"Very fun, but with some annoyances."

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, is a free-roaming game that will be undoubtedly compared to the Grand Theft Auto series, but apart from the free-roaming aspect the game is quite different from GTA.

[Gameplay-8/10]

You play as any of three mercenaries who each have varying abilities and languages. One is strong and can speak Korean, one is fast and can speak Russian and the other is stealthy and can speak Chinese. Each character is just different enough (in terms of ability) to be noticeable, but it it is not
terribly important who you pick. there are a large variety of weapons, although you can only hold two at a time. Equally varied are the amount of vehicles. There isn't a auto-target feature, but aiming is easy and you won't even notice the lack of a helping hand. You are free to drive around, doing whatever you please, and you don't have to do about half the missions to complete the game.

To progress you have to capture/kill several terrorists known as the 'Deck of 52'. To go onto the next suit, you have to capture the Ace. To get access to the Ace you have to collect intel by verifying a combination of the 2 to 10, who provide small amounts of intel, and the Jack, Queen and King who give large amounts of intel. By just exploring you can find the 2 to 10, although by doing missions you will receive info on where they are, but to find the Jack, Queen and King you have to do missions. For example, you do Mafia missions to gather the whereabouts of three or four cards, and explore to find the rest. Then you do the final Mafia mission to get the Jack. With all the minor cards and the Jack you will have enough information to get the Ace, without doing the
Chinese, South Korean or Allied missions. In practice, of course, you will end up doing most of the missions, but the freedom is very gratifying. As well as these missions, there are about 275 different items to find around the game, which reward with cheats to play as different characters, money and new items to buy. There is a shop called the Merchant of Menace, where you can buy vehicles, supplies and air strikes.

Buildings can be destroyed using tanks and air strikes. Buildings destroy accurately, with smoke and building parts everywhere. You even have to dodge the debris, as it can hurt you. There are many types of air strikes, for example the Bunker Buster Bomb which can destroy all buildings, and the Artillery Strike which is powerful but highly inaccurate. There are five factions: the Russian
Mafia; the South Koreans; the Chinese; the Allies and the North Koreans. The North Koreans will always hate you and are your main enemy. All the others you can make them like or dislike you. Killing their soldiers or destroying their buildings will decrease their opinion of you. On the other hand, doing missions and killing North Koreans in front of them will increase their rating. If the rating gets too low they will shoot at you. There are also challenges which vary from basic 'shoot stuff in the time limit' to original things such as 'pick up the car with your helicopter winch and swing it as far as you can'. These challenges are fun and greatly add to the life span. You can make any friendly person enter your vehicles and man guns, for example in a tank you will be driving and and manning the cannon while your ally uses the machine gun. Thankfully the AI is not stupid and is pretty accurate. They are not controllable on the ground, but you can get them in and out of vehicles. They automatically fight enemies on the ground.

The controls are not customizable, unfortunately. But they are excellent anyway so there are no real problems there. The game starts off fairly easy, but after the first quarter it quickly climbs in difficulty, and even sometimes becomes frustrating, but normally it is just a challenge, and not an annoying slog. In terms of lifespan, the game is quite long, with several unlockables, and you most probably will want to play through again. It is worth the asking price
easily.

[Story-6/10]

The story is very simple and does not really evolve. You have been dropped into North Korea to capture the Deck of 52, and, ultimately, the Ace of Spades. And that is basically it. There are some other minor things such as the conflict between the Chinese and South Koreans but essentially that is all there is, with no real plot advancements. But this is not an plot heavy game, and the story
never gets in the way of playing.

[Graphics/Sound-8/10]

The graphics are generally quite good, however there is some pop-up. The characters are very detailed and the buildings look beautiful when they blow-up, although with the bigger explosions there is lag. There is no radio in Mercenaries, but there are reporter trucks that give news reports on the latest card you captured, which is cool. Background music consists of periodic bursts
of varied music types, which usually fit the mood. Gun and voices work well,
with each gun/ person having their own distinctive sound.

[Rent or Buy?]

I would highly recommend buying this. It is highly enjoyable and there is way too much to do in a rental. Buy it, you won't regret it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/05, Updated 12/24/05