The Expendables 2 Review

Despite endless shooting and explosions, The Expendables 2 is an absolute bore

Posted by Christian Sorrell on September 8, 2012 - 3:08pm EST

You would think for a game based on a film that story or character may be of some importance here. Sadly, that is not the case. While very little is mentioned overall regarding why the characters are actually doing what they are doing (killing thousands upon thousands of people), I was able to glean that the Expendables are trying to track down a hostage that they have been offered one million dollars to rescue. Tracking down this hostage leads the characters across a number of similar looking generic “bad” countries, places like Somalia for example.

For a movie (and game) that relies almost solely on the number of big name actors and action stars in it, the game does a very poor job of leveraging any of the iconic cast members. Only Terry Crews and Dolph Lundgren actually did their voice acting, and there is so little of it, it doesn’t really matter. Sadly, Barney (Sylvester Stallone) has the most lines out of anyone. The Stallone impression being done by the voice actor is so bad that it is hardly even recognizable as an impression. Jet Li’s character Yin Yang speaks rarely which is good considering the faux voice acting for him comes across as someone doing their best Asian stereotype.

Across the campaign’s four chapters, there are a number of on-rails shooter sequences that are so flabbergastingly old-fashioned that the only thing my mind could relate them to was the dreadful Aerosmith-inspired lightgun game Revolution X which I played on the Sega Genesis as a child. Playing it without a lightgun was a terrible and inaccurate experience that led to either extreme frustration or ultimate apathy depending on the difficulty of the level, and the exact same thing is true here. Using either of the analog sticks on the controller, the player moves a crosshair around the screen and fires at enemies with either a machine gun or rocket launcher. When playing online with other players, you only see your own crosshair, bullets, and rockets. As such, things are exploding and dying for seemingly no reason. These are clearly the worst moments in an already not-good game and why they felt the need to include them at all is beyond me. Even worse, the game’s grand finale is one of these on-rails sequences. It’s just baffling.

The Expendables 2 is a dreadfully boring and absolutely frustrating gaming experience. Between killing literally hundreds, if not thousands, of cookie cutter henchmen, getting one shot killed by some enemies seemingly at random to being impervious to the vast majority of gunfire in the game and the awkward, slow controls, I found myself wanting to rush through each level as quickly as possible (since so many areas seem to spawn enemies infinitely until you just run past or complete an unclear objective). On the off chance the entire team would go down and the mission would be failed, it was rarely from my own mistakes but rather from my AI companions glitching out, taking damage despite being hidden behind cover or any number of other gameplay inconsistencies or failings.

When all was said and done, The Expendables 2 took only about four hours to complete and a grueling four hours it was. The design seems to be shooting for replayability but I can see little reason (or desire) to ever visit this one again.