Out this Sunday (8/31). Weird release date, but I guess it's better than coming out Wednesday after the labor day weekend. I'm pumped to pick up my copy and have a whole day and a half to get into it. Should tide me over till Fallout 3.

Video clips look great, previews look great - too bad they had to drop the Russian mafia, but it wouldn't have worked *quite* as well here. New characters look very interesting and funny.

Online (not splitscreen) co-op for virtually the entire game looks like a very interesting feature.

Anyone else ready for this one?

Not sure about getting the game yet but I dig the commercial. I couldn't get the song out of my head

I was ready for it in February, excited even. The first game was pretty fun, and I had big expectations for the new one, especially the online portion.

As it stands now...I'm not sure if I'm picking it up right away. Perhaps I would have if this past weekend wasn't the most expensive in recent memory (plumbing issues and then my dryer bit the dust in a span of 18 hours)...

But I'm interested to hear everyone's impressions. Even if it's a solid "B" rating, it should be good. It needs to be fun online...that's the key.

It's weird that there are no reviews of the game yet. If it gets good ones, I'll be picking it up. My best friend & I love playing co-op games together. I really liked the first Mercs game-- it was surprisingly deep for a sandbox game.

I was looking forward to it last year - it was originally supposed to be out last Nov. - until EA bought Pandemic. That was one of my big reasons for picking up a 360 last year.

The first one just blew me away in terms of gameplay and fun - although GTA 3 and 4 have been great, I couldn't really get into VC and SA at all, while Mercs just sucked me in with the non-stop combat and goal-oriented gameplay.

One thing that'll be really great about this follow-up is that all buildings stay "destroyed" until you turn off the game. It was a little frustrating in the first one to spend big money on a bunker buster just to come back 5 min later and have another stream of tanks or AAA coming from the same tunnel. I'm also hoping they balance some of the airstrikes a little more - certain ones in the first game were much more useful than others - did anyone ever use the cluster bombs or tank busters? Or even the artillery strikes...when there were so much more effective attacks that weren't as risky?

edit - I believe the physics should be a little tighter in this one too - it was kinda weird to hit the edge of a bridge with a tank and suddenly flip over or get airborne.

I played this for a couple hours today (got through the first few missions and just got the helicopter - 7% completed after two hours of gameplay), and it's pretty fun, but I'm not blown away by it - but I guess I wasn't expecting to get blown away, so that's fine.

Anyways, it starts off with quite a bit of hand-holding for an open-world game, but I supposed that's to teach you how the game works. The control is fine, but it's pretty much just run and gun - no real strategy to the gun-play.

I'm pretty disappointed with the graphics - the environments, and frame-rate are fine - it's the textures that look like ass. Seriously, except for a couple bump-mapped objects here and there, most walls look like they're off of the PS2. The character models aren't too hot either. If this had come out before GTA4 I probably wouldn't have noticed too much, but after playing that for so many hours, Mercenaries definitely comes up short in the visuals department - not to mention how deserted the cities are compared to GTA.

But there is destruction and explosions - good God, are there explosions. Seems like most everything can blow up and blow up real good and that's pretty much most of the fun. There are a bunch of vehicles to commandeer, and they all handle pretty well. It was feeling a bit like Battlefield in certain parts (though the new Battlefield looks a lot better than this too). The few guns and explosives I've handled work well enough - just like most other shooters.

Seems like there's a good bit of things to do and see. The world is huge - a good deal bigger than GTA4. And there's all sorts of missions, objectives and shit lying around for you to do. But unless there's some sort of big twist, it looks like down the road, it might get a bit monotonous like the last Mercenaries game did.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Oh no you di'int.

Sorry, still can't get that gd song out of my head.

I don't expect it to look as good as GTA or CoD or whatever, I just want it to play well. But, my question is...How is the the online piece? That is really what is going to make me buy it.

I didn't go online with it, but it looked simple enough - just jump into your friend's lobby (or they jump into yours) and you're good to go - there's supposed to be both co-op play and regular deathmatch and/or team-based play - so it's pretty robust in the online department. Although no one on my friends-list has this, and it might be too early for too many people playing this now, I'll try going online with it tonight and get a better idea of how it works and what it has to offer.

I'll probably pick this up with Tiger Woods 09 tonight.

Slop, if interested, send me a friend request.

Are your stores releasing 8/31 games 4 days early??? I asked my place if it was seriously coming out on a Sunday and they said yep. But no chance to pick it up on Saturday they said - even though that's obviously the last time it could come in mail-wise.

Slop - what console did you play it on? PS3 or 360? Surprisingly enough they made a PS2 port of it, so I'm just wondering if it might have something to do with that.....

^^ No. I thought it was out already and I dug the first one enough to buy this one sight-unseen.

Another game that could have benefited from a release earlier in the year or during early summer doldrums. Fall/winter is looking very crowded again this year and it only hurts these on-the-fence games.

360.
And yeah, looks like if they just lowered the poly-count, brought in the view distance and toned down some effects, it could easily be done on the PS2.

Still haven't tried on-line though - played Castle Crashers last night.

disappointing. The videos look pretty good, but they haven't shown any action too close to buildings -- with all the rapid movement and explosions, it's hard to get a feel for how it might look in a static setting.

There's still no official reviews out though many are posting their dissapointment at the full release. I wonder if there's a review embargo out on this game (like the limited one on MGS4). I'm taking that as a bad sign in this case.

IGN gave it a 7.9, said theres some bugs but they said its still alot of fun and worth playing.

That is a great commercial if I didn't already want this game I think I could of been sucked in by the ad. But keep in mind the first one wasn't perfect either and there was a lot of people that didn't like that one either.

7.9? Could it be EA's fault?

Kidding.

I am passing on this one for now. I have Spore to buy next week and Tales of Vesperia until then. When it's $39.99 or so, I might jump on it.

1up gave it a B+:

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3169692&p=37

And how can you not love this?

I just bought it at WalMart for the PS3. I'm about to play it for a little while and see what's up with it.

I'm really having to restrain myself from going to grab this for the 360...I wanted it so bad back in february. But with NHL 09 10 days away...

I'm about to go dump Madden 09 and a few other last gen games for this at Gamestop. I figure if I get rid of stuff I don't play, it's not so bad. Madden only cost me $20 and it's a big disppointment again.

Dammit, that's another one I wanted. I usually get the 2k series for the little extras they have but I heard the EA version has stepped it up alot this year.

That's now like 5 games in September alone I want. Mercs 2, NHL 09, Viva Pinata 2, Lego Batman, and of course Spore. That's ASSuming I am not forgetting something.

EDIT: I forgot Star Wars TFU
Six games now.

I saw this today at my rental store. Somehow I missed the hype, because I never heard of it. I figured it was new because they had 12 copies, half of which were in stock. The back of the box didn't impress me enough to rent it yet, but with lots of blowing shit up, I'll rent it. My video store kicks ass...they always have the new games on release day in major abundance, then they sell some off cheap in no time. I grabbed Condemned 2 for $20, Madden for $20, and Lego Indy for $20 all within the last month.

Sigh. This game just feels broken. Me and a friend played some co-op (PS3) and were plagued with pop ops, and bad draw distance. We even got counted down for running over some civilians that appeared in front of us out of nowhere. And storyline Co-op isn't as good as other games. I joined his game, but it only saved the money I made, not the progress in story. Sigh.