Review Author: CaptainHarlock

Back in September, Pandemic Studios brought Star Wars Battlefront to consoles. Now they return with a new game, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. First previewed back in the summer of 2004, this is a game that has been well worth the wait.

War has broken out in North Korea. General Song has seized power and the Allied command has enlisted the help of a freelance military contractor called ExOps to aide in the capture of Song and his henchmen. All, of course, for a price!

First let's get this out of the way; this game is absolutely nothing like SOCOM. The two games couldn't be more opposite from each. In SOCOM the focus is on team-based missions, special forces tactics with an emphasis on stealth. In Mercenaries, the emphasis is on brute force. There are some instances where stealth can be useful, but there are no team tactics and no command interface.

Now, with that out of the way, here's the rest of the review.

Gameplay:
In Mercenaries, your job is to take down each card of the "Deck Of 52". There are three playable characters with specialties ranging from stealth, to a jack of all trades, to heavy weapons. Each card has the face of one of Song's cronies. During the game you will receive updates as to their whereabouts. Their locations are marked on your PDA. The game does a great job of mixing up the gameplay so that it doesn't feel repetitive. There are a variety of missions ranging from search and rescue to assassinations. For each mission you complete you'll receive a cash bonus (as well as extra money for any equipment destroyed in the process). There's no shortage of work in Mercenaries. There are four different factions (Allies, South Koreans, Chinese, and the Russian Mafia) spread out over a huge map, and depending on how well you execute the contracts for each, your standing will either improve or decrease with them. Kill too many S. Korean soldiers or citizens, and you'll be public enemy #1! Helping out each faction also improves your standing. There are plenty of bonuses and side missions too. There's plenty to do so, believe me, you won't be bored. There are plenty of real world weapons and lots of vehicles to hijack and use. Need a ride? No problem, just grab a jeep or tank! The vehicles are easy to control as well. The soldiers are pretty good shots and they do take a bit to put down, but at no time do they seem superhuman. There are also plenty of support items as you go along. They range from Surgical Air Strikes to different vehicle drop offs and each will become unlocked as you complete different missions. There are also two unlockable characters (for spoiler purposes I won't post them here). There are no multiplayer modes and no online play included.

Controls:
There is quite literally no learning curve here. This has to be one of the most player friendly games I've come across in a very long time. At no time was I fumbling for the right buttons. The only thing I didn't like was that when you press L3 to go into a crouch, if you push the stick too far forward you won't STAY in a crouch. This is one of the things I wish they did better. But this game is quite literally a dream to play.

Graphics and Sound:
The game appears to be running on the Star Wars: Battlefront engine. The environments are rendered quite nicely. Everything has a very "organic" feel to it and at no time does anything look too fake. The city portions are especially good, complete with street lights and pedestrians. Just about everything is destructible, but you can't just plow through a building with a tank. There is a great difference in environments across the two maps. Bombed out villages, farms, military bases--there's a lot to see across the countryside. The sound is very good as well. Weapons have different sounds and are distinct from each other. One of the things I didn't like was that the North Koreans don't have a very broad "vocabulary". They seem to repeat the same phrases over and over. But I suppose this is forgivable.

Final Score: 9/10
Even with the absence of multiplayer modes and online play this is a game that's well worth your time and money. Though some may shy away from this title because of the lack of online play, they will be missing a lot of great gameplay. Mercenaries takes a lot of familiar ideas and weaves them into a very original package. There's no denying it, Pandemic has come up with a winner here.


I must add that i agree everything written in this review. It is an awsome game and great buy.

 

 

 

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