Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

 Xbox 360
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Image
Metascore
72

Mixed or average reviews - based on 69 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 164 Ratings

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  • Summary: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is an explosive open-world action game set in a massive, highly reactive, war-torn world. A power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela's oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a warzone. But for you, international crisis is all upside: YouMercenaries 2: World in Flames is an explosive open-world action game set in a massive, highly reactive, war-torn world. A power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela's oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a warzone. But for you, international crisis is all upside: You are a mercenary, and you profit from chaos. Mercenaries 2 features a slew of potential clients, all willing to pay you to do their dirty work. Dirty deeds, done for exorbitant fees. These are world powers with deep pockets, deep grudges, and enough arms and ammo to start World War III. This is your kind of environment. Mercenaries 2 features the latest and most dangerous in civilian and military tech, everything from shiny new sports cars, to the future-tech satellite-guided bunker-busting mini-nuke. Tanks, APCs, boats, luxury automobiles – you name it, you can have it delivered to you in real time. And if you run out of cash you can always 'acquire' the gear you need in the field. If you see it, you can buy it, steal it, or blow the living crap out of it. Play your own way, or play with the help of a friend in the new cooperative multiplayer mode. You are not a soldier. You don't have to play by anyone's rules. You have your own code: you will fulfill the terms of the contract, no matter what. Not everyone in the world of Mercenaries is as honorable. Everyone will try and screw you, given the chance. They think they can get away with it, because they don't know rule #1: EVERYBODY PAYS. [Pandemic Studios]… Expand
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Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 34 out of 69
  2. Mixed: 33 out of 69
  3. Negative: 2 out of 69
  1. GamingTrend
    93
    Mercenaries 2 is absolutely fun in spite of its quirks and should be at the top of everyone’s must buy list.
  2. Game Revolution
    83
    Occasional hiccups or no, having this much open-world freedom to come at the enemy any old way you see fit is just too much damned fun.
  3. Game Over Online
    80
    All considered though, Mercenaries 2 isn’t a complicated game to assess. It’s a stupid action game in a long and storied tradition of stupid action games.
  4. Talk Xbox
    74
    The arcade style shooting mixed in with the Hollywood blockbuster epicness delivers one of the more satisfying action games in recent years. If you’re a skeptic you should at least give Mercenaries 2 a shot.
  5. ZTGD
    70
    Mercs is all explosions with little care given to the wrappings. The lack of real story actually keeps the game playable and in the future Pandemic may be better off forgoing the pretense of plot.
  6. GameShark
    67
    The game delivers entertaining - although sometimes frustrating, sometime hilarious and sometimes jaw dropping gameplay, and with a small bit of patience, it ends up being an amusing and for the most part, an enjoyable experience.
  7. ActionTrip
    41
    The whole game feels like an insipid GTA clone that overemphasizes mindless destruction. For some games, this is enough, if it's done with style. In Mercs 2, it just feels pointless and without soul.

See all 69 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 37 out of 70
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 70
  3. Negative: 17 out of 70
  1. BL
    Sep 2, 2008
    10
    If you like games where you get tons of weapons and can blow everything up, this is the best KABOOM for your buck.
  2. MikeD.
    Oct 16, 2008
    9
    The game looks great and sounds great. The main mission and side missions are well done and will take a decent bit of time. It's a blast The game looks great and sounds great. The main mission and side missions are well done and will take a decent bit of time. It's a blast on single player and exponentially more entertaining with a human comrade running through Venezuela with you. There are some bugs that can be bothersome but none that I would personally say are even close to being dealbreakers. Bottom line is---you can blow $#!t up as you see fit and most importantly; It's just flat-out plain old fashioned fun.… Expand
  4. SteveM
    Sep 2, 2008
    8
    I'm absolutely temped to give this game a 9, but I'll stick with something more around 8.7. This game is an accomplished open world I'm absolutely temped to give this game a 9, but I'll stick with something more around 8.7. This game is an accomplished open world third person shooter. I admit, I'm only a few hours in, but the game is really awesome. Anyway, I'm not here to review, I'm here to put to rest some incorrect claims about this game. First, it's really not as buggy as people would have you believe. Second, for an open world game, the graphics look quite nice. Finally, people in general seem to be hating on this game, but I took a chance with it, and as I big fan of GTA4, I can honestly say this game, while not quite at the level of polish that GTA4 had, is still up there and makes up for what it's lacking with huge explosions. Seriously. Ka-boom.… Expand
  5. mikebare
    Dec 13, 2008
    8
    This game is definitely fun. You can play it the way you want, be it running and gunning like superman or staying back and calling inThis game is definitely fun. You can play it the way you want, be it running and gunning like superman or staying back and calling in airstrikes to clear out hostiles like a special ops member. There isn't as much of a feeling of freedom as the Grand Theft Auto series, but i honestly take the Mercs game much more seriously.… Expand
  6. NickB.
    Sep 1, 2008
    7
    Could have been better with more action animations like the first one.
  7. msherry9
    Jul 10, 2011
    5
    This review is several years late and I purchased the game for a mere $8.00 recently with my friend, seeking a new game to grant me anotherThis review is several years late and I purchased the game for a mere $8.00 recently with my friend, seeking a new game to grant me another two week haven of decent entertainment. Overall, despite it being an extremely low cost, I can BARELY say that it was worth it. At first, the novelty of open world roaming game and awesome explosions did its job, mesmerizing me in my first few hours of gameplay. But as with all novelties, it eventually wore off, leaving nothing more than its barren, uninspired, bland carcass. To start, there's a glitch before you even get to the main menu, where if you have Xbox Live but are not connected to the EA servers at that time, you're game will freeze at the main menu. It's rather embarassing that to this day, there has not been a patch to fix this. The storyline of the campaign is something you would expect out of a subpar action film, where you're a mercenary who has been stood up and betrayed by one of your contractors, and you seek revenge. There is no story arc and the entire tale is extremely bland and boring. I literally could not care about the story less, and all of the main characters except Mattias are total idiots. What you eventually come to realize is that there are no real main storyline missions. To progress in the campaign, you must do all of the sidequests and jobs available from all of the various factions and eventually a random cutscene will advance you in the story. At first, all of these side jobs are exciting and quite fun to blast through, but as I was sitting there, escorting the same damned executive to the same damn building for the 6th time, I realized that every single side mission from every single faction winds up being the same repetitive, mind-numbing garbage over and over again. Blow this building up. Defend this structure. Escort this d-bag to point X. Capture this building. There's an absolute abundance of missions to do, but as mentioned earlier, are all essentially the same, merely adjusting the difficulty and amount of enemy resistance to appear different. Sure, as you progress you unlock new weapons, vehicles, and airstrikes, but when you look at it from afar, it really doesn't add up to much at all, and certainly wasn't a very good incentive to keep progressing. All of the airstrikes pretty much function the same, save for a few, and the vehicles have horrible handling as well as generic weapons. Every .50 caliber machine gun on every vehicle is the exact same, and the sound effects in general aren't very good. Cars have the most unrealistic damage that they can sustain before exploding. If you drive over a slight hill on a road and your back bumper grazes the summit, you will take 15% damage of your starting 100% health. It gets old, fast. The graphics are actually not bad, and the explosions on this game still never cease to amaze me, consisting of amazing smoke textures and fantastic effects. It's always entertaing to "paint" an area with a nuclear bunker buster and watch as an entire outpost of enemy soldiers are obliterated amidst a glorious mushroom cloud of death. The co-op is pretty decent, featuring solid drop-in and out mechanics, but it also erases the airstrikes of the non-host as well as all of his vehicles. If you complete a mission in your friend's lobby, it does not count for you at all. The characters in the campaign are likable enough, and voice acting is mediocre at best. The dialogue is hilarious at times, especially for the jet pilot you eventually recruit. Every game has its glitches, but this game features a ridiculous amount of them, ranging from regular game crashes all the way to disappearing characters models. They happen much more often than is tolerable, and quickly spoils much of the small amount of fun remaining in this already mediocre game. The guns are not satisfying to use, save for explosive weapons, and they shoot essentially the same. Overall, this game is probably one of the most uninspired and repetitive games out there. The side missions are grueling and sometimes ridiculously hard, and you never feel a sense of accomplisment no matter how far you progress in the game. Cheesy storyline (as if one mercenary can push an entire military presence out of a country), and a glitchy mess sums this game up. The only incentive that kept me going was achievements, and I even had to settle for those. Not recommended, unless you can get it for less than $10.00.… Expand
  8. DME
    Jul 15, 2012
    0
    Literally unplayable

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Awards & Rankings

84
#84 Best Xbox 360 Game of 2008
24
#24 Most Discussed Xbox 360 Game of 2008
28
#28 Most Shared Xbox 360 Game of 2008