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Apparently lots of the gaming world have been waiting impatiently for the release of Mercenaries 2 after they enjoyed the first game on the PS2 and Xbox. I must admit I can’t remember it so I haven’t been chomping at the bit to play it.
Still, now I’ve got it so this is what you do. You play as one of three Mercenaries as you do a number of missions for five competing factions in and around Venezuela. The game begins with you doing a mission for a guy named Solano and getting stabbed in the back for your troubles (for that, read shot in the arse). So, the story begins as you get revenge on Solano and earn money in the process.
Near the beginning of the game you get your first base and from there you can do challenges and missions to progress the story further. What’s good about the game is the sandbox approach to completing missions. You’re given the location and what you need to do and it’s up to you how you do it. You can nick cars from the roads GTA style and blow up almost anything in sight. It’s great fun being ultra-destructive, particularly later on when you can call in air strikes and hijack helicopters to cause some eye-popping explosions.
There’s also a relationship to keep with the factions. As you befriend them you get to use their resources and buy from them. Cross them however (and this can easily done by accidentally shooting just one of them) and things get harder as you get shot at a lot as you make your way from point to point.
So if shooting and blowing everything up in sight is your game, you may like this, but it comes with a fair few problems. To begin with, the enemy AI is more stupid than Frank Spencer. They sometimes ignore you or just stand in open space shooting at you until they’re dead – they also repeat the same lines over and over.
Also, it’s tricky to hit a moving target with any gun and you seem to have a deadly fist that can kill enemies with one hit – a useful exploit at times. It’s also full of bugs and glitches and generally has an unfinished look when it comes to animations and textures.
You can play the game in co-op mode online but I think you might struggle to find anyone playing in a couple of weeks time. Overall it’s not a bad game if you like mindless destruction. It’s just feels unfinished. Considering it’s been delayed for almost a year you’d think they’d have ironed a few things out. Mercenaries 2 gets an underwhelming 6 out of 10.
Last week I was in the pub chatting to a mate about adventure games and he says I should try Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the DS. This game passed me by big style as it came out at the start of the year and I’ve never heard of it. However, I can’t put it down so let me tell you all about it in case your DS is currently gathering dust.
The game tells the story of the professor and his apprentice Luke as they visit the French town of St Mystere to solve some puzzles and find the biggest puzzle called the Golden Apple. Once you step foot in the village you meet all manner of colourful characters and there’s a few strange goings-on that you must also solve along the way. The adventure itself plays itself almost automatically and instead of the usual point-and-click adventuring, you simply have to solve puzzles people pose to you along the way.
They’re a mixture of logic and maths puzzles, IQ tests, riddles and trick questions and there’s no time limit on how long you can think about them. If you need to you can buy hints with coins you find around the village to help you or just guess and sacrifice points by doing so.
They really are great fun to figure out and it’s also great fun playing this with someone else as you take it in turns or work together to work things out. You can spend ages thinking things through and then it’ll suddenly click giving a big old surge of satisfaction and smugness!
I also like the whole look of the game. It reminds me of Mr Ben mixed with the first Broken Sword games.
This is one of those great games that will only work on the DS. There’s hundreds of puzzles to do and collectables too, including jigsaw pieces of an old painting, furniture for the two puzzler’s rooms that you must arrange in a sort of Feng Shui -em-up and gizmos to collect so you can build a special surprise.
A couple of the puzzles are just plain wrong but most of them hit the right spot and are re-playable once you’ve done them. If you fancy all the thinking of Brain Age with some humour and and intriguing story, make sure you get this game. You can pick it up pretty cheap. Professor Layton gets an almost-perfect 9 out of 10!
If you’re a PS3 owner and are worrying the quality of Final Fantasy XIII will suffer from being on the Xbox 360 as well, don’t. The game’s creators are finishing the PS3 version before they port it over. So there’ll be no decrease in quality for either platform.
GTA Chinatown Wars is going to have a drug dealing mini-game. Never ones not to court controversy, Rockstar Games say it will be an integral part of the trading mechanic of the game. I can see the headlines on the front of The Sun newspaper right now.
