Pandemic's 2005 Xbox and PlayStation 2 video game, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction offers people a different spin on the tired open world formula, plunging gamers into a military setting and forcing them to complete various jobs. Its sequel, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames expands on this concept with a larger world, more vehicles, weapons and scumbags to kill.
Ah Venezuela. The women, the food... the war zones. It definitely looks nothing like it does in the brochure, at least in this game. Instead of sunning themselves and gawking at eye candy, players choose from one of three guns for hire, and stop a power-hungry dictator from screwing with the country's oil supply -- all the while surviving the resulting invasion. To do this, they arm their character with a host of deadly toys including a combat rifle, sniper rifle, C4, RPG and a Russian Assault Rifle, as well as commandeer numerous vehicles, such as an attack chopper, boat, jeep and tank, among other rides. After that, they take odd jobs from numerous factions, which instruct them to kill people using any means necessary. Run them over. Blow them up. Snipe their heads. Demo a bridge as they cross. So long as the job gets done, gamers get paid. The more money they make, the better equipment they buy. Obviously, running around with a pistol may pose a problem, as opposed to packing a missile launcher and riding around in a Mantis tank, equipped with a user-friendly 105mm rifled canon.
Players complete missions in any order while exploring the massive country on land, sea and air. Pandemic makes killing evildoers as easy as possible by enabling characters to swim, so people needn't worry about plunging into the murky depths. Furthermore, a two-player co-op mode provides twice the destruction, with friends making the game's computer characters lives quite unpleasant.
Unfortunately, the proverbial curtain hasn't been yanked off the game. Aside from EA's recent announcement that it plans to publish Mercenaries 2, Pandemic still needs to demo the latest build. It certainly looks amazing, with plenty of detailed military equipment and one of the largest virtual worlds ever conceived, but it remains to be seen whether the game engine can handle so much processing, even with the power of the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.
At this point, World in Flames looks too ambitious. Hopefully, Pandemic delivers a polished and enjoyable action game. Look for it this fall.
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