Reuters speculates that tomorrow's release of Mercenaries 2: World in Flames will renew past controversies surrounding the game's setting in Venezuela. From Reuters:

A video game depicting mercenaries storming Venezuela, which has been criticized in the oil-rich South American country as a blueprint for an invasion, will be released by a U.S. company this weekend.

 

The release is likely to anger allies of President Hugo Chavez, a Washington foe, who has in the past threatened to cut off oil exports to the United States.

However, as GamePolitics has previously reported, developer Pandemic made changes to the long overdue Mercs 2 in an apparent effort to appease Venezuelan concerns. EA spokesman Jeff Brown downplayed the political impact of the game:

All the controversy around this is kind of comical. At the end of the day you have to remind yourself it's a damned video game.

In 2007, an international group of religious leaders petitioned Bono, a Pandemic investor, to make the game less menacing to Venezuelans.

An EA press release for Mercs 2 touts the game's "massive, fully destructible Venezuela."

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