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chronovoreI'm playing it still, but taking frequent breaks, partially because I want to play through with you. It looks like I'm going to finish my game, then play through it again with you though, since I almost accidentally finished the game the other day. The final AN mission has cropped up, and I haven't yet handled the entire Chinese faction, having turned myself into an object of hatred to them nearly from the moment they entered the fray. I've since bribed their general, and have begun slowly working through their missions, hopefully eventually granting me the option to choose to win the war for the Chinese... or for the AN.
Options are nice.
Here's the thing - it's not quite as good as Mercs 1. I say this as an acknowledged HUGE fan of Mercs 1, and it pains me to report that the sequel is just not as tough in the right ways as the original. It's not just the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, either: I went back and played a little Mercs 1 in research for my current job project, and found it held up quite well. A couple weeks later, I played Mercs 2, and am 80% pleased with it, but I'd been hoping for more than the original, not less.
While the original had damage as a kind of ongoing attrition, where health could be managed by keeping a drop shipment of meds just outside of the target encampment, this time around the AI is just dumb, unresponsive, preferring instead to make things harder by hitting overwhelmingly when they hit.
There are more side missions than before, but they're repetitive and in some cases mind-bogglingly difficult due to the inconsistent-but-hard-hitting AI mentioned before. In particular, AI using any kind of homing missile seems to be exceptionally hard to dodge. It used to be possible to play cat and mouse with the enemy, but this time they seem to spot me from 200 meters out, even when on foot, I'm in a copse of rainforest vegetation. Then they start firing rockets.
Another thing is, Faction anger is controlled through a shoot-this-guy minigame, where during a mission some tattletale will begin reporting your actions to the Faction boss. Usually there's about 6-8 seconds in which to look figure out where the guy is (he's got an unfortunate target icon above him, like the Captains had in Mercs 1), get a bead on him, and take him out. Failing that, unless you were already at 100% Friendly with that Faction, they'll go Hostile, and won't deal with you until Fiona has bribed a way back into their good graces. This works pretty well, but sometimes the target is significantly far away, obscured, etc. that it's extremely hard to take him out. And these guys will crop up repeatedly during the same task, nearly ensuring that at some point you'll miss him, and the besieged Faction will become Hostile. This isn't much of an impediment, except it takes exactly 20% of your current savings to buy them off.
Maybe I'm misremembering how great Mercs 1 was. I recall thinking that having constant access to helicopters would mean I'd be able to get anywhere on the map WAY TOO QUICKLY, but a plethora of well-placed SAMs put that theory to rest. When those ever-present enemies could take me out that quickly, I thought it was neat. Now that I'm dealing with them on most missions, they just seem like a PITA.
I'll go and play some more, see if my impressions hold up. I'll look forward to seeing you in there some time soon.
Options are nice.
Here's the thing - it's not quite as good as Mercs 1. I say this as an acknowledged HUGE fan of Mercs 1, and it pains me to report that the sequel is just not as tough in the right ways as the original. It's not just the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, either: I went back and played a little Mercs 1 in research for my current job project, and found it held up quite well. A couple weeks later, I played Mercs 2, and am 80% pleased with it, but I'd been hoping for more than the original, not less.
While the original had damage as a kind of ongoing attrition, where health could be managed by keeping a drop shipment of meds just outside of the target encampment, this time around the AI is just dumb, unresponsive, preferring instead to make things harder by hitting overwhelmingly when they hit.
There are more side missions than before, but they're repetitive and in some cases mind-bogglingly difficult due to the inconsistent-but-hard-hitting AI mentioned before. In particular, AI using any kind of homing missile seems to be exceptionally hard to dodge. It used to be possible to play cat and mouse with the enemy, but this time they seem to spot me from 200 meters out, even when on foot, I'm in a copse of rainforest vegetation. Then they start firing rockets.
Another thing is, Faction anger is controlled through a shoot-this-guy minigame, where during a mission some tattletale will begin reporting your actions to the Faction boss. Usually there's about 6-8 seconds in which to look figure out where the guy is (he's got an unfortunate target icon above him, like the Captains had in Mercs 1), get a bead on him, and take him out. Failing that, unless you were already at 100% Friendly with that Faction, they'll go Hostile, and won't deal with you until Fiona has bribed a way back into their good graces. This works pretty well, but sometimes the target is significantly far away, obscured, etc. that it's extremely hard to take him out. And these guys will crop up repeatedly during the same task, nearly ensuring that at some point you'll miss him, and the besieged Faction will become Hostile. This isn't much of an impediment, except it takes exactly 20% of your current savings to buy them off.
Maybe I'm misremembering how great Mercs 1 was. I recall thinking that having constant access to helicopters would mean I'd be able to get anywhere on the map WAY TOO QUICKLY, but a plethora of well-placed SAMs put that theory to rest. When those ever-present enemies could take me out that quickly, I thought it was neat. Now that I'm dealing with them on most missions, they just seem like a PITA.
I'll go and play some more, see if my impressions hold up. I'll look forward to seeing you in there some time soon.
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