HANDS-ON: Why Mercs 2 has the most satisfying co-op mode we've played in years
It rules being your own boss. Taking as much darn time off as you please, scoring a sweet BMW on lease, hiring a busty peroxide blonde as your PA, putting your hand in the till... and ordering full scale air strikes to reduce your enemies to so ashes. Ker-blammo! Yep, welcome to the dazzling world of Mercenaries, the game where Everybody Pays. (Even you lot, should you choose to part with your hard-earned to buy it later this
When it was first released, the orignal Mercenaries was banned in South Korea because of the tensions between the southern and the northern territories, meaning that any media showing conflict between the two was deemed illegal. Now with Mercenaries 2, the game faces another country with its panties in a twist. We caught up with senior producer Jonathan Zamkoff to get his thoughts.
So Jonathan, with the game being set in Venezuela, didnt you cause a bit of GTA-style storm with the authorities
Mercenaries was a superb achievement on Xbox and PS2 when it was released in 2005. The destructible environments, go-anywhere and drive-anything gameplay was like GTA in a warzone. But the sandbox style of game has been done so many times now, its sequel is going to have to do a lot more than that if it's going to remain relevant. And after playing it at EA's Chertsey offices... we're not sure it's doing enough.
It's got the right attitude, that's for sure. Designed as a fun videogame rather
The original Mercenaries on the Xbox and PS2 offered hours of enjoyment outside of the games official missions thanks to its flexible physics engine. With the help of some handy cheats and a hankering for destruction, fans were quick to discover the joys of stacking tons of vehicles before blowing them to smithereens.
Take a quick look through YouTube, and youll find all sorts of home-brewed explosions that gamers have captured like this one - which features a meticulously crafted pyramid of
