Pepsi Twist
The Master
Inregistrat: acum 17 ani
Postari: 773
|
|
July 9, 2007 - If there's one thing I love in this world, it's big explosions. Give me a few kabooms and I am one happy camper. That's why, when I sat down to run through one of the missions in Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, I could barely keep myself from giggling with glee. See, Mercs 2 is full of big explosions. Everything in the world -- and I mean everything -- can be destroyed. Don't like trees? Well who does? Fire a rocket launcher into the jungle and you can roast some marshmallows over your TV as you watch those wicked trees burn. The fire, which is easily the best-looking aspect in this early build of Mercs 2, will spread naturally. Remember, only you can start forest fires. If taking down defenseless trees doesn't cut it for you, how about laying waste to any number of defenseless buildings? Every building in Merc 2's wide-open Venezuelan-inspired country can be demolished. You can methodically wipe out an entire town. Should any game-crucial building be destroyed in your fury, it will be quickly rebuilt when needed. But for any non-essential structure, once you put it to rubble, it will stay rubble.
Your tools for carrying out such awesome feats of destruction are impressive. In EA's E3 demo I was strapped with an assault rifle and a rocket launcher, just two of the more than thirty weapons available in Mercs 2. The variety of weapons is nice, but even from my short time with Mercs 2, it became quite clear that the real fun is in piloting vehicles. There are 200 different vehicles in Mercs 2. They range from your standard military hardware, such as tanks and assault helicopters, to some fun rides. One such ride is the monster truck, which really isn't very monstrous compared to a tank, but does an excellent job of running over foot soldiers. Many of the 200 vehicles (including a Sea-Doo of all things) can be found while running around the open game world. But if you don't have the patience to find the perfect ride, you can order one up. All of the destruction you cause in Mercs 2 is not merely cosmetic -- it also earns you cash. That cash can be used to purchase weapons, air strikes, and vehicles. Your purchased vehicle will be airlifted in. And yes, if you're a real jerk you can obliterate the chopper delivering the goods. Despite racking up kills on delivery boys, one will always be willing to drop off your next purchase. While ordering up an assault helicopter and a slice of pizza is a lot of fun, the best use of your cash will go towards air strikes. There are a number of different strikes you can call in. And while there may be some slight differences between a cluster bomb strike and a laser-guided missile drop, in the end it's just a fun way for developer Pandemic to deliver a larger variety of explosions. In the end, every air assault brings death from above to your enemies. Some are more interactive than others. The laser-targeted air raid, for example, requires you to aim a laser pointer at the target area and wait for the missile to be delivered. Air raids are not cheap, but they deliver devastating results.
But let's say you don't have the cash to order up an air strike or armed vehicle. What's a down-on-his-luck mercenary to do? Just keep your eyes peeled. You'll find a vehicle either lying out in the open or being piloted by an enemy. The latter is a tad trickier to commandeer, but any vehicle you see can be driven or flown. The difficulty in jacking a vehicle depends on its value. Taking a jeep is as simple as moving towards the driver side, hitting the action button, and slamming the door a few times on the driver's head. Jacking a tank or helicopter is not so easy. For a tank, you'll first need to kill the gunner manning the machinegun atop the turret. With him dead, you can approach the tank from either the front or back and hit the action button. This engages a timed mini-game that requires a series of quick button presses to beat. Fail and you'll be knocked off and be forced to try again. Succeed and you will witness an awesome execution of the tank's driver. Best of all, you'll have a tank of your very own. Jacking a chopper is riskier, but far more rewarding. When you attempt to jack a helicopter, you sling a grappling hook on its leg and quickly ascend for a confrontation with the pilot. Once again you must beat a quick minigame to earn entry. If you fail, you fall. There's a recovery button to save yourself from a big splat, but it's not such an easy trick to pull off. The reward, however, is well worth testing Newton's famous law. Once you have a chopper, you can make your way across the game world destroying buildings as you please. Keep in mind that missiles cost a lot of money, so unless you're pockets are flush with cash, you're going to want to be either conservative with your payload or incredibly accurate. Now consider that all of this is possible with online co-op. Pandemic isn't quite ready to show off online play, but they promised that Mercs 2 was designed to be equally fun alone or with a buddy. I can't wait for my friend to watch me blow stuff up with my assault chopper while he's hoofin' it like a blue collar merc.
The mission in the demo, which takes place about a third of the way through the campaign, tasks your merc with destroying three buildings not far from the Guerilla camp. By this time, you'll have long settled on using one of the three available mercenaries: Mattais Nilsson, Jennifer, or Chris Jacobs. Each plays differently and (for 360 owners) have specific Achievements awarded for playing the characters as designed. Mattais is a crazy SOB who's all about striking fast and with a big boom; Jennifer is a sniper, best suited for long-range kills; Chris Jacobs is a tank who likes to be methodical in his destruction. Helping the Guerillas in this mission will boost their faith in you. But you're a merc, so expect to play both sides of the conflict during the campaign. New jobs open based on how much a faction favors your mercenary. Now, at any time in the demo, I could just turn on the Guerillas and kill them all. I could put a bullet in every man and woman in the village. But doing so hurts by rep and is going to make it tougher to score jobs in the future. Remember, getting jobs means earning money. And earning money means being able to buy new toys to blow stuff up. And blowing stuff up is all I care about. Playing through the same mission multiple times showed the variety of ways you can complete the same task. In one, I ran on foot, using my rocket launcher to take down buildings and tanks. I caused enough destruction to earn cash for an air strike, which made taking down the largest of the three buildings easy to destroy. On the second run, I commandeered a tank and put the hurt on every building in my path. In the final go around, I went commando style and used grenades and my rocket launcher to take down the targets.
I could also have used cleverer ways to take down these buildings. One of my favorite tricks is slapping some C4 on a car and driving it into town. If you hop out of a car, it will continue on its path. You can then either manually detonate the C4 or wait for it to hit a building or innocent civilian, at which point the car will pop. You could also venture the opposite way of the objective and search for hardware to bring to the party. The world is wide open to you as are the missions.
These large highly-destructible areas come at a cost. Currently there is a high level of texture pop in that is fairly persistent throughout. This is still an early build (Mercs 2 isn't expected until late fall), so hopefully the technical flaws seen in the demo will be smoothed out for the final product. Aside from this one nagging issue, Mercenaries 2 appears like it will offer an even more thrilling experience than its predecessor. You'll get a first-hand look at the deadly action in Mercenaries 2 when IGN launches its weekly series "99 Ways to Die." Look for the first video next week.
Source: Nice pc game no...?
Modificat de bolfescu (acum 17 ani)
_______________________________________
Toata viata mea umblu dupa ceva...ghici ce...
|
|