Mercenaries 2 - PS3 review

The eagerly awaited sequel to 2005 hit Mercenaries is back, set this time in Venezuela the story revolves around the hunt for Ramon Solano a political player in Venezuela who hires you for the job but then refuses to pay, following a coup he then tries to seize control of the countries vast oil supplies. The three playable characters from the first game all back Jennifer Mui, Mattias Nilsson & Chris Jacobs, my favourite has to be Jennifer. As you make progress through the game you will have to choose to either fight alongside or fight against various factions such as the peoples liberations army & the universal petroleum corporation, depending on how you choose to fight you can purchases weapons & supplies from different factions. Each faction offers jobs & contracts for you to carry out such as assassinating a rival or destroying a specific building or target, by attacking other factions they will start to view you as hostile & do everything in their power to take them out - however because the game centres around making huge amounts of money from contracts you can use that money to bribe factions who see you as hostile, money can also be used to purchases weapons, supplies, vehicles both military & civilian, even air strikes. The first game made a big impact when it first launched because it offered an open world with sandbox styled gaming (think Gta & streets of nyc/la - saints row etc) this new instalment offers even more - countless numbers of weapons, tons of air strikes, & well over 170 unique vehicles from helicopters to sports to tanks & even boats - another change from the original is the characters ability to swim. The map this time around seems absolutely massive, with a multitude of different environments from jungles to cityscapes even islands & oilrigs, instead of the deck of 52 as seen in the previous game the bounty system is split up into HVTs (high value targets) these targets will be offered by different factions for cash rewards. One of the newest features to the game is the unique fire effects engine that allows players to set fire to areas of foliage, this can be helpful when you want to clear out areas of the jungle to get at your target, another new feature is the drop in drop out co-op play, you can join another persons game no matter where in the game they are & assist them in completing their mission or even the whole game. With the release of the game came some obvious controversy from the Venezuelan government, they accused the game developers of drumming up support to start a real-life invasion of their country in order to overthrow Hugo Chavez… of course that’s not the purpose of the game & at the end of the day its really only entertainment but then controversy sells - and if the sales of the latest Grand theft auto are anything to go by developers will continue to latch onto controversial topics & storylines in the hopes to make millions.