Mercenaries: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|
'''Chris:''' ...Fiona? [[I Am the Trope|I
'''''Mercenaries''''' can basically be described as ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' [[X Meets Y|meets]] [[Stuff Blowing Up]] with lots of [[Deadpan Snarker]]s. Okay, that's a bit simplistic.
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For mercenaries in general, see the [[Hired Guns]] index.
----
{{quote|
''Payback is a coming, you will be running, forever! }}
'''The primary cast of Mercenaries:'''
* Mattias Nilsson: In the first game, a cold motherfucker who shows very little emotion while slaughtering hundreds. In the sequel, he had a bit of [[Flanderization]] and turned into the [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath]] to end them all. A Swede with a Mohawk and handlebar mustache who seems to dedicate his every waking moment to bigger and bigger explosions and just generally raising hell. In the original, he was faster than the other mercs - in the sequel, he regenerates faster. Voiced by [[Peter Stormare]].
* Jennifer Mui: A sleek British lady who enjoys money, luxurious bubble baths, money, fine wine, money, fast cars, [[Department of Redundancy Department|money]], snapping necks, and [[Overly Long Gag|money]]. Specializes in stealth in the original, speed in the sequel. Voiced by [[Jennifer Hale]].
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* Fiona Taylor: The [[Voice with an Internet Connection]] who provides backup, intel, and running commentary for the mercenaries' adventures. Manages to avoid being a [[Ninja Butterfly]] by being just as snarky as the rest of the heroes. Voiced by Amy Lee in the first game and India Dupré in the second.
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{{quote|
'''Until I get my vengeance, I will never end this mayhem! }}
{{tropelist}}
* [[Action Girl]]: Jennifer
* [[AKA-47]]: Used on and off in both games.
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* [[Bond One-Liner]]: Frequently used by all mercs in the sequel, ranging from "You picked the wrong side!", used when killing Venezuelan troops (of both the [[La Résistance|People's Liberation Army]] and the [[Mooks|government army]]) to "Good thing the Americans don't keep a body count." when killing [[Eagle Land|Allied Nations]] personnel.
** Not to mention at the end:
{{quote|
{{spoiler|'''Solano''': What is it you want? You want money? That's what you've always wanted, right? You want me to pay, isn't that it? You want me to pay?!}}
{{spoiler|'''Player Merc''': Yeah. ''* BANG* '' Payday.}} }}
* [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]]: Mischa, the jet pilot from the sequel is passed out drunk when he's not destroying the hell out of something. In a jet that's apparently held together by baling wire and duct tape.
* [[Car Fu]]: A perfectly viable method of dealing with emplaced weapons.
* [[Casanova Wannabe]]: Ewan, the helicopter pilot from the sequel, claims to have a great track record with the ladies.
* [[Chinese With Chopper Support]]: Both in the first and second game, and usually have cheaper and somewhat shoddier airstrikes and vehicles.
* [[Chunky Salsa Rule]]: In the first game, getting hit by a car going at full speed is usually a death sentence, regardless of how much health you have.
* [[CIA Evil, FBI Good|CIA Evil]]: Well, "CIA morally grey" is more like it. In the first game, the South Koreans were being "advised" by burned out CIA Agent Buford, who by the end of the game wanted you to take out the Chinese Army more than he wanted you to take out the North Korean threat. In the sequel, CIA Agent Joyce is calling the shots for the Allies, and is a lot colder and less likeable than General Peng, and is only in it for the oil. {{spoiler|He even attempts to back out of the deal to give you a nuke if you side with the Allies at the end of the game}}.
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* [[Drunken Master]]: Misha, the jet pilot in the second game. He flies better than just about everyone else in the country, ''as long as he's completely wasted while he does it''. It's implied that he can't fly for shit while sober, although there's no way to confirm this due to the fact that he keeps himself totally drunk for the entire game.
* [[Dynamic Entry]]: In the first game, you start off by driving your Humvee out of an ''airborne'' C-17 Globemaster, and making a beeline to Allied HQ through NK barricades.
* [[Dysfunctional Family]]: Even in the first game, Jennifer Mui was said to have come from a broken home, but [[Expansion Pack Past|it's built up later]]. {{spoiler|In the comic, it's revealed that her father had a son from a teenage affair, whom he put up for adoption to hide the fact. Said child was bounced from orphanage to orphanage and eventually joined the Chinese Army (in fact, he's [[Big Bad|Colonel Li Zhiyaun]]). When he grew up, he confronted his father (who by that time married and had more children and success), and resented the easier life Jen and her ''other'' brother, David, had ([[Parental Favoritism|dear ol' dad kept them and refused to acknowledge Li Zhiyaun]]). During the events of the comic, he kidnaps Fiona in an attempt to have the mercenaries kill off David Mui, who's leading the Taiwanese insurgency. The Mercenaries come up with a plan to rescue her, but David, believing that he was being betrayed, screws up
* [[Eagle Land]]: In the first game, the United States-led Allied Nations are attempting to stabilize the situation and end a legitimate threat (Type I). In the sequel, the Allied Nations are just there for the oil (Type II). In both games, they tend to have very good high-level weaponry.
* [[Every Car Is a Pinto|Everything Is A Pinto]]: Pour enough bullets into it, and everything from a car, to a helicopter, to a boat will [[Incendiary Exponent|catch fire]] and quickly [[Stuff Blowing Up|explode]].
* [[Expy]]: UP's mercenaries are almost dead-ringers for the real-life PMC Blackwater, with some elements of Executive Outcomes thrown in. Their heavily-armored black-painted SUVs to their black-painted helicopters (which look almost ''exactly'' like the OH-6 helicopters Blackwater use) and some of the missions (one even involves escorting VIPs to safe areas from the airport - one of Blackwater's main functions in Iraq) match what Blackwater does right now, and the availability of light armor and air power, coupled with their focus on protecting natural resources owned and exploited by a parent company, matches what Executive Outcomes did in Africa. It doesn't help that ExOps, the mercenary company you work for in the first game, was based on Executive Outcomes.
* [[Finagle's Law]]: In the first game, every time -- '''''EVERY SINGLE TIME''''' -- a mission requires you to get somewhere quickly and/or with as little damage as possible, the shortest possible route will be full of warring soldiers, trigger-happy tanks, and exploding cars.
** Unless you [[Take a Third Option|take a chopper.]]
* [[Foreign Language Tirade]]: In the sequel, Matthias will sometimes curse in Swedish after losing one of Fiona's challenges, complete with the subtitle "[Curses in Swedish]"
* [[Fragile Speedster]]: Jennifer, but this is relative to the other mercs - she can still take a few RPGs to the face and stay in the fight.
* [[Game Breaking Bug]]: The sequel had a number of areas that could've used more playtesting; one notable example is in a mission where you have to rescue a hostage held on top of a skyscraper. Oftentimes, as soon as the player enters the hostage's line of sight, the hostage will run towards them. Even if they're in a helicopter, and running towards them leads the hostage off of the skyscraper.
** When you're in a particularly desperate spot, sometimes the game will simply jam your HP at 10 and refuse to register any further hits on the player. Even worse, you'll be permanently subjected to the 'concussion' [[Interface Screw]] effects of a pulsing screen and a 'wub wub wub wub wub' noise.
** After March 17, the sequel no longer plays if you have an internet connection. This is true on [[
* [[Genre Savvy]]: By the second game, nearly everyone is aware that ''you'' are the person to turn to to pull off impossible tasks that no one person would ever be sane enough to do. The enemies are also [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]]; while fighting the Chinese, for example, the troops calling for reinforcements will outright say that they ''need'' armor support, because you ''will'' wipe out their infantry. Also, General Carmona waits until {{spoiler|you're trying to take out Solano before he attacks the PMC.}}
* [[Grappling Hook Pistol]]: Added to the mercs' bag of tricks in ''World in Flames''.
* [[
* [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]]: Well, not ''really'' intentionally. This troper ran into a crazy bug that caused all enemies, for all their gunfire, to be unable to actually ''hit'' the broad side of a barn door, much less Jennifer Mui. It took a couple hours for me to notice, and more than one Xbox 360 restart to make it go away, after which the game [[Difficulty Spike|became nigh unplayable on that save]].
** The enemy ground soldiers in the first game were pretty much piss poor shots, their bullets more than often going all over the place except for my merc. Their tank drivers, on the other hand, must have been freaking snipers for all the times the North Koreans blew me up while I was driving by...
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* [[La Résistance]]: The People's Liberation Army of Venezuela, or P.L.A.V., in the second game.
* [[Lady of War]]: Jennifer and Fiona.
* [[Lost Forever]]: In the first game, accepting an Ace contract forfeits all the unverified bounties of the same suit. (As well as the rather awesome [[
** One mission from late the first game has you {{spoiler|destroying the bridge connecting to the Chinese HQ in the northern map}}, thus rendering any optional races to and from the Chinese HQ impossible.
* [[Lyrical Dissonance]]: "Oh No, You Didn't", the song from an ad for the second game. It's a song that sounds like something from a musical about the singers wreaking havoc after getting shot in the ass by Solano.
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* [[Private Military Contractors]]: The player characters. In the original, they worked for an elite military corporation called ExOps, while in the sequel, they've decided to work freelance.
** In the second game, the people serving as security for the Universal Petroleum Corporation are said to be working for a much more low-rent PMC.
* [[Punch Clock Villain]]: With the exception of the pirates in the second game, ''everyone'' you fight is one of these. The VZ troops under Solano believe they're fighting to protect their land against invaders, and ditto for the PLAV. The UP mercenaries make it quite clear they're just there as security for the company, and both the AN and PLA troops are there to secure the country and gain access to the oil reserves for their nation(s).
* [[Qurac]]: Notably averted - The first game takes place in suburban/rural North Korea, and the second in tropical Venezuela.
* [[Red China]]
* [[Retcon]]: The mercs' origins received some slight tweaks between games. In the original, Jennifer comes from an affluent family where her parents were too busy to pay her any attention. In the sequel, the formative event of her youth was being evicted and forced to live out of their car for some time.
** In the first game, the Chinese General is calm, dislikes the Player, and looks like a
*** The reason Peng is happy to see the player is because the player helped them get a promotion thanks to their work in the first game. They don't explain why he looks and acts completely differently.
* [[The Revolution Will Not Be Villified]]: The [[La Résistance|PLAV]], who treats the mercs as saviors if you work with them. Somewhat subverted in that they're only in it for revenge.▼
* [[Road Cone]]: Obviously, the game changes ever so slightly depending on which merc you use; however, the backstory for the second game shows that Chris is the one who took down Song according to the storyline.
* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: In the sequel, the [[Big Bad]], Ramon Solano, screws the player character out of their paycheck and tries to have them killed... and shot them in the ass. The way things ended, Ramon should've just handed over the money.
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** Something worth noting is that being on best terms with the Mob in the first game also reduces shop prices at the Merchant of Menace. Besides, Yosef is a cool guy. His [[Obfuscating Stupidity|stupid boss]], not so much.
* [[Shot in the Ass]]: The ''entire reason'' for the plot of the second game - "First you try to trap me, then you put a cap in my ass!", as "Oh No You Didn't" put it.
* [[Shout-Out]]: The first game featured several to Star Wars and Indiana Jones, as it was published by [[
** You ''could play'' as Indy or Han Solo by means of cheats, given to you by way of [[Scavenger Hunt]].
** The [[Bragging Rights Reward|achievements]] in ''World In Flames'' are all references to hard rock or heavy metal songs.
** Mattias' ''World In Flames'' redesign is a homage to ''Technoviking''.
** Several of the special items (treasures/WMDs in 1, vehicle components in 2) in both games were either
** When Misha is dropping a cluster bomb, he mentions that [[Zero Wing|they have no chance to survive.]]
* [[
* [[Sociopathic Hero]]: Mattias Nilsson, and to a lesser extent the rest of the mercs.
* [[South Koreans With Marines]]: The South Korean army in the first game. They specialized in stealth, hit and run tactics, and had some of the more high-tech gear.
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* [[Stop Helping Me!]]: In the second game, Fiona can approach this, if you decide to wander around aimlessly without really doing anything.
** Coming too close to even a friendly faction commander will cause him to negate that disguise, sometimes at inopportune times.
* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: You can blow up <s>almost</s> anything. ''Anything''. Indeed,the first game was advertised as such: "Blow stuff up." *BOOM* "Then blow the hell out of it again." *BABOOM* "Then blow it up some more!" *KRAKOOM*
** In the first game, trees were indestructible. In the second, you can blow up EVERYTHING. In fact, the DLC trailer shows that you can destroy that oil rig... after a while.
** There are about three or four oil rigs, in fact. You get to blow up ''at least'' one of them, maybe two if you do the right mission and don't mind pissing Joyce off.
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* [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]]: Sure, you could just run up and shoot the guy, but ordering a laser-guided airstrike to flatten the city block he's in is much more fun.
** Using the Portable Airstrike against a North Korean horde. BAM. That area ''will'' have no buildings standing afterwards.
▲* [[The Revolution Will Not Be Villified]]: The [[La Résistance|PLAV]], who treats the mercs as saviors if you work with them. Somewhat subverted in that they're only in it for revenge.
* [[Turncoat]]: Sergei, the Russian mob boss from the first game, eventually tries to have both the player and his second-in-command, Josef, killed off by the North Koreans. He fails, and the final series of missions for the Russian mob involve Josef sending you out to clean house, so to speak, and defends against the NK troops aiding Sergei.
* [[Universal Driver's License]]: Possibly justified given the Mercs' extensive military backgrounds.
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* [[Voice with an Internet Connection]]: Fiona.
** And she has skillz. Yes, with a ''zed''. In her own words.
* [[Walk It Off]]:
* [[Weaponized Car]]: In ''Mercs 2'', your PMC mechanic, Eva Navarro, is able to produce custom cars, boats, and motorcycles if you collect boxes of random parts strewn across Venezuela. Most are basically civilian vehicles. With ridiculous firepower.
** And one of them is a motorbike. [[Awesome but Impractical|A tracked motorbike. With two gatlings.]]
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** The ''player'' can end up doing this to factions once their stream of missions end up drying up in the approach to the endgame.
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I'm a mercenary, you ain't got a prayer, you owe ''meeeeeeee''! }}
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