Mercenary Kings

Gamer Bhoy 89

Did anyone else give this a go? I played it for about 10 minutes and I just ended up saying "meh" at the end of it. I think the subtle references to older games is clever, though. I noticed when you hit 'reload' there's an "active reload" bar that appears á la Gears of War, and also a codec-like screen similar to that of the Metal Gear games.

Other than those, the gameplay is pretty much the same as the Metal Slug series (I think that's what they were going for).

I might try it again later on tonight if I can be arsed. What did everyone else think of it?

lertsnim

Played it for only a few minutes. Liked it though and will play again after the Champions League

COYVB

thought it was pretty poor myself. only gave it like 20 minutes though

johnny_ultimate

On the PS4 anyway, it's a pretty poor effort. Alarm bells triggered when I saw a twenty minute time limit for missions. When I actually played it, I found that was twenty minutes of navigating a poorly laid out map, backtracking and ridiculous respawning enemies (you leave the screen even by a few pixels and the little ****s are back!). It makes exploration, which the designers clearly seem to be encouraging, an absolute pain in the arse.

In directly homaging and even trying to emulate Metal Slug, it simply highlights how sluggish and dull the combat is in comparison. It's trying to mix RPG and arcade action mechanics, but they're unwelcome bedfellows at least in the early days. The game should be fast paced and offer more immediate upgrades and rewards. Instead, you have to grind yourself through said 20 minute long subquests just to get some basic resources and in-game currency rewards.

Adding insult to injury is the loading time. For a game with a basic graphical style, having it interrupted by lengthy screens is borderline gamebreaking at times. It's a poorly optimised port on first impressions.

lertsnim

Not happy with it

richymcdermott

Gave up with it after 5 mins

RasTa

Boring

Will I Amnt

Won't even bother downloading it after reading all the complaints. Didn't download last months free game either, PS plus has been a bit if a let down on PS4 so far.

Gonzo

most dissapointing free ps4 game since let's starve, Resogun and Dead Nation are little gems. Hopefully next month will be an improvement.

johnny_ultimate

Will I Amnt wrote: »

PS plus has been a bit if a let down on PS4 so far.

Not really sure what you expect? Sony don't exactly have the luxury of a large and diverse back catalogue to work with yet As I've said in the PS forum a couple of times, kudos to them that we're getting anything at all, let alone a newly released PS4 game every month alongside the PS3 / Vita games. They're going to be a slave to release schedules until say 12-18 months time where they'll have a larger and hopefully more diverse back catalogue to choose titles from. The PS4 is far from the first console to suffer from a software light release year.

And anyway, Resogun was a great welcome 'gift', and Don't Starve / Outlast are very strong titles (even if you don't like them, they're hardly bad games!). Also have a bit of a soft spot for the flawed but intriguing Contrast. Dead Nation I never liked, so Mercenary Kings is the only real disappointment so far. I'm willing to give it another chance as I get the impression it improves later on, but boy the first hour is a real slog so it's the developers' fault if they lose players along the way.

Will I Amnt

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Not really sure what you expect? Sony don't exactly have the luxury of a large and diverse back catalogue to work with yet As I've said in the PS forum a couple of times, kudos to them that we're getting anything at all, let alone a newly released PS4 game every month alongside the PS3 / Vita games. They're going to be a slave to release schedules until say 12-18 months time where they'll have a larger and hopefully more diverse back catalogue to choose titles from. The PS4 is far from the first console to suffer from a software light release year.

And anyway, Resogun was a great welcome 'gift', and Don't Starve / Outlast are very strong titles (even if you don't like them, they're hardly bad games!). Also have a bit of a soft spot for the flawed but intriguing Contrast. Dead Nation I never liked, so Mercenary Kings is the only real disappointment so far. I'm willing to give it another chance as I get the impression it improves later on, but boy the first hour is a real slog so it's the developers' fault if they lose players along the way.

I know there's not much that they can offer but out of everything so far, Contrast was the only one I enjoyed at all tbh.
I'm not feeling hard done by or anything, just disappointed there hasn't been anything to interest me personally.

lertsnim

Resogun was one of the best games I've played in the last 12 months. Great to have gotten that with PS+

um7y1h83ge06nx

Hmm, it's not great.

I think imitating the Metal Slug art style was a bad idea as people expected it to play like it as well.

PS Plus on the PS4 is alright, just about. I liked Resogun, Contrast and Outlast. Dead Nation is okay, Don't Starve is a little boring and this is not good.

I bought a Vita two months ago and delighted with PS Plus for that.

It will improve though as others have said.