Mercenaries 2 - Second Look Preview

When we briefly got our hands on Mercs 2 last July, it certainly looked the part. The graphics presented stunning water effects, luscious jungle environments, explosions so bright they made us squint, and the most destructible world we'd seen in a game. Since then, a few games have popped up on the radar presenting the same go-anywhere-destroy-anything gameplay style of Pandemic's flagship franchise (e.g. Red Faction: Guerrilla). Nevertheless, the opportunity to destroy a huge oil platform piece-by-piece in Mercs 2 remains as impressive today as it was last July.

Mercs 2 has seen significant delays over the last year though. Originally scheduled for a 2007 release, the title was subsequently knocked into 2008 by EA, then into the company's 2008/09 financial year, before finally being secured with a September 5th release in Europe. This was no huge surprise to us because although it was visually exceptional when we saw it last year, it was still a bit glitch ridden. For example, although you could blow a crater in the game's beaches, water didn't move to fill that crater, leaving a bulbous wall of zero gravity ocean that defied physics somewhat.

With these delays, Pandemic seem to have employed a 'radio silence' approach with Mercs 2. Not much has been seen or heard of the title since the initial round of previews last July, and even our latest look at the game didn't offer any hands on coverage of the game. Instead it was billed as a "behind closed doors" (EA's words, not ours) look at the title, with Pandemic's Senior Producer Jonathan Zamkoff leading the demonstration.

52 Card Pickup

The first juicy bit of info we have for you is that the deck of cards system for high value targets in the original Mercs game could make a comeback. The last we'd heard was that Pandemic wouldn't be using the deck of cards system for Mercs 2. The high value target system was always going to be in the sequel, but without the deck of cards layout. However, Zamkoff told us that by pure chance there are 52 high value targets in the game. While he did state that Pandemic is considering bringing back the deck of cards as a result of this fluke, its return is far from confirmed at this point.

Other new info we garnered from our behind closed doors session concerned the sort of game length we can expect from Mercs 2. In an ongoing attempt to compete with genre heavyweight GTA, next-gen sandbox games have to offer at least 30-40 hours of gameplay and Mercs 2 aims to do exactly that. Zamkoff told us that there are 79 missions that will make for around 40 hours of gaming. Side missions will also be a feature and these are dished out by contacts from the various factions in the game (The PLAV, Allied Nations, China, Universal Petroleum, and Rastafarian Pirates). Once you've received contact cards from key figures in each faction, you can then get on with the side missions that they have on offer and buy equipment from their stashes.

We were also keen to find out what Pandemic has been doing with its extra dev team during Mercs 2's various delays. Thankfully, we didn't get the placeholder 'spit and polish' answer that many game developers run with. Instead, Zamkoff explained that the team has been working hard to integrate seamless 2 player co-op into the game. This was certainly a feature that intrigued us last July as multiplayer co-op is far from a shoe-in for open world games.

Mercs 2 will offer online drop in, drop out co-op whenever and wherever you want it. In many ways, it sounds like an extension of the supply drops you can order from various factions in the game. If you're finding a mission difficult, why not enlist some human AI backup to help you? It also suits the 'Playground of Destruction' mantra of Pandemic's first Mercs game. We simply can't wait to have our mate perched high on a mountain, painting key targets for air strikes while we take out swathes of soldiers on the ground. If done right, this could double the amount of freedom you have to attack missions with, which is what the Mercs series is famed for after all.

Another revelation of the demo was the increased importance of resources for Mercs 2. As with the first game, successfully completing missions provides you with money that's used to buy better weapons for later missions etc. In Mercs 2, resources that you'll find around the map, such as fuel and ammo, are also of critical importance. For example, you'll have to be careful not to blow up too many oil drums during an assault because these can be tagged for extraction once the dust has settled. This fuel is then used to call in vital supply drops later on in the game.

Pen Pusher

We were also given a brief run-through of a mission in the game, which featured one of the three returning main characters in the game, Chris Jacobs. He has the job of escorting a Universal Petroleum pen pusher between locations where the bureaucrat has to burn paper containing 'sensitive information'. While the UVP employee is doing this, Jacobs has to fend off the attacks of opposing factions in the usual Mercs style (i.e. excessive munitions and huge explosions). We saw Jacobs jump behind a mounted rocket launcher and fire volleys of rockets at incoming vehicles. The resulting carnage was so vast that even the surrounding oil refinery (which was not Jacobs' target we might add) ended up as a pile of rubble. The explosions were certainly excessive, although they did leave us with some cause for concern.

The game we saw last July had luscious visuals all-round which, coupled with the ludicrously destructible environments, left us pretty darn impressed. Perhaps it's just that the last 10 months has seen next-gen visuals come a long way, but there was something about our latest viewing which suggested a bit of a graphical tune down for Mercs 2. This isn't unheard of during game development; you need only compare the finished product of HAZE and in-game footage of the title from last year's trailers to see our point.

We don't mean to suggest that Mercs 2's visuals are anywhere near as bad as those in Free Radical's FPS. Nevertheless, the explosions weren't quite as dazzling; the lighting effects didn't appear to be quite as generously strewn across the landscapes, and the resolution may have taken a bit of a hit as well since last July. This would certainly explain the extended dev time as Pandemic make graphical compromises to ensure that the final product is glitch free, has a solid framerate, and unfaltering multiplayer co-op. Either way, the visuals were certainly next-gen even though they may not quite have been the visual masterclass we had anticipated.