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Multiplayer

While Mercenaries 2 does not feature standard multiplayer modes for deathmatch and team play, it does offer cooperative gameplay. In this mode, players may simply drop into another player's game and assist during their campaign. In the options menu, the ability open your game up to a single joiner exists for those who desire an experience with friendly banter and twice the destruction. Those who want to jump into another player's game can use the same menu to search for an open game in progress and then dive right in. While choices to add supplies and order air strikes are limited to the host player, any cash and Achievements (Xbox LIVE) gained by the joining party during co-op play will carry over to that player's campaign upon their return. Though limited to two players online with no split-screen option for local play, the co-op experience is where the game shines its brightest.

During my time with Mercenaries 2, I was able to try out co-op play on three of the game's four available platforms, namely PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 (skipping the PS2 version). Of these, the most seamless experience was achieved via Xbox LIVE. While playing co-op on the PC version, I experienced segments of the game where the audio would cut in and out. Mind you, this was not the communication between the person whose game I joined and myself. Instead, the glitch belonged to the in-game audio. Despite these segments lasting no more than 4 or 5 seconds each, I did experience this in all three games I joined. Just the opposite, the issues I faced with the PlayStation 3 version left me without the ability to communicate with the other player. However, this is not the first time I have experienced this issue while playing online games via the PlayStation Network, so it would be tough to pin this issue to the game itself. In addition to the audio issues, servers with noticeable lag time plagued both PC and PS3 platforms in at least one out of the three co-op games I played on each. While experiences may vary from player to player among the three platforms, all three games I joined while playing the Xbox 360 version of the game provided a bug-free experience with absolutely no issues save for the slow down periods that I'll address shortly. All in all, cooperative gameplay is a welcome addition and adds a little extra enjoyment over playing the game alone.

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