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January 20, 2005 | 7:57 PM PST
by: Sascha Lichtenstein
Pandemic Studios has quickly become one of the most-watched developers in the industry, a pool of talent that seemingly refuses to follow the same gameplay paradigm more than once, each project they announce looking and feeling staggeringly different from the last. Despite being active within the industry for years, it wasn’t until the Southern Californian development team drew from their experience in the RTS genre on the PC side of the fence and put it towards creating a remarkably unique concept for a console military simulation that they began to show up on radar for the console gaming crowd. Full Spectrum Warrior quickly began turning heads within the gaming community, both on the merits of its gorgeous graphics and unconventional but extremely engaging gameplay dynamics, and the title was followed up by one of the best Star Wars titles [outside the RPG genre] to be released in recent memory in the form of the Star Wars: Battlefront, arguably the closest thing Xbox Live will see to Battlefield 1942 in this hardware generation. With the release of Mercenaries, the company has pulled a hat-trick, their latest title arguably being their best to date - a masterful utilization of the sandbox gameplay structure within the parameters of the action genre. Surprisingly addictive and elegantly simplistic in its design, Mercenaries gives players a fairly limited variety of objectives – usually involving the destruction of property and the dispatching of foes - but makes up for it by giving them an unbelievable number of ways to complete them. The result is an adrenaline rush quite unlike any that has come before it, and a game that starts off the first quarter of 2005 with a fortress-leveling bang.
Story
While the action may be over-the-top, the storyline that sets the context for the carnage is actually grounded firmly in reality, presenting players with a conflict that – given the current political climate – feels as though it was ripped from tomorrow’s headlines. After making inroads to South Korean government in hopes of achieving reunification, the president of North Korea is assassinated by his son, General Song, initiating a military coup de tat. After successfully gaining total control of the country, all communication with the world outside the borders of North Korea is forbidden, and the country’s nuclear weapons program is put into overdrive. Before too long, ICBMs quickly become the nation’s chief export, with various terrorist organizations acting as the principle consumers. The Chinese government is rightfully a little concerned about the whole affair, seeing as they are located directly north of this little nuclear hotbed and an investigation conducted by the communist superpower brings the actions of General Song to the attention of governments across the globe, corroborate by the finding of nuclear weapons aboard a North Korean freighter.
At this point the fecal matter hits the oscillating unit, as several military factions begin invading North Korea in efforts to dismantle the new regime, each one with their own underlying motivations. The Allied Forces are simply interested in ridding the world of a nuclear-powered dictatorship and ending terrorism’s number-one supplier of WMD, South Korea is a CIA backed attempt at reunification of the regions, China is motivated by the idea of adding more land and resources to their empire, while the Russian Mafia is in the thick of the conflict for the sole purpose of making as much money off the war as possible. The player takes the role of a lone operative sent in by a highly-organized and well-financed Mercenary group known as Executive Operations, and is burdened with the task of collecting the hefty bounties placed on 52 high-ranking members of the North Korean regime, code-named according to a standard 52-card deck. The plot progression is fairly similar to that of the Grand Theft Auto titles, in that contracts open are only available after certain missions have been completed, with the player slowly working his or her way up the North Korean hierarchy, taking Song’s empire out from the bottom up. Unfortunately, once the person designated as an ‘ace’ is captured or killed, all of the contracts in the card suite are closed, which feels somewhat artificial and contradicts the sense of freedom the sandbox model brings to the table
Gameplay
At the outset of the game, players are confronted with the choice of which mercenary Executive Operations chooses to send into the North Korean Demilitarized Zone, the person that they will be controlling for the entirety of the game. Rather than mere cosmetic variation, this choice will have a rather notable effect on the means by which the player handles, or would be best served to handle, any given situation the game throws their way. The characters fall into fairly clichéd archetypes, the nimble female character suited for more stealthy tactics, the burly African-American that can take an impressive amount of damage but is also the slowest of the bunch, and the requisite ‘bad boy’ of the group – complete with Mohawk – who is the most well-rounded character, with great speed and fairly good dexterity. Players are bound to find a favorite among the bunch, though their choice certainly won’t be on the grounds of appearance or persona; none of the designs are particularly enthralling, and all the personalities are incredibly shallow though thankfully not shoved down the player’s throat over the course of the experience, which prevents them from growing particularly annoying. In addition to the differences in offensive characteristics, each mercenary is fluent in a second language, an interesting feature which has a profound impact on progression through the game, as some characters will only be able to understand certain conversations which give them access to intel regarding targets. It’s an intriguing gameplay mechanic that feels slightly underdeveloped in Mercenaries, but it would be nice to see it appear in more games in the future.
When players are finally given control of their chosen envoy into the gameworld, the initial impression is likely to be that the game is nothing more than another run-of-the-mill 3rd person action game. Pandemic Studios has incorporated numerous gameplay elements – both major and minor – the cumulative affect of which does a great deal to separate Mercenaries from the pack, but it takes a few hours for them to start becoming apparent. Of course, the most obvious is the open-ended gameplay structure which allows players to essentially go where ever they feel like and do whatever the player character is capable of at any time, to anyone. It takes a while for the entirety of the North Korean DMZ to truly feel open, as the initial stages of the game direct the player from point A to point B rather strictly, and don’t allow much progress outside the designated paths. The game opens up quickly after a few missions however, at which point players are able to accept contracts from multiple factions, and explore the DMZ for extra mini-missions or other such diversions. Though there are a few exceptions to the rule scattered throughout the game, the vast majority of the missions ask the player to partake in activities involving the destruction of property and/or the dispatching or members of a particular force.
Story
While the action may be over-the-top, the storyline that sets the context for the carnage is actually grounded firmly in reality, presenting players with a conflict that – given the current political climate – feels as though it was ripped from tomorrow’s headlines. After making inroads to South Korean government in hopes of achieving reunification, the president of North Korea is assassinated by his son, General Song, initiating a military coup de tat. After successfully gaining total control of the country, all communication with the world outside the borders of North Korea is forbidden, and the country’s nuclear weapons program is put into overdrive. Before too long, ICBMs quickly become the nation’s chief export, with various terrorist organizations acting as the principle consumers. The Chinese government is rightfully a little concerned about the whole affair, seeing as they are located directly north of this little nuclear hotbed and an investigation conducted by the communist superpower brings the actions of General Song to the attention of governments across the globe, corroborate by the finding of nuclear weapons aboard a North Korean freighter.
At this point the fecal matter hits the oscillating unit, as several military factions begin invading North Korea in efforts to dismantle the new regime, each one with their own underlying motivations. The Allied Forces are simply interested in ridding the world of a nuclear-powered dictatorship and ending terrorism’s number-one supplier of WMD, South Korea is a CIA backed attempt at reunification of the regions, China is motivated by the idea of adding more land and resources to their empire, while the Russian Mafia is in the thick of the conflict for the sole purpose of making as much money off the war as possible. The player takes the role of a lone operative sent in by a highly-organized and well-financed Mercenary group known as Executive Operations, and is burdened with the task of collecting the hefty bounties placed on 52 high-ranking members of the North Korean regime, code-named according to a standard 52-card deck. The plot progression is fairly similar to that of the Grand Theft Auto titles, in that contracts open are only available after certain missions have been completed, with the player slowly working his or her way up the North Korean hierarchy, taking Song’s empire out from the bottom up. Unfortunately, once the person designated as an ‘ace’ is captured or killed, all of the contracts in the card suite are closed, which feels somewhat artificial and contradicts the sense of freedom the sandbox model brings to the table
Gameplay
At the outset of the game, players are confronted with the choice of which mercenary Executive Operations chooses to send into the North Korean Demilitarized Zone, the person that they will be controlling for the entirety of the game. Rather than mere cosmetic variation, this choice will have a rather notable effect on the means by which the player handles, or would be best served to handle, any given situation the game throws their way. The characters fall into fairly clichéd archetypes, the nimble female character suited for more stealthy tactics, the burly African-American that can take an impressive amount of damage but is also the slowest of the bunch, and the requisite ‘bad boy’ of the group – complete with Mohawk – who is the most well-rounded character, with great speed and fairly good dexterity. Players are bound to find a favorite among the bunch, though their choice certainly won’t be on the grounds of appearance or persona; none of the designs are particularly enthralling, and all the personalities are incredibly shallow though thankfully not shoved down the player’s throat over the course of the experience, which prevents them from growing particularly annoying. In addition to the differences in offensive characteristics, each mercenary is fluent in a second language, an interesting feature which has a profound impact on progression through the game, as some characters will only be able to understand certain conversations which give them access to intel regarding targets. It’s an intriguing gameplay mechanic that feels slightly underdeveloped in Mercenaries, but it would be nice to see it appear in more games in the future.
When players are finally given control of their chosen envoy into the gameworld, the initial impression is likely to be that the game is nothing more than another run-of-the-mill 3rd person action game. Pandemic Studios has incorporated numerous gameplay elements – both major and minor – the cumulative affect of which does a great deal to separate Mercenaries from the pack, but it takes a few hours for them to start becoming apparent. Of course, the most obvious is the open-ended gameplay structure which allows players to essentially go where ever they feel like and do whatever the player character is capable of at any time, to anyone. It takes a while for the entirety of the North Korean DMZ to truly feel open, as the initial stages of the game direct the player from point A to point B rather strictly, and don’t allow much progress outside the designated paths. The game opens up quickly after a few missions however, at which point players are able to accept contracts from multiple factions, and explore the DMZ for extra mini-missions or other such diversions. Though there are a few exceptions to the rule scattered throughout the game, the vast majority of the missions ask the player to partake in activities involving the destruction of property and/or the dispatching or members of a particular force.
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February 8, 2010
