as canon fodder to slow down enemy troops until the "real" soldiers arrive. You'll play as Private Preston Marlowe, who's recently been reassigned to B-Company for undisclosed reasons. Joining you for this mission are Sergeant Redford, a tough and wise veteran whose soul purpose for joining the squad is so he can retire early; Stillwater, who joins the army only to get a college scholarship without realizing he'll actually have to fight; and Haggard who's just there to blow everything to smithereens. The camaraderie and constant teasing between Stillwater and Haggard is actually quite funny, as you'll see them push and shove each other or play rock-paper-scissors in the background while the Sarge gives out orders. Although it has its fair share of funny moments, the story and voice acting aren't this game's pay dirt. Actually, you can see how this one will end from a country mile away.

Although previous Battlefield games weren't known for their single player experience, concentrating more on the multiplayer side of things, this one is much different. There's a nicely fleshed out single player campaign here. As you make your way through the campaign, not only will you get to blow up a ton of walls, tanks, helicopters and, yes, even people, you'll also get to shoot them down with a very eclectic variety of weaponry. Although there are a lot of guns to choose from, the force and accuracy between them is barely noticeable. It would've been nice to have freedom of choice in which weapon to use, as we do in Rainbow Six Vegas games, but, sadly, there isn't, so you'll just have to settle for the weapon you pick up at the time, crappy or not. However, whether you're using a shotgun or a semi-automatic, the shooting feels good. It might not be as tight as in Call of Duty 4, for example, but it does the job well.

One thing you'll discover about Marlowe is that he's quite the jack-of-all-trades. Not only can he fire rocket launchers and use mortar strikes, he can also repair vehicles found throughout the game. You can carry your main weapon, with either a grenade launcher attached to it, hand grenades or a side arm, as well as, for your secondary "weapon", a variety of things from a rocket launcher to a mortar strike or even a repair tool. The gung-ho style of play was a nice change of pace… for the first 30 minutes. Although the game encourages you to blow holes into walls to expose the enemy, I found it more fun to just rush in there and gun them down. Blowing up tanks and walls is fun, but it really gets old after a while.

Although you'll die more often than you'd like in this game, doing so isn't as bad as you'd think. Aside from the many checkpoints scattered around the maps, you'll get to carry a nifty little gadget called the health injector. Instead of the overused health regeneration system from other similar games, I'm guessing the guys at DICE wanted to give Bad Company a more realistic feel with this injector, but the fact that you can use it every 40 seconds or so makes it feel more like a gimmick than a novel idea. Add to the fact that, when you die while in a vehicle, and even if it explodes, you'll respawn in said vehicle at the checkpoint, armor intact and all. This reminded me of BioShock's Vita-Chambers and how much easier it made the game.

The AI in Bad Company is laughable at best. I lost count of how many times I just stood next to an enemy for a good five seconds before he noticed me. Also, don't expect much help from your squad mates, as they'll just take cover behind something and act like nothing's going on around them. That's when they're not bumping into you while you're trying to avoid enemy fire. This is where a human partner, or partners, would've made all the difference in the world. Sadly, the game offers no co-op whatsoever, which is ridiculous for a shooter released in this day and age.

Luckily, this is a Battlefield game, which means that there is plenty of multiplayer action to be had here. Twenty-four players go head-to-head in an attack and defend mode called Gold Rush, where the attacking team tries to destroy the defending team's gold crates. Although the Battlefield mainstay mode called Conquest will be made available to download later on down the line, you won't miss it much while playing Gold Rush. The online is relatively lag-free and tons of fun to play. The only downside here is that if you arrive late to the party, you'll have a tough time keeping up with the rest of the already established players, but that goes for any other online game as well.

Battlefield Bad Company could have been a gem of a game, but its repetitiveness, faulty AI, quirky health regenerative methods and lack of co-op bring it down a couple of notches. The game is far from being bad however and should keep you entertained far beyond its 10-hour single player campaign with its excellent online component. With breathtaking sound and all-around decent visuals, Bad Company is worth checking out… when it hits the bargain bin sometime in the future.

Summer is finally here and with it comes another season of tennis, as the pros take to the courts to amaze and delight us. It's also the perfect time for game companies to release their take on the sport, for those of us who enjoy playing tennis with a controller instead of a racket.

Top Spin 3, from publisher 2K Sports and developer Pam Development, is the third game in the Top Spin series and the only tennis game scheduled for this summer. Unlike other games from other publishers before it, Top Spin 3 is not an arcade-based tennis game, thus making it a bit challenging for casual players. Luckily, there's a Top Spin School where you'll learn all of the moves and tricks to help you get accustomed to the controls, and when you do, they feel very sharp and accurate. The controls are quite basic in nature. The face buttons perform flat, top spin, slice and lob/drop shots while the triggers give that extra 'oomph' of power to them. The shoulder buttons make your player sprint across the court. Although learning how your player hits and moves isn't overly complicated, the timing of your button presses can be a bit tricky. You'll need to press and hold down a face button to power up your swing, move the left analog stick to position it, and then release the button to hit the ball. Believe me, this takes some getting used to and a lot of practice, but when you get the hang of it, you'll soon understand why there's no better tennis game out there that imitates the real-life sport as well as Top Spin 3 does.

Aside from the tutorial game mode featured in the Top Spin School, you'll have four other modes to choose from. There's Exhibition, as well as online and offline multiplayer, which are pretty self-explanatory. Just know that the online multiplayer is lag-free, that it's easy to get into a match and that it can be played in singles or doubles competition. But the biggest draw of the game by far is the Career mode, where you'll take your player through five stages including amateur, challenger, junior, pro and legend. The game has a pretty hefty player creator mode, with tons of customizable options to choose from. Playing as yourself in a tournament where you kick Roger Federer's ass is surprisingly gratifying.

As you play through your career and win matches, you'll unlock experience points, which can be used to upgrade your player's abilities, which range from your forehand and backhand shots, as well as your service, stamina and power, amongst others. You'll also unlock other points which will allow you to buy clothes, shoes or rackets from the stores at the mall. All of the well-known brand names are there, including Nike and Adidas. Although the clothes look damn nice (for the most part), they do not influence your abilities or how the game is played, which is kind of a bummer, but I'm guessing that a company like Yonex didn't want to see their sneakers be out-performed by Nike sneakers, for example.

While you claw your way up to the top of the tennis food chain, you'll come across most of the well-known players of today, including Federer, Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick and Amelie Moresmo, amongst others, as well as stars from yesteryear such as Monica Seles and Bjorn Borg. If you expect to go one on one with this year's Wimbledon winner, Rafael Nadal, you'll be disappointed to learn that he only appears on the PlayStation 3 version of the game due to contractual constraints. Most of the popular tournaments are featured in the game, including the US Open and the French Open but sadly, Wimbledon is not present.

One thing's for certain, this is by far the best looking tennis game on the market. The players are amazingly lifelike and their animations are fluid. The locales where the tournaments take place are varied and unique, from beach clubs to indoor gymnasiums, and everywhere in between. I also noticed that the crowds look and react like real crowds do, which is very rare for a sports game. Usually, you'll see the same looped animation over and over again while you're playing a match, which can get pretty annoying at times, so kudos to 2K for creating the best AI crowd in the business. Top Spin 3 also sounds great. You'll know when you're hitting a powerful shot or a weak one from the sound the ball makes when you smack it with your racket. The ambiance is also very noticeable, as you'll barely hear a clap or a yell when you're playing in lower-level tournaments, compared to the roar of the crowd when you hit the big time. There is a very limited soundtrack in the game, but it's nothing to write home about, especially since the same 2-3 songs seem to loop ad nauseam. There's just so much Jamiroquai a man can take before cringing, you know?

If you have the patience to tough it out, Top Spin 3 is a very solid game of tennis which takes itself very seriously. It offers a realistic, no-holds-barred take on the sport which will have fans craving for more. This game offers so much tennis, with solid career and online modes to boot, that you'll be playing it for a very long time to come. Bottom line, if you love tennis, you'll love Top Spin 3.