Comments on: No Cash Required: Mercenaries 2 Demo

By: x25killa

x25killa — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 03:45:11 +0000

<3 the original, second is KABOOM happy.

By: Eschatos

Eschatos — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:33:28 +0000

With a decent patch the game could be very good. Even if they only fixed the mouse controls and the shitty dialog it would be much better.

By: neofit

neofit — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:57:59 +0000

Thanks for the link to the demo. In a couple of minutes it showed me the game has everything (or almost) I hate in a computer game:

1. Setup lets me choose the AA level, but it doesn’t seem to work in-game. I didn’t bother trying with the drivers. Result: horribly looking game, much more jaggy and at the same time fuzzy than any other game without AA, at 1600×1200.

2. First mission is timed. Fail.

3. 3rd person shooter, with the reticle above the head and not above the shoulder. Oh, and the tip of the RPG round hides said aiming reticle.

4. Controls are wobbly, and the dude seems to hit everything but what is supposed to be behind the RPG launcher.

Didn’t go far, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were another cheap chapter-save job.

By: Clicky

Clicky — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:43:46 +0000

Is everybody playing a different game than I am ? I find the mouse controls to be completely normal, better than in GTA honestly, only tank turrets are a bit sluggish, but moving your mouse slowly, not in fast bursts fixes that. Also, I get a constant 40-50 FPS on max settings, and I really don’t have an auto-aim. Anybody who calls this a bad port has never played DMC 3, Resident Evil 4 or Lost Planet on the PC.

By: Saflo

Saflo — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:53:14 +0000

Hmm. I poked around Google and that looks to be the consensus. Disappointing, since as someone with a very old PC and no current-gen console I’m in a sort of gaming limbo.

By: Aldo

Aldo — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:39:35 +0000

They made a PS2 version, strangely, which means I’ll get to play it eventually. I really enjoyed the first game.

Apparently the PS2 version is apalling, though, and vastly inferior to the first game.

By: Saflo

Saflo — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:37:28 +0000

They made a PS2 version, strangely, which means I’ll get to play it eventually. I really enjoyed the first game.

By: Tomble

Tomble — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:29:27 +0000

I’ve been playing this, and while I do find it a little clunky (and I had to also bring all the settings way, way down to make an acceptable frame rate) it’s undoubtedly fun. It’s the kind of game I can fire up for half an hour, blow the crap out of stuff and have a good time exploring, crashing vehicles and attempting to hijack passing helicopters.

Mind you, I also liked Just Cause. Why? Just ’cause.

By: Citizen Parker

Citizen Parker — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:42:56 +0000

It’s a shame that EDF came out on a console like 360 where everyone was so graphics-obsessed they passed on it. I always end up telling my friends “It’s like a 50’s sci-fi themed FPS Diablo with massive destruction.” It captures that same “Let’s distill the FPS down to its joyful basics” that made the first Serious Sam such a delight.

Mercs 2 will do, however. Now if we could just get Just Cause 2 as well…

By: DSX

DSX — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:44:56 +0000

Merc2 with co-op is a truly fun time. Completely stupid, but so much fun. If you can get it to work (about a 30% failure to connect). Yes, driving is broken on the PC, had to set the mouse sensitivity to zero, and modify the .exe to run under windows 98/ME mode in order to stop crashes on cutscenes.

So ya, crappy port, but very fun game once you’ve worked past all the bugs.

By: Maximumfish

Maximumfish — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:29:03 +0000

Deleted it within minutes of booting the thing up. I rented this guy on PS3 and thought it was pretty fun (not worth $60 though), but this is the most shameless pc port since stranglehold, and worse in a lot of ways. And it ran laggy on a brand new system, in spite of looking crappy, and they left in the console auto-aim, which locks your view on enemies. That’s on the same level as leaving in the “press A button to continue” shit from GFWL stuff.

By: AndrewC

AndrewC — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:24:21 +0000

EDF with online co-op would be a thing of beauty. I know there’s hundreds of things on screen at once, but it’s not as if the collision detection needs to be pixel perfect.

But what EDF got right was that it was simple – in the sense that you get two guns and then you shoot things and that’s it. Mercenaries is just as dumb, but clogs it all up with Teh Next Gen complexities and a whole bunch of sub menus. Maybe it would be better if I went through all the tutorials (that don’t come with the demo), but I was confused as all buggery when I was dumped into the level.

And with the difficulty setting and recharging health the baddies were more like bothersome gnats rather than genuine threats. Games can be frustrating, but they should never be annoying.

In conclusion: EDF! EDF!