Get Out Of My Sandbox!

You've gotta hand it to Pandemic. With some of their previous efforts - namely, Destroy All Humans! and its sequel, and now Mercenaries 2: World in Flames - they've shown they have this whole sandbox genre down. With a Venezuela that makes Liberty City look like a stroll to the corner mailbox, Mercenaries 2 offers plenty of opportunities to blow stuff up. Sure, it's not the most polished game out there, and there are issues which make it miss the mark slightly, but it's pretty fun anyway.

Playing as one of the three mercs from the first game, you pull a job in Venezuela - where Hugo Chavez apparently isn't Mr. Popular anymore - and rescue an Army general at the behest of an oil tycoon, who promptly not only refuses to pay you, but also shoots you in the butt. You swear revenge - because, you know, you got shot and not paid - and set off to destabilize the country and kill said oil tycoon. If that story doesn't sound award-worthy, well, it's not. Were you expecting something else?

Obviously, since you have a lot of ground to cover, people to meet (and in many cases, kill), jobs to do, and stuff to blow up, you won't ever find yourself without something to do. You can blow up buildings, assassinate people, or, if you absolutely must follow the main storyline, you can do that too and hunt down the oil tycoon. It's up to you how fast or slow you proceed. You can also make acquaintances with several factions in the game, and perform a delicate balancing act of keeping those relations solid. (It is a balancing act - did I mention that some of those assassinations are offered by one faction against another? You have to be careful to avoid word getting out about your actions. Or you can bribe a faction to be your best buddies, but come on, that's just embarrassing.)

Unfortunately, although you will always have stuff you can do, the first time you blow up a building is definitely the most fun. After that, the thrill isn't quite there anymore. Oh, sure, watching the building collapse into rubble brings a smile to my face, and probably will to yours, but not as big a smile as the first time. It doesn't help that you're not dealing with well-trained enemies. One job you'll work has you destroying a castle that one faction is using as a base. Sounds like a tough job, and at the beginning, you're shown a lot of materials you should buy to get through the job alive. I skipped those. I basically fought my way up to the front door. And I won. Yes, it took a long time to get through everyone, and I almost died a couple of times, but I killed everyone and destroyed everything. Obviously, you're not intended to walk all over your competition like that, but it's so easy. It doesn't kill the game by any means, and indeed, in some ways, it makes it more fun. But it just doesn't feel right.

For the record, I give this game a 4.25. It's a solid, fun game which will last for a long time, and even has some potential for replayability value - finished with one merc? Play as the others. They actually have different characteristics, so it works. It's not the best-looking game out there, but hey, GTA IV certainly had its problems. Consider this a common man's GTA IV.