Mercenaries 2 Notes

First thing is to select character, Matthias is strong and regenerates health faster.

Mui is speedy, and chris carries more ammo.

Hmmm will go with the health guy, and he does seem to be the intended main character.

We are taken to see a man called Ramon who wants us to assassinate some venuzuelan leader. We accept the mission and are introduced to our handler who will be our mission guide, our sweet female voice in our ear.

We start in a powerboat.

Land on the beach and get a weapon dropped by helicopter, it's a grenade launcher.

ON to the gates of the settlement and take out a few soldiers with the grenade launcher.

Introduced to the pda, which is our map and inventory type screens.

We are allowed to call in an airstrike to destroy the gates.

Quick firefight inside walls and a vehicle is dropped into our laps.

Little drive with enemies shooting at us and another gate, another airstrike and we are given a tank.

We drive our tank up the hill and into a large building entrance. There is a river in the way so we shoot the crap out of the building and then get out and go accross on foot. There is no resistance left. I enter the courtyard and it tells me that the first mission is over.

Another cut scene shows us rescuing the military leader. WHo then returns with us to Ramon who double crosses us and tries to have us killed. We escape but only after being shot in the ass. Mattias vows to make Ramon pay. On Tv we see Ramon being elected as the new civilian leader of venuzuela.

Now we are into game proper. First objective is to steal Ramon's villa from him as a base of operations.

I get a bike and drive to the villa, once in the grounds I have to shoot five of Ramon's entourage. They are scattered aroudn the grounds. ONce done we have to go inside the villa.

Inside is a tank, which when we go near we can climb onto and take it by dropping a grenade inside. ONce inside the tank loads of baddies swarm into the villa main hall, once they are blown to bits the mission is over.

Left and right sticks usual movement and camera controls. Left trigger makes us crouch and zoom in for accuracy. Right trigger is fire, x is reload. View is third person.

Weapons

assualt rifle

rocket launcher

Airstrikes

Now that i have captured the villa it becomes our home base.

We get to wander about and talk to our allies. Talking to the handler give us some training options and access to challenges.

Ramon is in bed with Universal petroleum. Seems if we do work for them we might be able to drive a wedge into that relationship. We are given a mission to steal weapons from thugs who stole them from UP.

Mission 1

Steal weapon truck from thugs.

Drive to location shoot up about five or six bad guys guarding truck and then take it into the city. Trucks and jeeps give chase. Drive the truck into a yellow circle at up base and get out and a up guard comes and drives it away. Mission over.

Mission 2

I go up to the UP gate and talk to someone on the intercom, he gives me a mission.

We have to get a vehicle called the devastator and bring it to UP.

Ha HA the devastator is a scooter painted purple, we look great riding it through town.

Anyway mission done back to UP and drop off the devastator.

Once the mission is done the gate of UP open up and we go inside and meet Reuben the Head of UP she wants us to do work. She will help us if we help her.

Mission 3

UP want a kidnapped executive back.

We have to set up three spy listening devices to be able to tap the bad guys phone network so that we can find the location of the kidnappers.

Setting up the listening posts is a matter of going to a specific destination and calling in a helicopter which drops the post. At two destinations there is heavy enemy fire, at one a heicopter must be taken out before your own helicopter will come in. Once the posts are in place you are given the location of a vehicle which is carrying the executive. The armored car in which he is being transported must be ambushed and taken over, once done you drive him back to up headquarters. This seemed a bit broken as he didn't get in the same car without a lot of prompting, at one point he was following me on foot but as we go close to the objective he stopped. Once he was driving when we both got in a vehicle and doing a bad job of it. Eventually i got him into the same vehicle as me and got him back to the base.

Now we seem to have been rewarded with a helicopter which seems to be a way to fast travel between locations on the map.

Handlers name is fiona it seems.

Now another faction is introduced

PLAV Peoples liberation army of venuzaela.

We drive up to the plav base and are given a mission.

Mission 4

We have to liberate an old guerilla base from vz soldiers.

We drive to the base, call in a strike team of plav guys by helicopter and the base is quickly taken.

Back at the base I try a challenge.

I have to blow up statues with emplaced guns and shoot at flying cars used as clay pigeons.

I win money by doing the challenge.

Mission 5

We go to PLAV HQ and meet Costa the leader of the plav.

She wants us to go and destroy three buildings, then defend a church as the location of a bad guy is found using technical trickery, which really means we have to stop tanks blowing up a building for five minutes. Then we have to go and kill the bady guy at a football field. ONce he is dead we take his picture to verify to Costa.

I go to the mechanic sign on the map and meet Eve the mechanic who wants us to test the chcharro de muerte for her.

Mission 6

We have to test the monster truck with jet jumping ability.

We have to take it around a track with little checkpoints against the clock.

Lots of cliffs and hazards.

Wow that was a long track, was i playing a racer there?

Also getting shot with rockets when you are doing well is very frustrating.

Manage the track on about the sixth go and take the car back to the garage.

With eva now installed at our base talking with her opens a mission path to getting a jet pilot.

Eva gives us grappling ability which means when a helicopter gets close we can hijack them too.

Mission 7

Have to deliver a boat for the PLAV another race mission really.

Boat is fun and the course is strewn with mines?

Good mission really 3 time to complete it.

Mission 8

I go and find a jet pilot a drunk called Misha. He has a lieutenant who is mad at him. We have to kill the lieutenant to recruit Misha.

To kill this lieutenant we have to steal a bunker buster bomb and fire it at his bunker. This takes a while until i figure out how to equip the bunker buster bomb and fire it, eventually after a bit of digging in menu's i find and laser designate the target which goes boom. Not as intuiative as it should have been.

misha is now installed in the base.

Mission 9

Going to a plav outpost i get a mission to take another nearby outpost.

I go there and shoot the place up a little

What isn't made clear is that you have to call in plav troops by helicopter who will take the outpost for you, you just have to clear enough enemies to make it safe for them to get in the doors without being shot.

Anyway outpost taken.

Mission 10

Corporate Headhunting

We have to assasinate a set of high value targets for the plav.First two are nearby and easily dealth with others are further away, I grapple onto a helicopter and use it to fly to the next two who are easily shot from the helicopter.

Mission 12

Another plav outpost to capture.

Same drill get to the outpost take out most of the resistance including the rocket huts, these are hut which have rocket launcher dudes inside, if you kill the rocket man standing at the window another replaces him in a few seconds, you have to destroy the hut to stop the respawns. Once enough men are down and it seems safe to let the a.i. grunts loose you call in their copter and they run to the building and take it.

This seems to be the last one for the plav.

I took out some buildings in the town which seem to be side missions, there are about 13 of them to destroy and two down now.

Mission 13

Back to PLAV HQ and Costa wants us to blow up a castle that the VZ are using to disrupt supply shipments.

There are about 7 barracks buildings to destroy and three portions of the castle need airstrikes to blow them up. Handily airstrikes are littered around on trucks and you need only mark them and ask your pilot to come in and pick them up. Alternatively you can spend your own cash on buying them at the shop.

Basically you have to fight your way into the target areas drop the airstrike designator which paints the target and run like a sprinter for cover as the whole place is brought down by huge firepower. repeat that another twice and it's mission over.

I have to spend a fortune bribing back UP to be my friend again.

Mission 14

Attack a VZ outpost and destroy the two barracks then send in the UP troops, mission over.

Mission 15

Another outpost capture VZ have the airport and UP want control of it.

Same again two barrack, but more entrenched and bunker guns. Destroy as much as you think appropriate and then call in strike team to take building.

Mission 16

Another VZ outpost to take for UP.

That one was easier, no barracks to blow first.

Mission 17

We have to rescue a guy from a refinery that has been taken by the VZ, and the UP president will give us the info we need.

Looks like the final mission for the UP.

Go to the building where he is and we have to stop vz from killing him. Then we have to take him to another warehouse where he will destroy some documents.

WHile he is doing that we have to use emplaced guns on the deck of a ship to prevent the vz getting to him. Then another location to defend while he shreds more paperwork. And finally getting him back to the UP base.

Mission 19

Pirates want us to do a race mission sorry smuggling run for them to prove our worth.

It's a jetski we are driving on the river, and it's kind of fun in a waverace sort of way.

Mission 20

An outpost mission for the pirates.

Same drill only the pirates seem even more stupid than the other strike teams.

Mission 21

Another outpost mission

Learned a valuable lesson here, this one has a long approach with loads of barracks, about 8 in total, and a sam site preventing the strike teams from coming in by helicopter. If you take the long and obvious way its a hard mission. If you take a copter and crash dive into the actual outpost area then take out the sam site you can safely ignore a large part of the outer defences. So playing by the book isn't to be encouraged and experimentation is the name of the game.

Back at the PMc Fiona now knows where blanco is, the merc that works for solano. He needs killing for revenge and also might know where Solano is.

Mission 22

Find and kill or capture Blanco, also destroy the oil rig for the PLAV.

Ok that was quite hard, only because the stairs to blanco kept getting blown up by random fire.

You basically have to get to the rig climb up it and enter the office where blanco is, you get a cut scene where we find out the location of solano. Then we have to fight and kill Blanco, take a pic of him then call in an airstrike on the rig which blows it to bits.

I kept taking in a chopper and attacking the aa and sam sites, which would blow the rig prematurely and spoil the mission. Many other times the stairs to his office would be blown by missile fire.

Mission 23

Now we know where Solano is, hiding in a bunker. We have to get another bunker buster weapon and pay him a visit.

Fighting all the way to the top of a hill we find the huge bunker doors. Laser designating them with the bunker buster results in a big bang but little else. These doors need a nuclear bunker buster apparently. As we discover this Fiona finds the pmc under attack. We have to get back quickly and help. Hijacking a helicopter we fly back to find tanks attacking, after destroying eight specifically designated target tanks we go inside the pmc for a cut scene which shows general carmona holding a gun to fiona's head. We save the day and give chase to carmona, gunning him down before he can get away in his helicopter.

Now the big boys come to play, with the situation getting out of hand in venuzuaela the AN or americans and Chinese come to make things really go wrong.

Now we have two new factions and two new sets of missions to complete.

Mission 24

An outpost to take from the vz for the AN, more barracks and tanks defending, getting bigger and more destructive and more use of airstrikes needed to make things easier.

Mission 25

A port outpost the vz have taken from the AN needs recaptured.

Same drill destroy the barracks and sam sites and make a mess, bring in the an to take the outpost when safe enough.

mission 26

Another outpost, i suppose i am just choosing these missions to progress the story, i could have some variety if i wanted, same drill.

Now we are given a choice, after doing enough outpost missions for the AN we are taken to see a special agent who tasks us with removing china from the country, i suppose if we do enough chinese missions we are given the same choice by them. I think I will do some chinese missions first before choosing.

Mission 27

An outpost for the chinese.

Mission 28

Another chinese outpost capture mission.

Misson 29

Another chinese outpost capture mission.

Now we are given the same choice, work for the chinese or the americans?

Let's give the chinese a try.

Mission 30

Rescue a chinese official. The official is on top of a tower block in the city. The hardest part of this mission is not destroying eveything in sight, it's keeping the vip alive. Sam sites must be taken out before you can even think of getting anywhere near him and instead of barrack buildings you have tower block with rocket troops. A hard mission.

Mission 31

You have been tasked with taking out universal petroleum. You must destroy their refinery, a large bridge and the UP tower.

This is a fight for resources. Taking out the buildings isn't all that hard, finding the huge amount of firepower is the hardest part.

Mission 32

We have to destroy the allied base now.

4 buildings to be destroyed.

You are given cruise missile support by the chinese, and they make a big bang.

Mission is a bit glitchy, you are given four cruise missile shots, but one of the targets is a bit ambiguous, however, eventually if you use enough firepower you can destroy anything without using the cruise missiles. This mission was a bit of a chore trying to chip away at the buildings with tank shells and much driving around blowing up enemies just to get fuel for the airstrikes. You also have to go and kill agent Joyce the American boss.

Solano nukes the chinese HQ forcing them to retreat from the country. You are Given the nuclear bunker buster by General chang and tasked from him to get revenge on Solano also.

Mission 33

Looks like the final mission

Go to solano's bunker with the nuke in tow this time.

Target the correct spot on the bunker the nuke goes off, run inside the ruins to find solano fleeing in a helicopter, you have a quicktime event showdown with him and it's the end for sloano. 

That's it, game over, well apart from the hundreds of hvt's to kill and some 7 race missions etc.

735 Achievement points quite generous really. probably about 20-30 hours played. PLayed over 9 days for shortish periods.

When you attack a faction that is friendly they will report back to base about you, if you can stop the soldier doing the reporting then you keep the faction friendly.

Some glitches in the menu when buying fuel storage, menu corrupts and you don't get the storage.