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The Expendables 2 Review

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  • PS3N

The Expendables 2 somehow manages to turn the act of blowing anything and everything up into a dreadful bore.

A video game based on a movie license is not very good, and no one is surprised. It's the expected result nowadays when we hear that a publisher is working on some game based on a major motion picture. Finding an enjoyable movie-licensed game has become the game industry equivalent of discovering a once-thought extinct species. Given this fact, one wouldn't be incorrect to assume that The Expendables 2, a downloadable action game based on the upcoming movie sequel, would be a bad game. This is most definitely a lazy, slapped together, overly expensive waste of time that nobody need bother play. And yet, for some bizarre reason, all I could think about while playing The Expendables 2 was that it didn't have to be this way.

(Most of) the titular Expendables are on hand to explode pretty much all the things.
(Most of) the titular Expendables are on hand to explode pretty much all the things.

That's because for all its missteps and idiotic design decisions, there is a good idea for a game in The Expendables 2. Much as The Expendables film franchise is all about cobbling together aging action stars for a bit of nostalgic exploding of things, The Expendables 2 hearkens back to a bygone era of action gaming, when games like Contra and Ikari Warriors let players blast through absurd waves of pixelated bad guys, and Sylvester Stallone still had his original face.

Unfortunately, a good idea is all The Expendables 2 has going for it. And that idea isn't worth much when it's executed so miserably.

This is a four-player co-op shooter featuring four of the film series' muscle-bound protagonists. You can play as Stallone's pistol-toting Barney Ross, Jet Li's knife-throwing Yin Yang, Dolph Lundgren's barely-intelligible sniper Gunner Jensen, or Terry Crews' gigantic shotgun-toting jokester, Hale Caesar. Jason Statham and Randy Couture are sadly nowhere to be found, but that's really the least of The Expendables 2's problems.

The real problem here is mechanics. For a game based on the act of shooting things and sometimes making them explode, The Expendables 2 is remarkably dull when executing these seemingly basic tenets. A variety of factors contribute to this, but most notably, the controls are garbage. The developers at ZootFly have attempted to meld the kind of perspective-oriented shooting of one of the more recent Contra titles with the aiming mechanics of a twin-stick shooter, like Geometry Wars or Smash TV. This does not work.

It's hard to explain exactly why it doesn't work without digging into that nebulous concept of "feel." Shooting things in The Expendables 2 feels weak. The guns have no real impact, the constant need to upgrade them throughout the game means that at least half the game will be spent with long reload times and very little ammo, and there's just not a damn smidgen of excitement anywhere to be found in the combat.

The gameplay is somewhere between Contra and bullet hell, but it never quite finds a sweet spot between the two.
The gameplay is somewhere between Contra and bullet hell, but it never quite finds a sweet spot between the two.

There are mechanical issues as well. The control scheme of aiming with the right analog stick and shooting with the R1 button works fine in most modern shooters, but here it's just awkward as hell. There's no aim lock mechanic, so basically you're just spraying bullets in directions in the hope of hitting stuff. Again, in a dual-stick shooter, that usually works. But because your guns are so weak-feeling through much of the game, it rarely feels like you're making much impact. When I'm playing as Hale Caesar and I've got that massive, otherworldly-looking automatic shotgun of his, I should be sending bad guys flying in multi-directional shards of human meat. That does not happen here.

Instead, you blast blast blast until everything on screen is dead. If you're playing in co-op, you'll manage to do this pretty quickly, even on the hardcore difficulty. If you're playing with AI-controlled bots, then it'll take a bit longer, because they're idiots. They'll shoot, but their accuracy and rate of fire tends to be a lot lower than yours, and they will attempt to use the ill-conceived cover mechanic more than you will. Yes, using cover will usually block you from being shot, but unless you're playing for extra XP points, it doesn't matter if you die. Most times one of your teammates will be able to run back and heal you, and if not, the checkpoint system doesn't force you to retrace much distance. In fact, in a weird twist, being down on the ground arguably makes you more useful to your team than otherwise. You can shoot with a pistol while grounded, and if you have even a halfway decent aim, you'll basically just pick guys off left and right, while taking no damage. It's like you're a human turret.

The Expendables 2 does little to capitalize on the wonderfully stupid action movie nostalgia inherent to the films. Not that the characters were particularly fleshed out in the movies, but here they're barely given anything to talk about that isn't a badly delivered, even more poorly edited one-liner. Only Crews and Lundgren voice their own characters, and it's pretty obvious that they were only in the recording booth long enough to say their lines once and collect their checks. The guy who does Jet Li's voice borders on offensive, and the actor pretending to be Barney does an even worse Stallone impression than I do.

Yes, there are turret sequences. Of course there are turret sequences.
Yes, there are turret sequences. Of course there are turret sequences.

What little plot there is barely acknowledges itself. At some point it's explained that you're on the hook to rescue a Chinese diplomat, or something. In order to do that, and collect your $1 million reward (that money wouldn't even cover the damage costs of the first level), you have to kill thousands of people. That's not an exaggeration. That certainly is in keeping with the spirit of the first movie, in which the stuntman credits greatly outnumbered the actual cast. And because of the sheer volume of bad guys you're fighting on screen, most battles become these bizarre, completely incomprehensible blasts of fire and bullets. You never know what you're hitting. As long as things are exploding and guys are falling backward in overly dramatic fashion, you're doing fine.

Except you're not doing fine, because you've paid $15 for this bland, hopelessly rushed bore. Again, I've no doubt few of you are surprised by this result. Downloadable movie-licensed games have had a particularly rough run in recent years, so there's no reason why anyone should have expected anything from this game. And yet a twinge of dismay continuously stuck with me as I played through crappy level after crappy level of The Expendables 2. There's a fine idea for a game here, but either the talent or the budget (or both) wasn't there to make it work. Chalk this one up to a sadly missed opportunity.

Alex Navarro on Google+

72 Comments

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probablytuna

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Edited By probablytuna

Always playing the shitty games..

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Sackmanjones

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Edited By Sackmanjones

2 Stars is generous. Just played the demo and hooooly shit. I knew it would be bad but my god. I liked the part when I was healing my team member and 3 guys stood and waited for me to get him up. That was really sweet of them.

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Undeadpool

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Edited By Undeadpool

Oh GOD! I thought you were KIDDING about having to review this!

Also: these screens are reminding me of the Cabal remake that no one asked for...

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MrKlorox

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Edited By MrKlorox

The review's subtitle is exactly how I felt about Saint's Row the Third.

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devilgunman

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Edited By devilgunman

Shit game for Alex again. Feel your pain, bro.

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Dasdude

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Edited By Dasdude

Poor Alex...

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sammo21

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Edited By sammo21

When I hear people describe this game it sounds like renegade ops and people loved that. I know people didn't love RO just because it was cheesey...

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BossPanzer

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Edited By BossPanzer

Did someone here expected a GOOD movie tie-in game ?

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CaptRocketblaze

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Edited By CaptRocketblaze

This is the kind of stupid game I'd take a chance on because I know I'll like the stupid movie it's based on. I'm glad Alex saved me $15.

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dropabombonit

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Edited By dropabombonit

This game would have been 50% better if Jason Staham was in it

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kristov_romanov

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Edited By kristov_romanov

Interesting, they normally give Alex the really good games to review.

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EverydayOdyssey

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Edited By EverydayOdyssey

Great review. I bought the game and agree it is not good - it is really, really boring. You hit the nail on the head with the guns - they feel very weak. Also, as you eluded to - it is not fun to be hampered, for instance, when you play as Barney, with a six shooter and dual pistols - especially when you are fighting hundreds of enemies.

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dgSean

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Edited By dgSean

Making Alex review all the shitty games is going to come back to bite GB. Before long, shitty games will be getting 4s and 5s simply because the shit game is less shitty then the last 50 shitty games he had to play. For the sake of GB toss Alex a good game every now and then so he can at least remember what a good game feels like so he can give shit scores to shit games that deserve it....

PS: shit-variant

PPS: Alex if this actually works you owe me a beer

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Adamantium47

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Edited By Adamantium47

Haha i love his reviews, always so brutally honest, and that's what i need :) It's a bonus that whenever I read his reviews I always go back to his old Video Review of Big Rigs from GS. Funny Stuff.

I am happy at least it did not spoil the story for the new movie.

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krazy_kyle

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Edited By krazy_kyle

Is it better than Rogue Warrior?

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BaconHound

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Edited By BaconHound

@Catarrhal said:

@Alex: I remember your Stallone impression from a past Quick Look, and I literally thought to myself when playing this game that, yes, Alex Navarro does a better Stallone impression than this guy. If anything, they should have hired the guy from Rambo: The Musical (seriously, check this out if you haven't seen it--a fantastic piece of work).

Thank you for this. I hadn't seen it and it was fantastic. I just wasted about an hour looking at the guy's other stuff, and as good as the Rambo musical was, I think I like the Commando and Predator musicals the best.

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leejunfan83

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Edited By leejunfan83

BAAA BAAAA

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SHADOWINFINITE

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Edited By SHADOWINFINITE

Really wish this game was better

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thepantheon

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Edited By thepantheon

Lol, Alex had to play The Expendables 2.

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knoxt

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Edited By knoxt

So I heard ya like memes huh?

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DukesT3

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Edited By DukesT3

could've should've probably been a pretty cool game. Oh well.

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Campion

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Edited By Campion

I fucking lost my shit on the last paragraph. Laughed pretty hard.