Mercenaries is the first game I've ever played that was published by Lucas Arts. I'm not a big Star Wars fan, and frankly it was their only non-star wars game out. The game intrigued me because it was pegged as a modern Grand Theft Auto clone. I happen to be a very big fan of Rockstar's premier franchise. I love the open-ended sandbox style of game. This game is set in a modern, but fictional, North Korea, in which a North Korean figure stages a coup and the country, is in a state of warfare. The North Korean Solders now become the enemy of the civilians and their South Korean neighbors. This sets the stage for a surprisingly entertaining game.
The game starts you with the choice of which mercenary you would like to be. The three choices are the British agent who speaks Chinese, the American agent who speaks Korean and the Swedish agent who speaks Russian. The three characters have a special feature that supposedly changes the game play. The British agent has better stealth, the American agent has more resistance to bullets, and the Swedish agent is quicker on his feet. I couldn't really feel much of a difference between the characters but that's just me. After you pick your mercenary you are introduced to the four factions from whom you will be getting your missions. These factions are The Allied Faction, the South Koreans, the Chinese, and the Russian Mafia. Each of these divisions has various desires, prejudices and disinterests. You have to keep each of the factions happy with you in order to get missions. However sometimes these groups hire you to do work that negatively affects another faction. For example the Chinese have many missions that the South Koreans don't like and vice versa. So that's a factor that you must keep in mind throughout. But the game play during these missions is what really counts.
This is a third person action adventure, very much in the same vein as GTA. You can steal cars and helicopters, earn money driving taxis and explode your vehicles when their damage is too great. However, you can't just kill everyone without more serious consequences than some heat from the Pigs. If you kill any civilian, you automatically lose some support from all the factions and you lose money as well because of the bad press. If you kill a member of a particular faction, then obviously you lose some of their approval. You can only freely kill the North Koreans. You can only carry two weapons at a time and the amount of ammunition you can carry for a given weapon is limited. You also have the choice between explosive grenades or the more humane flash grenades. This is the basic setup. You can also have supplies flown to you by the Russian Mafia. Air strikes are available to attack your enemies as well, but they are expensive. Each car can disguise you as a particular faction. This is extremely use is some of the more difficult missions. You are stationed in this Korean landscape and you go to the various factions and become employed to do various task ranging from protecting the Chinese from a South Korean assault to driving a reporter around to gain valuable information. The game play is varied, action-packed and above all else very entertaining. You have the ability to tackle a mission any way you want to. You do have to complete the desired task but there is always room for creativity. I also like the 52 card bounty set up.
The 52 card bounty is easy enough to understand. The Allied faction has set up a list of 52 highly hunted officials that are wanted to be captured. Each official is associated with a particular card, with the Ace being the most important. You are tasked with capturing these individuals for a bounty dead or alive. If you catch them alive you receive a higher bounty. This is obviously good because you receive more money to buy expensive items that are required. You finish each suit out by catching the ace. If you missed say the five of club, but you got the ace, you can't go back and get the five. The story line follows each suit with the eventual capture of the North Korean leader who is the Ace of Spades. Capturing these targets range from the easy to extremely difficult, so there is no short of challenge in this game.
Overall this is a very good interpretation of the sand box style of game play. I enjoyed almost every bit of the game. However, I'm not sure if the was just the case with my game, but it would seem to freeze at the very end of missions when I was try to change weapons. This would force me to do the sometimes difficult mission over again. Of course this could just have been my copy. Other than that this game was extremely enjoyable. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes action game, but more particularity to GTA fan. This is simply an excellent game.
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