Mercenaries

Genre:	Third-Person Action
Developer:	Pandemic Studios
Publisher:	LucasArts
Release Date:	11 January 2005
Released On:	PS2, Xbox

Amazing Ben Describes the Plot in 10 Words or Less: 

Destroy half of Korea and kidnap some generals.

Overview: 

Call it Grand Theft Auto:  North Korea.  You play as a mercenary soldier dropped off in the middle of the war-torn country, tasked with making your company (and thus yourself) rich by helping the United Nations capture or kill the fifty-two highest ranking officials in the North Korean dictatorship.  Along the way, you'll have to enlist the help of several different factions including the Chinese, the South Koreans and even the Russian Mafia.  Everyone's looking for a cut of the pie, and since they all have info on the men you're searching for you're going to have to play along with them - a tricky proposition considering that they're all out to get each other.

You chose one of three mercenaries to go to war with and lead them through the forests and villages of North Korea in search of the "Deck of 52" Korean leaders (sound familiar?).  Once you come across an enemy card, you have two options:  you can either take him into custody to collect the full bounty or cap him in the face and take a picture of his dead body for half price.  Now taking the target into custody is no picnic;  first you have to club him over the head with your rifle, then take him down and handcuff him before carrying him to a safe landing zone, dropping a smoke signal grenade and then finally airlifting him out on an Allied Blackhawk.  If that sounds awesome, it is. 

In fact, there's TONS of awesome shit in Mercenaries.  It's like Grand Theft Auto in the sense that you can pretty much jack everything you come across from humvees to tanks to helicopters and then use them to blow the shit out of anything you want, but I like it a little better because it's not really as pointless as GTA.  You actually have a greater mission to accomplish, and chucking a grenade into a Chinese APC before commandeering it and using its TOW launcher to take out a North Korean jeep is a method of furthering your goals and not just a retarded waste of your time.  Plus, nearly every vehicle you come across has some sort of weapon attached to it that you can use to crush all who oppose you.

There are a huge assortment of small arms, armored vehicles and aircraft at your disposal, and it will take you some time to see everything that this game has to offer.  You can also use the money you've collected from your bounties to call in reinforcements consisting of everything from RPG ammunition to armored trucks to artillery barrages and surgical air strikes.  If you're into military shooters, this is definitely up your alley.

The only weakness of this game is that it gets old pretty quickly.  There are fifty-two guys to capture, and on top of that there are many more missions.  Combine that with the fact that there are only two main islands to explore and before too long you'll have pretty much been everywhere there is to go and done everything there is to do at least once.  The game has some surprises in store for you later on, but overall it becomes pretty repetitive pretty quickly.

Another complaint I have with this game is that some of the missions are virtually impossible.  It's not uncommon to receive missions in which you have to run unaided into a heavily-fortified enemy base and face dozens of tanks, armored vehicles, helicopters and an endless wave of soldiers while while trying to rescue some jerk and get him to safety without dying.  You'll seriously spend a good half-hour getting to the enemy base, sneaking through their perimeter and blowing up their helicopters just to turn a corner and find yourself staring down the barrels of three North Korean tanks, ten guys with rocket launchers and a couple of machine gun emplacements that will cut you down in about 2.3 seconds.  Once you're worm food you have to start the entire mission over.  It's frustrating, to say the least.

X-Tremeness Level: 

Parachuting into the middle of a gunfight in downtown Sarajevo... on weed.

Overall Badassitude Score: 

While this game wears out its welcome pretty quickly, the first couple hours can only be described as bad-fucking-ass.  Few things equal the coolness factor of loading a captured NK general into a Blackhawk while the Allied door gunners lay down covering fire.  The game does a good job of actually making you feel like you're in a warzone at all times, and that's a good thing.  Unless you get flashbacks.

Busting into small NK camps searching for card members can totally rock, also.  You can crash your Humvee through their barricade, bail out and start gunning down anything that moves Chrontosh-style before taking down the enemy artillery commander and then calling for evac.  It's awesome.

        

SCORE:  4 out of a possible 5 CPT Brian R. Chrontoshs.

Addictiveness: 

RATING:  A Motorized Scooter.

It's wicked cool for a while, but it gets old fast.

Multiplayer Component: 

None.

Hot Andrea's Take: 

"How are you going to stop three tanks with just a machine gun?"

Awesometer Score: 

+2

An excellent weekend rental.  You'll have an awesome experience and then be able to give it back right about the time you're starting to get sick of it.  Just don't do what I did and forget to give it back to the store, because while Blockbuster doesn't have late fees anymore they do send you really mean letters when they don't get their shit back on time.