The Expendables 2 Videogame

The Expendables 2 Videogame is a 2012 top-down twin-stick shooter developed by Ubisoft Shanghai and published by Ubisoft, released as a downloadable title on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. A tie-in to the star-studded action film The Expendables 2, and serving as a narrative prequel to the movie, it lets up to four players take control of the mercenary team's members, including characters voiced in the spirit of stars like Sylvester Stallone's Barney Ross, Jason Statham's Lee Christmas and Terry Crews's Hale Caesar, on a cooperative rescue mission packed with the franchise's over-the-top, throwback action. Gameplay centres on four-player co-op, with each character bringing distinct weapons and abilities as players blast through waves of enemies across linear levels, emphasising teamwork, big guns and explosive set pieces in keeping with the films' homage to 1980s action cinema. Critical reception was poor; reviewers found it a repetitive, technically rough and uninspired licensed cash-in that squandered its co-op premise and star-studded source material. The Expendables 2 Videogame is remembered as a forgettable movie tie-in, of marginal interest chiefly to fans of the film series seeking a brief burst of co-operative, nostalgia-tinged action. It joined the long list of forgettable movie tie-ins that traded on a film's brand rather than its own merits.