Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, while not giving you as many possibilities for carnage as its sequel made up for it with mission variety. Since the entire game centered around capturing HVTs (High Value Targets), each one posed a unique threat. The story was also pretty epic, with North Korea hovering world annihilation over everybody's heads. World in Flames' mission variety is severely lacking. You'll mostly capture outposts, which while hosted in unique environments will probably have you dishing out the same attack strategies. It gets a bit tedious after awhile, but at least you're rewarded with fuel upgrades to call in greater amounts of havoc later on.
The story-driven missions are pretty entertaining, but a few gameplay mechanics interfere with the experience and the promise of non-linearity. Due to the fact that enemy soldiers calling headquarters for back-up results in their faction eventually going hostile, you're probably going to think to take a stealthy approach to take care of business. Problem is, stealth is pretty hard, if not impossible. One mission has you assassinating three Chinese officers. I called in for a Russian sniper drop, equipped the rifle and attempted to find a good location to take out my targets from. Unfortunately, the officers are cluttered into little crevices within and between buildings. Even after calling in a quick helicopter to land anywhere I pleased, I determined drawing a bead on them from a distance was practically impossible. So what to do now? Running in guns blazing will have a guy ringing up the boss real fast, and getting to them before they finish their report can't be done when they're behind a building, rock or other obstruction. Often, I found myself using the powerful, but expensive helicopters like the Ambassador Gunship to quickly take out a target. Going in fast and pulling back seemed to make the threat of angering the faction a little less likely. Even more effective is to simply destroy the target and everything in its radius in one fell swoop with a carpet bomb or bunker buster. As much as I wish the developers could have better structured missions to encourage more tactical choices, the game still manages to give the player more options than other open-world games, like Grand Theft Auto 4.
The new mechanic which allows you to disguise yourself as a civilian or a member of any faction by driving their vehicles seemed extremely cool at first. It was useful to avoid fire from enemies, but became a problem when allies started sending rocket-propelled grenades my way. However, I eventually realized honking the horn around friendlies eliminated this problem. I guess I'd call that a bit unintuitive, but once you figure it out, it's easy to get used to. The quick-time events to steal vehicles are neat the first time, and it's understandable the developers wanted to make capturing powerful tanks and helicopters a bit harder, but if you're stealing the same types of vehicles over and over, the animations get pretty old. They're also an issue in timed missions or when enemies are calling in for backup as they interrupt actual gameplay.
Though the game no longer focuses on them, HVTs are still here and joining them are target structures. These side objectives entail capturing the officers or blowing up the buildings of one faction for another faction. You're rewarded for not alerting the side you're attacking, and get paid double for HVTs that are alive. They're not as fun as the stuff from the first game since they lack variety, but they're just side missions. You also get paid for destroying billboards or collecting spare parts scattered around the world. The latter will let Eva, your own hired mechanic build more vehicles you can then buy and call into the field.
There are five factions in the game, who you'll be introduced to in this order: Universal Patroleum, The People's Liberation Army of Venezuela, The Pirates, and returning from the first game, the Allied Nations and the Chinese. UP, being an oil company usually has you protecting resources or saving high-profile executives. The P.L.A.V. have you sabotaging the affairs of the VZ and UP alike. The Pirates don't have any real missions, but have side quests where you pilot boats or jet-skis and steal cargo. The Allied Nations and Chinese have a similar goal in mind: kill the crap out of the other. You have to side with only one of the two before end-game, which adds some replay value.
The amount of dectruction you can lay down is limited by the amount of fuel you have access to. Getting a larger supply requires you to take outposts for each faction and then buy upgrades. How to keep your supply intact is up to you. You can blow up enemy vehicles to harvest it, take containers from VZ bases (the easiest way) or steal it from the other groups on the island (the hardest, since you're pissing somebody off). One of my favorite things to do is take a helicopter, disguise myself as the faction I plan to steal from, grab a fuel container with the winch, fly to a safe place and then have it picked up unnoticed.
Judging from the trailers, I honestly thought the characters would have widely different strengths and weaknesses. Despite each character having special abilities (Mattias gets a boost to health regeneration, Jen sprints faster, Chris receives more clips of ammunition), you're all capable of the same stuff. One thing that kind of annoyed me was the fact that Jen Mui has the only ability that is benefitial in completing some of the wagers your support team give you (timed trials you're paid to complete). Extra clips? Infinite ammo! Health regen? Nothing's even shooting you! Bonus speed? Enjoy completing the challenge a lot faster! A bit unbalanced, I'd say. Also, their stories and dialogue are all nearly identical. I initially figured there'd be a few differences, even subtle ones, but there really just aren't. All in all, who you choose to play as is merely an aesthetic choice.
Complaints about graphics are ridiculous. It seems even professional critics are just as likely to give in to nostalgia as other gamers. One (Kristan Reed of Eurogamer) even made mention that the fact the 360 and PS2 versions were made in conjunction was obvious, suggesting a lot of outdated graphic elements slipped into the next-gen ports. The games were obviously built up separately, as some mechanics aren't even present in the PS2 version, such as the quick-time events to capture vehicles. In fact, a few seconds of research showed Pandemic hired an entirely different company (Pi Studios) to develop the PS2 version. Way to be incompetent! The 360/PS3 versions of the game do NOT look last-gen. Some particle effects are a little lacking, the art direction could have been better, but the game holds up pretty well. The explosion and fire effects look fantastic. Environments feature a lot of detail, with birds and insects zipping around the jungles. Vehicles sometimes have noticeably low-resolution textures, but the models are awesome. Basic infantry are slightly low-poly, but close-ups of more major characters, as well as the enemies in the quick-time events look great. I noticed a few jittery animations here and there, but most of the time everything looks pretty fluid. My only real complaint is the pop-in. It's noticeable almost all the time, and becomes a problem when civilians fade into existence in front of vehicles you're driving, resulting in their quick deaths and costing you cash as collateral damage. In the end, a lot of what's here couldn't have been done on earlier platforms.
In conclusion, the game will be disappointing if you played the original, but it does offer its own unique fun. Also, any reviewer rating this game below a 60% is a hack.
