Mercenaries 2 for the PS2, and thoughts?

[swlovinist]

I was happy to see the PS2, getting some love still, and was wondering if anyone has rented or played the PS2 version of this game. I know that this game on the pS2 will be graphically weak, but was wondering on the actual differences and how it rated with the first one. Thoughts?

[Spartacus]

I'd like to hear about the difference's between versions myself. I've been playing the PS2 version and I think there two or more other threads about Mercenaries 2 going on here. I discussed my initial impressions about the PS2 game in the Mercenaries 2 Hype Thread. Having played the game for a few hours a day now for the last couple of days I'm still amazed at how slowly things are moving along. You need to recruit people to deliver and maintain equipment and supplies, this requires a series of fetch missions to satisfy them enough to come over to your team. Then you need to perform missions for contacts just to be able to purchase supplies. Not missions for a bunch of items mind you, but perhaps to be able to purchase a single item. Considering how many different types of vehicles, weapons/ordinance and supply items were available in the first game, this could take forever - and it feels like it! Managing inventory & searching for supplies - including fuel now, makes you feel like you are just role playing a supply clerk and not a mercenary most of the time.

Major players like the UN, Chinese and North Koreans have finally entered the game, but the Venezuelan jungles are not going to be very conducive to the large scale pitched battles we saw in the first game. In fact, the whole open style of gameplay has been noticably altered by the mostly impenetrable jungles that keep you from hiking anywhere you damn well please.

I thought they had some reasonably realistic characters and good voice acting in the first game and I'm happy to say that I feel the same way about the second.

I should note that the PS2 version comes in a flimsy PS2 case without the memory card holder and the game manual is just 5 pages long - if you count the front and back covers as pages! And sadly, it's entirely in black and white.

Then again, I haven't stopped playing and I have an incredible backlog of games, so it must not be as boring as I may be making it sound. Let's just say that so far, I enjoyed the first game more. I hope it picks up!

[Drifter 2000]

In fact, the whole open style of gameplay has been noticably altered by the mostly impenetrable jungles that keep you from hiking anywhere you damn well please.

Do you literally mean it's impossible to take short cuts through the jungles in the PS2 version? If so then that's a big difference compared to current gen versions. In the 360 version you can run through the foliage (although your merc does get stuck on bushes sometimes) or you can plow trees down and drive through.

[heybtbm]

The two games should be completely different. In an interview, the head producer of the 360/PS3/PC version had no idea what the game was about, looked like or how it played as of a few weeks ago. They were developed by totally different companies in two different locations.

I'm still curious and might pick up the PS2 version when it drops to $20 or so. In the meantime, I'm loving the 360 version. So much fun.

[swlovinist]

Thanks for the heads up. It looks like they did what they could on the PS2, and I am glad to hear that it plays okay. I guess I am a big underdog of inferior ports, that or I always was the kid to be last on console upgrades...

[Spartacus]

Major players like the UN, Chinese and North Koreans have finally entered the game, but the Venezuelan jungles are not going to be very conducive to the large scale pitched battles we saw in the first game. In fact, the whole open style of gameplay has been noticably altered by the mostly impenetrable jungles that keep you from hiking anywhere you damn well please.


Do you literally mean it's impossible to take short cuts through the jungles in the PS2 version? If so then that's a big difference compared to current gen versions. In the 360 version you can run through the foliage (although your merc does get stuck on bushes sometimes) or you can plow trees down and drive through.

I need to correct my statement about the PS2 version's gameplay being altered by the Venezualan terrain. The brush in PS2 Mercenaries 2 is pretty much identical to what I saw in the Xbox version of the 1st Mercenaries, some you can walk right thru, but most acts as a barrier. The errand running I have been involved with in the beginning of the game was mostly done on roads and my attempts at taking shortcuts between points ended up with me crashing into brush that was meant to be a barrier. It gave me a misconception that the whole jungle was made up of that stuff! Nothing could be further from the truth. I resolved to steal a chopper and insert myself into the farthest corners of the map to see if I could walk out. From an aerial view, the jungle looks dense, but once on the ground, there's not a lot of brush to be found. It's mostly trees with canopies that you can easily hike through. The terrain is mountainous and that can cause some problems hiking up and down the sides, but it really isn't any different from the first game in that respect. After hiking all over Hell's half acre, I decided to see if I could repeat the entire cross-country experience with tanks and jeeps and I found that I could pretty much drive anywhere I could walk. I just had lots and lots of trees to steer between and around.
The trees in the PS2 version can't be plowed down with a tank, and that sounds like fun, but you can sure as heck drive between them with persistance.
I came away from the experience impressed with what I saw - mountains, valley's, rivers, streams and waterfalls and enough variation in foilage types to keep it interesting while still being fairly navigable.
I'm sorry if my first impressions misled anyone about the gameplay being changed because at it's core, Mercenaries 2 is looking like it will play out pretty much like it did in the original with 'go where you want, do what you want' gameplay.





The two games should be completely different. In an interview, the head producer of the 360/PS3/PC version had no idea what the game was about, looked like or how it played as of a few weeks ago. They were developed by totally different companies in two different locations.

I don't know, but I'm wondering if they aren't using the same core story. That would allow them to use all the same voice acting between versions and there's fairly sizable amount of it in the game and it's actually quite good! Plenty of humor in the game and even the nobody NPC's have some good quips and lines.



Thanks for the heads up. It looks like they did what they could on the PS2, and I am glad to hear that it plays okay. I guess I am a big underdog of inferior ports, that or I always was the kid to be last on console upgrades...

Well, I hear you on being the last to upgrade. Been there and doing that myself! If you played the first Mecenaries on the PS2 then perhaps you won't be disappointed by what you see in Mercenaries 2. But it is, honestly, a bit of a graphical let down from the Xbox version. There's also a fairly lengthy loadtime between missions. Never in the missions, mind you, just in between. It's got some glitches too, but nothing you can't ignore. They really cheaped out on the PS2 case and manual, but at least it's on a DVD and not a purple disc! Mercenaries always had a sense of humor to it that I enjoy and the basic gameplay really is fun. Fun enough that you can ignore, or at least accept and get used to the graphical shortcomings of the PS2 version most of the time. I just need to stop ruining my own experience by trying to stockpile everything I can get my hands on and just let 'er rip and kill everybody with thier own damn weapons. It's worth the purchase in my opinion.

[FrakAttack]

Did they include fuel requirements for airdrops/strikes? Or the new button-mashing sequences when you hijack vehicles? Those kinda suck.

[Spartacus]

Yes, the PS2 version includes the fuel requirements for air drops/strikes. And the button mashing sequences for hijacking vehicles. But I discovered recently that the button mashing "feature" is bogus. The hijack sequence takes place whether you push the right buttons, the wrong buttons, or no buttons at all!
Just to see how closely the PS2 version jives with the next gen versions, I'll list the story line events that have taken place so far in my PS2 version...

Story 1: Rescue Carmona
Story 2: What's yours is mine
Story 3: Rigging the game
Oil 1: Executing bonfire
Oil 2: Listening closely
Recruit Ewan: Amazon escape
Recruit Eva: Building a monster car seriously
Recruit Misha: Comrade, where's my car
Guerrilla 1: Rampart ruination
Guerrilla 2: Viva la revolusion

Missions complete 55%