If you are a staunch PC gamer who's never owned a console, a single question may be entering your mind as you read this. What the heck is Mercenaries 2? This is a legitimate question being that the game is a sequel to a title that was never released on the PC platform. Even so, you may be familiar with its developer, Pandemic Studios, whose accolades include Full Spectrum Warrior and the Star Wars Battlefront series. Pandemic also takes the credit for Destroy All Humans!, but has ended their involvement with the popular series in order to bring us The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, an action/adventure title spun from Tolkien's books due for release on PC and consoles this November.

To clue in the unfamiliar, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction was a noteworthy console title when it was released on the original Xbox and PlayStation 2 in early 2005. The game is best described as a war torn Grand Theft Auto. Like many games that took on the sandbox style of gameplay made famous by the series, Mercenaries aimed to take it a step further, touting gamers' ability to "go anywhere, destroy anything, and blow the crap out of everything" right on the box. Following suit, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames continues its claim to no-holds-barred destruction, this time with a PC version to accompany those for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 2.

Game Overview

Upon starting the game for the first time, players have a choice between three returning characters, each with a short bio about their military history. Despite the differences in the characters' physical appearance and gender, the experience remains the same regardless of which mercenary you choose. Mercenaries 2 takes place in sunny Venezuela, a change up from the previous game's dreary North Korean locale. As the story unfolds, players are introduced to the game's main plot and pivotal characters by means of a brief cutscene. The scene takes place as your mercenary approaches a crooked politician with plans to take over the country. Hoping to collect the cash for services rendered, things go awry as your employer turns his hired guns on you in an attempt to take you out of the picture. Luckily, your character makes it out alive with only a shot in the butt to show for your efforts.

At this time, players get a moment to become familiar with the basic controls in a tutorial sequence that serves as the game's initial objective, which consists of securing a nearby mansion to serve as your team's headquarters. After killing a few bad guys and taking a jaguar tank for a spin, the first mission is complete. From here, your reconnaissance gal pal sends you out into the field to take on missions that will lend themselves to the eventual destruction of your betrayer.

As expected in a GTA style sandbox game, the playing field is quite large. At first, only a small section of the map is available. However, the playable area opens up fairly quickly as each new mission requires travel to new locations on the map. While free roaming is definitely one of the game's selling points, there really isn't much to see outside the areas you'll be directed to while completing your objectives. With this realization, free roaming will most likely be limited to taking whatever path provides the quickest route to the next objective. While there are few impediments to your ability to roam around the game world, the desire to stray from the beaten path is virtually nonexistent. Traveling long distances to reach your destinations can be quite tiresome, but thankfully your team will acquire a helicopter pilot early in the game who'll transport you instantly from point A to point B.

Contractual Obligations

As you progress through the game, your mercenary will encounter several rival factions, all with jobs for the taking. Mercenaries 2 is all about the cash you'll get for completing your objectives and the factions have a lot of it. Much like in GTA4, keeping these factions in your good graces will prove to be extremely lucrative. With each new mission you complete, additional supplies become available to you. However, since many of these missions involve damage to the other factions, maintaining a balance can be quite difficult. Even so, making amends with those who turn against you is as easy as completing another mission for them.

Mission styles in the game are surprisingly limited. The bulk of them consist of capturing enemy outposts in order to gain territory for the factions who employ your merc. However, the game does make an attempt to break up the monotony by offering a few alternatives, such as escort missions, racing challenges, and other outlying side quests. Capturing outposts is a fairly simple task early on. Players simply arrive at the targeted destination and take on enemy stronghold that occupies it, then call in a strike team to enter and capture the main structure within. While this can be done by running and gunning alone, additional supplies that can be purchased at captured outposts will prove to be worthy assets.

Gameplay

The use of the various supplies you'll acquire in the game is what sets Mercenaries 2 apart from other similarly played action titles. As mentioned before, captured outposts become a marketplace for stocking up on various tools of destruction. Dependent upon the cash your merc has accrued from previously completed missions, additional resources in the form of supply drops will be available. These little helpers from above include vehicles, C4 kits, guns, ammunition, and health kits. Coupled with the ability to jack cars, motorcycles, tanks, watercraft, and even helicopters, there are numerous aids to allow you to complete your objectives successfully.

Capturing outposts are not just a way to spend your money. It's also a great way to rake in the cash as most contain pallets stacked with cash that you can add to your stash by calling your helicopter pilot to come and airlift them back to your HQ. You can do the same with fuel tanks you'll come across. Keeping a good supply of fuel on hand at all times allows your pilot to stay in the air, providing air support and transporting your merc from one outpost to the next. In addition, you'll gain support by earning airstrikes that can reduce buildings and other structures that hinder your path to rubble.

The free roaming element in Mercenaries 2 is a lot of fun and keeps things fresh, allowing players to approach their missions any way they see fit. Players may choose to drive a vehicle through the gates of a compound, hopping out as it crashes into several approaching gunmen; alternately, they can just hang back and make good use of the sniper rifle. Unfortunately, as mentioned there's really not much in the game to spark players' desire to travel around the see the sights in between missions. However, those who pine at the thought of simply running amuck and destroying their surroundings can do so as they see fit. While this is fun for a while, the ammunition that creates the biggest explosions costs money and your supplies can dwindle very fast. In addition, there is a penalty for killing civilians that can also drain the bank accounts of those with itchy trigger fingers. Still, destruction is the name of the game and destroying stuff just to see structures fall and enemies fly can be very satisfying.

Multiplayer

While Mercenaries 2 does not feature standard multiplayer modes for deathmatch and team play, it does offer cooperative gameplay. In this mode, players may simply drop into another player's game and assist during their campaign. In the options menu, the ability open your game up to a single joiner exists for those who desire an experience with friendly banter and twice the destruction. Those who want to jump into another player's game can use the same menu to search for an open game in progress and then dive right in. While choices to add supplies and order air strikes are limited to the host player, any cash and Achievements (Xbox LIVE) gained by the joining party during co-op play will carry over to that player's campaign upon their return. Though limited to two players online with no split-screen option for local play, the co-op experience is where the game shines its brightest.

During my time with Mercenaries 2, I was able to try out co-op play on three of the game's four available platforms, namely PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 (skipping the PS2 version). Of these, the most seamless experience was achieved via Xbox LIVE. While playing co-op on the PC version, I experienced segments of the game where the audio would cut in and out. Mind you, this was not the communication between the person whose game I joined and myself. Instead, the glitch belonged to the in-game audio. Despite these segments lasting no more than 4 or 5 seconds each, I did experience this in all three games I joined. Just the opposite, the issues I faced with the PlayStation 3 version left me without the ability to communicate with the other player. However, this is not the first time I have experienced this issue while playing online games via the PlayStation Network, so it would be tough to pin this issue to the game itself. In addition to the audio issues, servers with noticeable lag time plagued both PC and PS3 platforms in at least one out of the three co-op games I played on each. While experiences may vary from player to player among the three platforms, all three games I joined while playing the Xbox 360 version of the game provided a bug-free experience with absolutely no issues save for the slow down periods that I'll address shortly. All in all, cooperative gameplay is a welcome addition and adds a little extra enjoyment over playing the game alone.

Wanted: Exterminator

Mercenaries 2 is not without its faults regardless of how you play it - not by a long shot. First, let's discuss some of the annoyances found in the game's core mechanics. While the campaign does provide an array of weapons to use, none of them deal as much damage as we would expect from a good shooter. This is partly due to the hit-to-kill ratio. While the PC version seemingly improves upon this a small amount, enemies in the console versions take way too many hits before they go down. Alone this isn't a huge issue at all, but coupled with a poor aiming mechanic found in all three versions and this can get frustrating. It feels as though only two out of ten bullets actually hit your target most of the time. This affects RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) fire as well, in that rockets must hit within a small distance of your enemies in order to take them out. Any further away and your enemy will remain standing and continue to fire at you. Ironically, melee attacks provide instant kills.

Vehicles are also off in regards to players' ability to control them. While time spent with the game will help in this respect, vehicles feel entirely too flighty and turn on a dime at the slightest movement of your mouse or gamepad. Instead of asphalt or gravel, driving cars feels more like boats skimming across water with little traction. Needless to say, controls for commandeered boats and jet skis feel just right. For those who detest button-mashing mini games, vehicles are further plagued by the hijacking mechanics - jacking a tanks isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Enemy AI leaves a lot to be desired in Mercenaries 2 as well. The enemies you'll face in the game are not very intelligent at all. Not only can they not hit the broad side of a barn with their bullets, they'll often fire upon each other or at nothing at all. In addition, players will find it amusing to watch enemy vehicles drive into walls and other structures as they make little attempt to run you down.

Another aspect of AI behavior that proved to be annoying is their overly repetitive dialog. In fact, the word overly may be an understatement. This applies to friendlies as well as foes. For example, while visiting your employer's compound, you'll know in under two minutes that every single one of them despise their job and are only in it for a paycheck. Also, if you wait an additional minute or two, you'll hear the shout, "The enemy is here!" This is when the bulk of the patrolling mercs begin firing in all different directions. The hilarity of this is that no enemy is present and each of their bullet streams are aimed at a 15 foot wall that surrounds the compound. Wait a few more minutes, and they'll do it again... and then again.

Mentioning every issue I found in the game would take another couple of pages. The lack of audio during the game's cinematic sequences in the PC version alone would be worth a paragraph or two. So, let me sum up this portion of the review by asking for your trust when I say that Mercenaries 2 is riddled with bugs and glitches that shout that this is an unfinished product through and though.

Graphics

Now let's discuss the graphical quality of the game. As can be expected, the PC version of Mercenaries 2 outshines its console counterparts to a great degree, despite its being a console port of the Xbox 360 version. Character models, water effects, and shadows look decent but are still lackluster compared to many of the today's games. Even so, the overall design of the game has made for some beautiful scenery that is definitely eye catching. The 360 and PS3 versions are nearly identical in their presentation, the only noticeable difference being the higher contrast given to the game for the PS3. Nonetheless, players will be equally pleased or displeased regardless of which console they use.

The one element that I feel that deserves the most attention is the game's performance during the huge explosions. I find this particularly important since destruction is one of the major selling points of the game. While the PC's frame rates held fairly steady at 50+ frames per second throughout the game on a machine using an 8800GT with an overclocked dual-core processor and plenty of RAM, frame rates dipped severely into the teens whenever fire and flying debris fills a good portion of the screen. This of course is dependent on how far the game's camera is from an explosion and the size of the structure being blown up, but for a game that prides itself on mass destruction you'd think it would handle such effects much better. Players who own the PS3 and 360 version of the game can expect an even greater hit as many explosions reduce performance to that of a beautiful slide show.

Despite the game's many inconsistencies and lack of polish on behalf of the development team, Mercenaries 2 is still fun to play. Sadly, the amount of fun dwindles as missions become all too repetitive. As the game's entertainment value depletes, many will find it to be a chore just to continue beyond the first several hours. What's really the deal breaker here is that the few core elements, like shooting and driving, that make action titles great were simply not given the time and attention they deserve, and the rest of the game suffers as a result. We can't say for sure that Mercenaries 2 is another title rushed onto store shelves prematurely by Electronic Arts, but it certainly won't do anything to improve their reputation for doing so and the timing is certainly suspect. Releasing in late August keeps it from getting lost in the crush of the holiday rush, but the game mechanics could have used some additional tuning.

• Enjoyable co-op mode
  
• Blowing stuff up is always fun
  
• Beautiful environments
  
• Comfortable control scheme

• Poor aiming mechanic
  
• Flighty vehicle control
  
• Overly repetitive dialogue
  
• Clumsy AI
  
• Lack of varied mission types
  
• Frequent bugs and glitches
  
• Explosions degrade performance