mercenaries-2 posts

Electronic Arts continues to shut down its online multiplayer servers for games that have little online users. This week the publisher released a new list of games that will have their servers closed on March 16. Two of them are for the PC and perhaps ironically both of them come from the already shut down Pandemic Studios.

Both the PC version of the open world action game Mercenaries 2 and the action game Lord of the Rings Conquest will be unplayable online after March 16. EA says those games and the other console titles on their shutdown list "represent less than 0.3 (percent) of all peak online players across all EA titles." Mercenaries 2 was released in August 2008 and Lord of the Rings Conquest shipped in January 2009. The latter game's online shut down comes just 14 months after it was released.

Two weeks ago was "Black Friday" for GoGamer.com and last week it was "Green Friday" for the retail game web site. Today it's apparently "White Friday" at the site as GoGamer.com continues to cut prices to the bone on a number of PC games (and a few PC hardware products too).

Among the games you can get at rock bottom prices are Dungeon Siege for $3.90, F.E.A.R. 2 for $14.90, Mercenaries 2 for $3.90, and Heroes of Might and Magic V for $7.90. Newer games with sales deals include Order of War for $24.90, Wolfenstein for $22.90 and Prototype for $19.90.

It's only Tuesday but we have a batch of new PC game download sales to tell you about today:

• Direct2Drive's next one-day game sale is for Mercenaries 2; you can download the game for just $4.95 until 1 pm Eastern time Wednesday. Also you can download all of the Empire Earth games along with the AO-rated Manhunt 2 for 50 percent off their normal prices until the end of 2009.
• Steam has put the RTS game Medieval II Total War on sale from now until December 10 for just $4.99.
• GamersGate has three games (Elven Legacy, Multiwinia, Tropico Reloaded) for 50 percent off and two others (Hearts of Iron 3, East India Company) for 60 percent off their normal price until December 13. Even more offers can be found here and at GamersGate's Gift Guide site.

Last year's release of Mercenaries 2, set in the country of Venezuela, stirred up a little controversy beforehand as the real country's government accused developer Pandemic Studios of creating the game as a propaganda tool against their regime. Now Reuters reports that Venezuela is moving to outright ban any games that have violent content.

A bill to do exactly that has passed the country's National Assembly on Wednesday. It needs to pass again and then be signed by its current president Hugo Chavez before becoming law. The government claims it's making these kind of moves because murders are on the rise in the capital city of Caracas. The article points out that opponents of Chavez believe the murder rate has been exaggerated. Even if it's not, we suspect that people will continue to kill people in that country if the bill does indeed become law.

With the huge success that the New York Comic Con had this past weekend, it's clear that comic books and games have lots of links and a shared audience. We have posted up a feature about comic books that we think should be turned into games but the truth is more and more games are being adapted and expanded in comic book form.

Various publishers have released game-based comics over the years and today in the first part of a two part series Big Download looks at just some of the attempts to turn games into four-color entertainments. Stay tuned as we will have even more examples on Tuesday. Update: The second part of the feature is now up.

Click on the link above to continue reading From Comics to Games: Part 1

During Electronic Arts' financial conference call to analysts, at least one sequel to a previously released game was officially confirmed by EA CEO John Riccitiello. He stated, "There will be a Mercenaries 3 and, if I have anything to do with it, there will be a Mercenaries 10."

That's a pretty ringing endorsement of how EA feels about Mercenaries 2, the first game that the company has published since purchasing its developer Pandemic Studios. While the game got somewhat less than outstanding reviews it did well in sales so a third game in the series (the first was published by LucasArts) is now on the table. Meanwhile G4's X-Play has revealed that an upcoming downloadable content update will include two new playable characters: Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, as we have reported on previously, PC owners of Mercenaries 2 are not currently scheduled to receive any downloadable content.

Pandemic and Electronic Arts' open world action game Mercenaries 2 has only been out for a few weeks but EA is already planning to release a major patch to the console versions The patch is so big it has a name; Total Payback. The patch will enable cheats, add more playable characters to the game and more. The PC version of Mercenaries 2 already has a patch but it contains none of the extras that the Total Payback patch will have.

PC owners will apparently have to do without the console extras, as EA's PR spokesperson tells us, "... as of right now the Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Total Payback update is only planned for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3." In addition the console versions will get a major downloadable console update in November but again it's not looking as if PC owners will be getting a chance to download that content either.

One of the most popular download we have ever had here at Big Download is the full MP3 version of "Oh No You Didn't", the song that was created and used (in a shorten version) for the Mercenaries 2 television commercials. 1Up.com has posted up an interview with one of the song's writers, Roger Wojahn.

Wojahn's main job is, believe it or not, to write songs for commercials and they were hired by an ad agency to create a song that was more light-hearted than the norm for a game that features lots of violence. The song has apparently jumped beyond just the commercial and Internet popularity. Wojahn states, "We just found out It was playing in Jumbotrons across America this week during NFL games -- so it has obviously caught on in a very broad way in only 3 weeks. It's crazy, but we love it." Even with all the attention the song has gotten Wojahn admits he hasn't even played Mercenaries 2.

Download the full "Oh No You Didn't" song
Download the Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Demo (1.56 GB)
Check out all downloads for Mercenaries 2
Read the Mercenaries 2 Review

This post release trailer for Mercenaries 2: World in Flames shows off all the wild stunts and huge explosions people who still haven't picked up the game are missing out on.

Download HD Mercenaries 2 "More Payback" Trailer (137 MB)

Patch updates Mercenaries 2: World in Flames to version 1.1. Patch fixes a number of interface and graphics issues but does not address any stability problems.

Download the Mercenaries 2 v1.1 Patch (12 MB)