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Re: Saboteur is Mercenaries 2. |
Apr 14, 2010, 05:18 |
Jerykk |
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Someone told Dierker that Sean was a British spy.
Are you sure about that? I thought Dierker just assumed that Sean was a spy, given that he was constantly a thorn in his side.
Except you don't need to go on dozens or hundreds of missions to get that information.
Naturally. But this is a standard videogame contrivance. In Mercenaries, you shouldn't need to work for the various factions. You're a one man (or woman) army. Logically, you should be able to go straight to the guy who screwed you and kill him because you cam easily kill countless soldiers and destroy everything in your path. But the game doesn't let you because that would make for a pretty short and anticlimactic game. If you're going to question videogame logic, you can't just limit your criticism to Saboteur.
But in this case the cause of fighting the Nazi oppression and occupation is inherently good even if the individuals who comprise the cause aren't completely so because the Nazis are evil.
I disagree. Fighting against the Nazis isn't inherently good because no act is inherently good. It depends entirely on what your motivations are. In Saboteur, the various people you work for clearly don't have altruistic or noble motivations and as such, their fight against the Nazis isn't inherently good.
The differences need not be dramatic so they would be doable within the development timeframe and budget.
Except it would be a waste of time. Saboteur is focused on one character and as a result, that character (and the story) is far better developed than anything in Mercenaries 2. Sure, they could add a bunch of superficial playable characters to Saboteur but then you'd lose the character development and story focus.
And, the faults are simply design decisions not technical limitations or impracticalities. The story is a step backwards, vehicular combat is dimished with no air or water vehicles, there's no multiplayer modes, and there less diversity in the factions.
They are different games. It wouldn't make any sense for Sean to be flying fighter planes around and would seriously break the style of gameplay that Pandemic was going for. In Mercenaries, you are a one man army. In Saboteur, you are a saboteur. Stealth and relative subtlety is the focus. And I don't think the story is a step backwards. Is it as open-ended as in Mercs? No, but it has a lot more focus and character development.
The missions are already pretty varied and fit well with the story.
But they could be so much better. Imagine if every mission were as well developed as the kind of missions you see in more linear games.
Mercenaries 2's story is serious and realistic. Dictators, coups, guerillas, mercenaries, and exploitative foreign corporations and governments are all par for the course in Venezuela and South America.
The themes may be serious but the style in which they are conveyed is not. The premise of the game is you wanting vengeance because some guy didn't pay you and shot you in the ass and nothing in the game is treated with much gravity. Just Cause 2 deals with essentially the same themes as Mercs 2 but again, the story itself and the way it is conveyed is anything but serious.
Being able to steal a disguise is the only deficiency in that area. The game already has stealth if you want to play that way.
Well, no, compared to games like Hitman, Thief and Splinter Cell, the stealth in Mercs 2 is an utter joke. Wasted opportunity.
The main difference is that in Merc 2 armed vehicles are more plentiful in the game, so they can be used more often. I never meleed in Merc 2 unless I was out of ammo because the explosive weapons like RPG's and the grenade launcher are so fun and effective.
That's the big differences between the two games. Merc 2 is much more of an over-the-top, blow-everything-up action game. Saboteur is much more subtle. Yeah, you blow stuff up but it usually requires sneaking around and sabotaging equipment rather than plowing a tank through a wall. Different games, different approaches to blowing stuff up.
Its story is more simplified from a morality standpoint, stereotypical, and incongrous.
I wouldn't say that the morality is simplified, since the protagonist is primarily motivated by revenge and the members of the Resistance aren't exactly portrayed as saints. If this were Medal of Honor or Call of Duty, then your claim would be valid because there is no moral ambiguity whatsoever in those games.
There's fewer factions, only one enemy, and no opportunity for betrayal or collaboration.
I'm not sure how many factions you could have in a WW2 setting. There were basically two sides.
You can only play as one character in the game even though the game contains several suitable protagonists.
The benefit of focusing on one character is that he is much more developed and the story revolves completely around on him and his backstory.
Vehicular combat is dimished, and there's no air or water combat.
You are not supposed to be a one man army. If you could fly around in a fighter plane, that would completely negate the stealth and platforming elements since flying would be the most efficient way to travel and destroy stuff. Water combat would be pretty useless, as the game doesn't take place on a tropical island and there's not enough water to justify water combat.
There's no co-op or other multiplayer modes.
I don't see how that's a negative. Not all games need multiplayer and Saboteur is a story-driven game with a heavy focus on Sean. Never did I feel that the game would have benefit from multiplayer. Conversely, Mercs is far less story-driven and the characters are shallow and completely interchangeable so it is well suited to multiplayer.
From everything you've said, it sounds like you wanted Mercs 3. Unfortunately, Saboteur was never meant to be Mercs 3. It's a different game with a different focus and a different style of gameplay. That doesn't make it worse than Mercs 2 because it's not supposed to be compared. It's equivalent to saying that Dragon Age sucks because it's not like Oblivion or vice versa.
This comment was edited on Apr 14, 2010, 05:27. |
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