By John Walker on February 17th, 2010.
EA is closing down its online support for late 2008′s Mercenaries 2: World In Flames. As of March 16th this year, you’ll no longer be able to play a multiplayer or co-op round of a game that’s been out for just seventeen months. This is part of another wave of EA gaming shutdowns that includes games barely a year old, as detailed on the rather optimistically named “Service Updates” section of EA’s site.
By John Walker on October 31st, 2008.
Well here’s a weird one. G4 are reporting that come November’s first DLC update for Mercenaries 2, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin will become playable characters. (Note: the DLC is not confirmed for PC, but it’s also not not confirmed. We hope. We’ll ditch this story later if I’m stupid and wrong.) It sounds like an unseasonal April Fool’s, but there’s a video to prove it.
By Kieron Gillen on October 9th, 2008.
Occasionally, an idea’s bizarre enough to not require for me to pun badly in the title line. This is one of those times. For the forthcoming Total Payback patch EA have released a short and actually very funny trailer (though I wonder how the self-deprecating admission of rubbishness of certain features will play with the more aggrieved gamer). It’s only confirmed for the 360 and PS3, with a EA PR doing a “Planned Only For 360/PS3 at the moment” non-quote. Since 9 times out of 10 that means “Yes”, I’m going to save beating the drum to summon forth the angry internet men. We’ll do that in a month. Until then, the trailer’s beneath the cut…
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By Kieron Gillen on September 28th, 2008.
And just time for a quick post of the news that a one-and-a-half gig demo of Mercenaries 2 has gone live. Annoyingly few details of what is actually in it – you have to pray it includes a splash of co-op – but I think it’s still worth a shot. The game’s reviewed luke-warmly but I had ridiculous amounts of fun with the 360 version. From what I hear, the PC has some porting issues – “play with a pad” is the advice I hear – but I’ll be interested to hear what you lot make of it anyway. It’s phenomenally, awesomely dumb – Gauntlet meets EDF2017 meets a thing that goes BANG.
By Jim Rossignol on August 22nd, 2008.
The drop-in-drop-out co-op mode on Mercenaries 2 is the thing that is, for me at least, making it one of the more desirable games coming out this year (August 31st). The first live footage of the game being played co-op has just turned up, and you can see it after the jump. Explosions come as standard, and you can drive a Monster Truck into battle…
By Jim Rossignol on August 15th, 2008.
Dudes explode, stuff gets kicked, or something. Mercenaries 2 is going all out for this year’s Most Macho Explosion Awards – even if it is a lady carrying the bazooka in this instance – and it demonstrates a level of violence that causes us to make cooing noises under our breath. In fact Kieron came back from a recent hands-on talking about how he was going start drinking protein shakes and wearing a mohawk so that people would take him seriously.
Beyond the jump we see three trailers: rocket-propelled-grenadiering (with some mild car-violencing), jeep theft and… swimming. Can’t get enough of that swimming, eh Olympians? The sandbox shooter with co-op splendidness is due out on 31st August. Strong!
By John Walker on July 11th, 2008.
A week ago Jim asked us all if we were excited about Mercenaries 2. Well, think more with a new video and dev interview from Gametrailers below. Most interesting is the discussion of the new co-op mode, which is a splendid inclusion in a sandbox game. I remember meeting the team when they were making Mercenaries 1, delighted by their stated mantra: “Blow shit up.” And then upset and enraged that it wasn’t coming to PC. That was LucasArts, who seem to hate the PC more than anyone else. Now Pandemic’s game is being published by EA, who only hate the PC for sports. This is no sport people. This is blowing shit up.
By Jim Rossignol on July 4th, 2008.
Pandemic Studios’ latest ludo-spawn, Mercenaries 2, is looking mighty explody. They’ve just released some new game footage with detailed developer-commentary over the top, which you can see beyond the click. The most sensible thing in there is also one of the more minor features, “vehicle disguise”, which makes so much sense, and yet breaks the logic of most action games ever. I’m sure the idea of using a stolen enemy vehicle as a disguise has been used in plenty of other games, but somehow I just can’t think of any.
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By Kieron Gillen on January 14th, 2008.
Things like this throw me. A sequel of an enormously successful Console game arrives on the PC. What do we presume people know? And how do you best contextualise it. I suppose a little grounding is in order. Out of the first wave of clearly GTA inspired games that were more inspired than just do another crime game, Mercenaries was arguably the finest. Set around playing one of the eponymous soldiers of fortunes, you went on missions in an open world, generally shooting things and causing a frankly disturbing amount of devastation. Its explosions were a bit on the nifty side. It was fun, if disposable – in a “DISPOSE EVERYTHING WITH PYROKENETICS” way. And, generally speaking, this is something I’m glad to see come to the PC. Admitedly, It’s nothing to do with the ancient 8-bit ultraclassic, but don’t hold that against it.
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