Amazing first impression thanks to a great vertical slice of an opening and a rousing soundtrack but ends up settling into something lesser than those early hours. The fundamentals here- the driving, the shooting, the world design- quickly reveal themselves to be mediocre (straining at serviceable) with the systemic flexibility being its saving grace and binding everything here together. With the exception of being unable to select some of the busted vehicles for delivery on some of the bigger setpiece missions, you’re free to utilize all the tools at your disposal to bust open the game, able to undercut the obvious intent of certain objectives by simply commandeering a helicopter to make a beeline to a target or avoiding incurring any faction penalty by stealthily destroying objectives- the embodiment of that one NakeyJakey video on that GTA III stretched out for an entire game.
Don’t have anything too cohesive to say, so an assortment of stray thoughts:
- Continually appreciated that air-lifting targets is an on-demand invitation for chaos: Simply killing and verifying anyone in the Deck of 52 isn’t much trouble, but the process of going for a non-lethal takedown, of finding a safe area to call in a helicopter, and then extracting the HVT is consistently tense. The chopper can get shot down, enemies can commandeer your vehicle, and there’s the chance that the target will still get killed in the process. Easily one of the best “moments” generators in the entire game.
- Stick with the Russian Mafia missions when possible, there's definite sense that they were authored with a better understanding of the systems at play. Where the other factions send you on generic missions to destroy X number of targets with few complications, the Mob will have you assassinating high-value targets from other factions and dealing with their internal politics, and is far better about throwing curveballs in with its secondary objectives. If the rest of the game was on this level, it’d be far easier to praise it as an underrated classic- the one set of missions that lives up to the title by asking you to do questionable things under unreasonable conditions.
- I played a ton of Mercenaries 2 as a kid and the ability to destroy buildings was a huge draw for me, so it was a little weird playing this, where so much of the action takes place on barren mountain sides and next to humble, single-story structures. The ability to destroy buildings is still appreciated, but lacks a lot of the raw catharsis you’d expect from something framed as a centerpiece mechanic- ends up being more of a tactile flourish in practice.
- Admire the general structural flexibility here as well, as once you complete the initial circuit of missions to get acquainted with the factions, you’re free to work your way to each of the four “Ace” contracts by either taking on missions with the various organizations to get more intel or just combing over the map to get at the scattered members of the Deck of 52. Your approach will inevitably be a combination of the two, but it’s cool to have the freedom to not engage with certain factions or have to be obliged to extract every single member in a suit.
- Forgot there was a time when an open-world was divided up into multiple zones instead of being a single gargantuan one. The game is split into two maps, the first of which ends up being a real pain to navigate, with lots of dead-ends and a lack of easy access to helicopters making your trips between the various HQ’s feel like genuine commutes. Second map is a lot better to navigate, thanks to some more thoughtful road design, but there’s still stretches where your eyes are going to glaze over as you get from A to B. (and in the process, is a great reminder at how load-bearing the radio stations are in the GTA games)
- As with so many game economies, eventually reached a point where money stopped mattering, functionally being able to call in whatever I’d need for a particular mission, and more than enough to bribe officials to get back into the graces of a given faction. Still nice as something to latch onto as a metric for your success, but it’s an element that could’ve been greatly expanded on, with more expenditures to sap from your war chest and less support from your allies- the gear they supply you with at the beginning of missions feeling especially unnecessary given that so many objectives can be beaten with some salvaged explosives and a commandeered tank.
Still, better than most other open-world titles: equal parts a pleasantly-boring podcast game and a genuinely great sandbox, and a reminder that, with a playthrough took a little under ten hours, this genre doesn't have to be a life-consuming timesink. Ended up being weirdly compelled by it, and I’m still tempted to go back- while the different factions and character choices aren’t drastically different from each other, they speak to a better understanding of the chaos and player freedom that should be the main draw of this style of game.
Don’t have anything too cohesive to say, so an assortment of stray thoughts:
- Continually appreciated that air-lifting targets is an on-demand invitation for chaos: Simply killing and verifying anyone in the Deck of 52 isn’t much trouble, but the process of going for a non-lethal takedown, of finding a safe area to call in a helicopter, and then extracting the HVT is consistently tense. The chopper can get shot down, enemies can commandeer your vehicle, and there’s the chance that the target will still get killed in the process. Easily one of the best “moments” generators in the entire game.
- Stick with the Russian Mafia missions when possible, there's definite sense that they were authored with a better understanding of the systems at play. Where the other factions send you on generic missions to destroy X number of targets with few complications, the Mob will have you assassinating high-value targets from other factions and dealing with their internal politics, and is far better about throwing curveballs in with its secondary objectives. If the rest of the game was on this level, it’d be far easier to praise it as an underrated classic- the one set of missions that lives up to the title by asking you to do questionable things under unreasonable conditions.
- I played a ton of Mercenaries 2 as a kid and the ability to destroy buildings was a huge draw for me, so it was a little weird playing this, where so much of the action takes place on barren mountain sides and next to humble, single-story structures. The ability to destroy buildings is still appreciated, but lacks a lot of the raw catharsis you’d expect from something framed as a centerpiece mechanic- ends up being more of a tactile flourish in practice.
- Admire the general structural flexibility here as well, as once you complete the initial circuit of missions to get acquainted with the factions, you’re free to work your way to each of the four “Ace” contracts by either taking on missions with the various organizations to get more intel or just combing over the map to get at the scattered members of the Deck of 52. Your approach will inevitably be a combination of the two, but it’s cool to have the freedom to not engage with certain factions or have to be obliged to extract every single member in a suit.
- Forgot there was a time when an open-world was divided up into multiple zones instead of being a single gargantuan one. The game is split into two maps, the first of which ends up being a real pain to navigate, with lots of dead-ends and a lack of easy access to helicopters making your trips between the various HQ’s feel like genuine commutes. Second map is a lot better to navigate, thanks to some more thoughtful road design, but there’s still stretches where your eyes are going to glaze over as you get from A to B. (and in the process, is a great reminder at how load-bearing the radio stations are in the GTA games)
- As with so many game economies, eventually reached a point where money stopped mattering, functionally being able to call in whatever I’d need for a particular mission, and more than enough to bribe officials to get back into the graces of a given faction. Still nice as something to latch onto as a metric for your success, but it’s an element that could’ve been greatly expanded on, with more expenditures to sap from your war chest and less support from your allies- the gear they supply you with at the beginning of missions feeling especially unnecessary given that so many objectives can be beaten with some salvaged explosives and a commandeered tank.
Still, better than most other open-world titles: equal parts a pleasantly-boring podcast game and a genuinely great sandbox, and a reminder that, with a playthrough took a little under ten hours, this genre doesn't have to be a life-consuming timesink. Ended up being weirdly compelled by it, and I’m still tempted to go back- while the different factions and character choices aren’t drastically different from each other, they speak to a better understanding of the chaos and player freedom that should be the main draw of this style of game.