Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates, Video Games | Tagged: entertainment, Mercenary Kings, Tribute Games, video games

Call To Arms: Mercenary Kings Are Here

Published Wed, 09 Apr 2014 23:30:00 -0500

By Etienne Dubuc

Montreal is really seen as a major video games city nowadays. Triple AAA games are being made by Ubisoft, Warner Brothers, Eidos in their studios. That strong presence of the major studios also brings the creation of many smaller independent studios that are run by ex-employees of the bigger ones. Tribute Games is one of them and just delivered their second game to the world : Mercenary Kings. It's available for PS4, for free in April for PS+ subscribers, Mac and PC from Steam.

Jump, shoot, roll, shoot, reload, dodge, shoot, run, etc. That group of words, in any order you'd like, describes Mercenary Kings in a heartbeat. It's a run and gun game inspired by retro games such as Metal Slug and Contra with pixel art graphics to support the whole retro feel. Tribute also gave their game a pretty modern twist with the possibility of crafting your guns the way you want them.

So as you gun down the villains populating the maps, you will be able to collect a large amount of materials. Once the mission is over and you are back at camp, those materials can be use to craft new add-ons to your firearm. More power, more accuracy more ammo, all those and other features are just a few extra materials away.

Collecting materials is evidently not the actual main goal of Mercenary Kings. There are many types of missions, among the 100 you will be able to do to complete the game in its entirety. Rescue, gathering, elimination: everything is on the menu at some point. One aspect of the mission that really ties the game with its retro roots is the fact that you have to complete it before a timer runs out. Do not fear, timers are from twelve to twenty minutes and most of the time if you do not get distracted by a collecting frenzy, you should have more then enough time to complete your objectives. In fact, the timer pushed me to get on with the objectives more then once, because I was just running around gunning enemies.

The maps, which are all pretty heavy on the platforming side, are also pretty big. Meaning that you do have a lot of space to get lost searching for that last sniper that you are meant to eliminate. Although missions do seem pretty easy at first, the challenge can actually come from finding the exact material or enemy you are looking for. This factor never gets too in the way with the use of the mini map at your disposal.

As far as difficulty goes, be prepare to die quite often. Without the game being extremely difficult, your character doesn't have that much health and the action can get pretty tricking some times as there is a quite large number of villains in the maps. Another tricky part is that those baddies respawn quite fast, so you kill them and run a little farther and comeback to actually see the minion back on his feet ready to come at you again. This part is good for the gatherers among you, but will also be a pain in other situations when you are low on health and are just looking to finish the mission ASAP.

The game as been created with a multiplayer aspect as the lead component. This is where the game finds most of its footing, creating a squad of four mercenary to take on the missions is really a lot of fun. Playing in single player mode is also to be appreciated but you might find the game a bit repetitive after a few missions.

If you're playing on Mac or PC, I recommend that you use a controller to get the maximum of Mercenary Kings as the gameplay is built with it in mind. Keyboard controls are possible and functions well, but you'll probably end up having a bit more difficulty than with a controller.

To round this off, if you are a fan of old school run and gun games you should definitely check out this second offering from Tribute Games. Even if you are not big on newer games, this one will most likely hit the right note for you. If you're on PS4 and want a nice multiplayer game that you can play with friends all sitting on the same couch, this is what you are looking for.

Etienne Dubuc is the host of a French radioshow called « Les geeks ont raison » and program directo fo CISM 89,3FM in Montreal. You can follow him @geeksontraison

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