An organization by the name of Venezuela Solidarity Network is on a mission to collect appeals from the great religious leaders of the world. Their purpose is to hand over the appeals to U2´s lead singer Bono, in the hopes of persuading him to prevent Mercenaries 2: World in Flames from being released. Bono´s Elevation Partners investment company acted as a financer in the recent BioWare/Pandemic merger making Bono one of the owners of Pandemic, the corporation in charge of developing Mercenaries 2.
Mercenaries 2 is based on an imaginary Venezuela where a power-hungry tyrant has taken over the oil industry. The player acting as a mercenary will have to, staying true to the series, inflict exaggerated damage and chaos to get rid of the evil tyrant and his minions. According to the VSN, however, this so called imaginary Venezuela resembles the real country too much. VSN are also worried that Pandemic has in the past been under contract with the Pentagon, developing training videos for CIA operatives and U.S. Special Forces. They say that the fear of USA starting a war in the hopes of getting their oil is present in real life as well.
Pandemic´s own Josh Resnick said to Gamespot that: ”While we´re flattered that people think Mercenaries 2 is a commentary on the real world, it is just a video game — and as they say in the movies, all characters and events are purely fiction. Our setting provides gamers with the overall look and feel of Venezuela, although it is not an accurate street by street depiction and the characters as well as the storyline are completely made up. More to the point, the characters are categorically not based on any real political figures in Venezuela or elsewhere.”
Pleas will, however, be left until the 31st of March, after which they (PDF) will be taken to Bono. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is due for a release this year on Xbox360, PC, PS2, and PS3.