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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land Have we seen any of this kind of footage? I can’t remember any. This is raw, somebody’s-on-the-other-end-of-a-controller video of Mercenaries 2 in action, with lead designer Scott Warner taking the wheel to show how the game’s objectives can be completed differently using the three available mercenaries. And by “objectives completed” they mean “make everything around you explode“.
Pandemic are putting their shoulder to the wheel for Mercenaries 2. Don’t doubt that for a minute. But at the same time, they’re probably sick to death of all the palm trees and blue skies and threats from the Venezuelan government that have marked the game’s development. So it’s understandable they they just want to get it done and move onto the next Mercenaries, right?:
Yesterday Pandemic announced that free-ranging shooter Mercenaries 2 will be hitting stores on Aug. 31. Which is pretty cool, but what’s really cool is the newspaper I received from them today.
The copy of the Venezuela Ahora, dated Aug. 31., announces the invasion of Venezuela by Mercenaries in a headline that stretches across the paper in two lines. Underneath is an explosive image of three of the, I don’t know, anti-heroes? And a full story. The faux paper also includes a weather report clasificicado, ads and even an little Mercenaries-themed comic strip. You gotta love it… unless your in Venezuela and have a stick up your arse.
Hit the jump for an up-close scan of the the front and back pages.
Hey, remember Mercenaries 2? Yeah, it’s that fantastic looking follow up from Pandemic that involves scores of explosions and a pissed off Merc who literally gets ripped a new asshole. EA and Pandemic have finally nailed down a date—August 31, 2008—for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and PC game, making it just a tiny bit late. IGN has a new trailer for Mercenaries 2, something that might reignite your interest in it. It’s explodey!
It would appear that the wait for Mercenaries 2: World In Flames may have gotten a little bit longer, as multiple retailers are listing a late August 2008 release date for the Pandemic Studios shooter. Reader Patrick pointed out that online retailer Amazon was now showing an August 25 release date for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, with GameStop showing the same for the PlayStation 2 and PC versions. The last official word on the game’s release was April, something that is now starting to look less likely. The game was originally planned for a holiday 2007 release, but pushed back in September.
When we played Mercenaries 2: World in Flames at the Leipzig Games Convention last year, we walked away with the impression that stuff blows up. It would appear that stuff will continue to blow up, as new screens from Pandemic would indicate. If you look closely at the in-game screen shot above, you might be able to pick out one of the things that blows up. Mercs 2 feels like it’s already been released for some reason, but it seems it hasn’t. Regardless of my confusion about how time flows, a handful of new official screens are in our mini-gallery below.
It looks like The Venezuela Solidarity Network crowing over the Mercenaries 2 delay didn’t go unnoticed.
Josh Resnick, president of Pandemic Studios, took a second to shoot out this quick response about the VSN and their claims that the game’s plot has been made more fictional due to pressure from the group and part owner Bono:
Pandemic Studios never has and never will be intimidated by tyrants. Our invasion is on schedule: Mercenaries 2 will be released in early 2008.
See what he did there? He aped the story in the game, the whole overthrow-of-the-Venezuelan-government-by-a-drug-lord-turned-dictator dealio. Clever! Personally, I don’t care if it’s set in my house, as long as I can level entire neighborhoods with explosives.
Since the end of the 80s, it’s been more and more difficult to find one man willing to open up a can of whoop ass on an entire army of foreign stereotypes. But Mercenaries 2 features just that sort of singular mantra we’ve been craving since Sylvester changed his name to Sly.
Mercenaries 2 is an open world game that’s not just about blowing up the bad guys, but levelling every building in their entire country—where they may or may not be hiding.
