Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Preview

Pandemic Studios, the makers of games like Full Spectrum Warrior, Destroy All Humans, Star Wars Battlefront (1 and 2), are now working hard to create a sequel to their PS2/Xbox action game, Mercenaries. (By the way, this title was another one of those games we saw at the E3, but have only just managed to get around telling you guys about it. (Lazy bastards - Ed)).

Oops, sorry! Pressed the wrong button there.

A Rastafarian pirate always means business.

In Mercenaries 2 World in Flames, players step into the role of one of three cold-blooded mercs, whose sole purpose is to profit from chaos (Like a lawyer? - Ed). There are many potential clients our there, all of which are more than willing to compensate you handsomely, provided you find the time do all their dirty work. In this story, however, you're not a goody-goody soldier, forced to follow rules and obey orders on someone's whim. The only thing you care about is getting paid. So, fulfilling the terms of the contract is your priority.

The game is set in a fictionalized Venezuela and a large oil crisis looms throughout the world. As Pandemic recently revealed, the premise in World in Flames actually revolves around an exciting story of retribution. Everything starts as you accept a contract for a man named Ramon Solano. This guy means business and has connections to the military as well as the Venezuelan narcotics trade. Pretty soon, the contract turns out to be the very thing that prompts a coup, which is to put Ramon in power. Before you know it, Ramon turns against you and you get paid zilch for your mercish efforts. The not getting paid bit is not the only bummer. You'll also get shot and that, naturally, ends up being more than an incentive for your character to wage his personal vendetta.

Normally, getting close to Ramon isn't exactly child's play. There are more than 40 targets that need to be taken out, before you'll be able to tackle the main villain. At this point, you get to perform various duties for a number of factions, including, the Chinese, the Allied Nations, Universal Petroleum, the PLAV (Peoples Liberation Army of Venezuela) and, my personal favorite, the Rastafarian pirates (gotta love Rastafarian pirates, mon). Your association with these organizations depends on which ones you decide to work and complete tasks for. Still, even with all these factions out there, you'll mostly be gunning for the Venezuelan army.

Fair enough, the narrative may sound as mundane as they get and Pandemic vouched that the game's primary focus is on the action. In other words, the story will serve its purpose. For instance, the game's storyline structure was designed to allow players to perform paid tasks for some of the factions, but every course of action involves consequences. So, if you happen to accept to complete missions on the rebel's behalf, you'll find that your actions will affect their opinion of you. Should you choose to order an air strike and, say, destroy a church in the process, the rebels won't be too pleased with that (Rebels are notoriously religious folk you know - Ed).

During the E3 presentation of the game, we were able to discern a sample of the action. All we can say is that the game is definitely geared towards destruction. There's a huge number missions lined-up, but throughout most of the game, you're going to spend much time blowing things up and, naturally, having enormous fun while you're at it.

Things aren't necessarily restricted to total annihilation, but it looks as though Pandemic are pretty keen on conveying as much destruction as possible as you play the game. During a particular mission, it's possible to hijack an enemy vehicle and move around unbothered. That's, of course, until you begin demolishing and running over everything in sight. As far as the destruction goes, you can level pretty much anything in the environment, from entire shipyards to huge oil rigs. Pandemic demonstrated some of this in-game demolition during the E3 presentation, as the main character kept firing rockets to obliterate bridges and other larger structures. That's not all. Sometimes there will be plenty of obstacles between your character and his/her goal, and instead of taking the long way around you can choose to tear down trees or walls to create a shortcut to your target.

During all this mayhem, apart from the aforementioned rockets, C4 should be your best friend and will surely help you complete the desired objective. We saw some of it being used in the game during the E3 presentation. In addition to the C4, the player can call in surgical missile strikes, cluster bombs, napalm and more. Everything has its price, of course, so be prepared to shell out quite a bit for all these military goodies.