Review: 'Mercenaries' is fun with explosives

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BY AIMEE GREEN / Lincoln Journal Star

A game that allows me to create pretty explosions always makes me happy, so I immediately liked “Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.”

In “Mercs 2,” you choose one of three characters to play as: Mattias Nilsson, the mohawk guy you might have seen in the commercials; Jennifer Mui; or Chris Jacobs. Each has a special advantage, though it’s not a game-changing ability. I played as Mui, who can run faster than the other two.

As the mercenary, you travel to Venezuela to do a job for bad-guy Ramon Solano. After the job, he stabs you in the back (or, more literally, shoots you in the rear end). Your mercenary escapes but vows revenge on Solano, who goes on to take over the leadership of Venezuela.

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With the right ammunition - or a jet - buildings can be destroyed in "Mercenaries 2: World in Flames." (Electronic Arts)

The back story focuses on oil and who controls it, and Venezuela is in the midst of a power struggle. Different factions war with one another around the country, and you use this to your advantage as you try to work your way to Solano.

“Mercs 2” is a sandbox world, meaning you can go anywhere and do anything in the order you like. If you want to stick to the main story missions, you can, or you can roam and complete side objectives for the various factions. 

If you have a helicopter pilot, you can have him pick up oil tanks or piles of money that you find lying around. In addition, you can collect on bounties and destroy buildings that are on a destruction request list.

Destruction is the key word in “Mercs 2.” EA promises that everything can be destroyed — and it really can. Shoot up a car, and it will explode. Hit a building a few times with a rocket-propelled grenade, and it collapses. Bring in an air strike, and an entire city block falls in on itself.

The damage you cause sticks around, too, until you end the play session. Awesome!

“Mercs 2” isn’t without issues, however. The random dialogue from computer-controlled guys gets repetitive, though it’s easy to ignore. The enemies aren’t particularly smart, either.

More annoying is the disproportionate amount of damage a fall can cause. For example, jumping into the lake causes some damage, which is dumb. I’m not talking jumping from a cliff; I mean simply jumping from a foot or two above the water. In the middle of battle, it can be fatal.

I also ran into some glitches. The most memorable was during one of my bounty hunts: I found the guy and subdued him, then lost sight of him while I cleared out the other enemies. I ran around for 10 minutes trying to find him before I realized he had glitched into the building (which I couldn’t enter), so I couldn’t complete the objective. When I came back later, I was able to confirm his body through the wall, even though I couldn’t see him. Weird things like that pop up every once in a while.

But any problems pale in comparison to the sheer joy I got out of simply running around and blowing up things.

“Mercs 2” may not be perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun. And it’s got a great sense of humor. If you like explosive third-person shooters, “Mercs 2” is for you.

Note: There’s an online co-op mode, but I didn’t have anybody to test it with.

I adored the first “Viva Pinata.” It seemed like a kids’ game, but it was much more than that: a deep simulation game with a kooky sense of humor that would appeal to adults and children alike.

The goal: create a garden that will attract and retain all kinds of wild, brightly colored pinatas.

For the most part, “Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise” is the same game, but with some welcome additions. Most important are challenges, which create objectives to meet. This is great for people who like a little more direction with their sandbox games.

 Also new is the ability to go to other areas, such as a desert or a snowy land, to trap pinatas that wouldn’t normally show up in your garden. You then send them back to your garden.

Pinatas also can be entered into minigames, such as races, against friends. And friends can visit or help you work in your garden.

If you have a Vision camera, cards containing pinatas and items can be sent into the game.

Still, the core gameplay and most of the pinatas are much the same. If you didn’t care for the original or grew tired of it, “Trouble in Paradise” might not be new enough to interest you.

If you’ve never played “Viva Pinata,” or if you really, really liked it, the new additions make for a great game.

Reach Aimee Green at 473-7326 or Aimee.Green@lee.net.