Lawrence.com

"Blow the living crap out of everything. Blow the living crap out of it some more..." Thus goes the promotional line for Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. As you might expect, the game's akin to the precedent-setting Grand Theft Auto series, wherein the gamer may roam free in a world where objectives can be completed (or not) as the gamer pleases. In spite of its trying-too-hard slogan, the game succeeds and even brings freshness to the non-linear genre.

As one of three characters (all of which eschew the virtue of loyalty), you find yourself caught in a war between the Allied Nations, the Russian Mafia, the Chinese, North Korea, and South Korea. You may pimp yourself out mercenarily (that is, like a mercenary) to any of these factions by completing missions. And missions within missions. And of course, blowing the crap out things along the way.

There primary mission involve various people you have to capture, code-named as different playing cards, such as the two of diamonds or the jack of clubs. The idea is to collect (i.e. capture) all of the cards. The side missions are fun, but it's obvious the same amount of thought or creativity was not put into these missions.

As you complete missions, your reputation with each faction will increase or decrease. The factions system is very well done and it takes into account all of your actions, even if you're not on a mission.

The biggest drawback of the game is the artificial intelligence. At times, the AI is ridiculously bad. Enemies will just stand and shoot and never try to get better position. They won't try to expose your cover with a grenade or for that matter do anything clever. It's disappointing that the AI is this limited, as it makes missions overly easy. The only way the game makes missions more challenging is by multiplying the number of enemies, which still don't do anything but stand and shoot.

It's obvious Mercenaries is inspired by GTA, though the game does do many things differently. For one, the controls are improved. Targeting in the GTA world has always been a bit sluggish with the automatic lock-on system. Mercenaries does away with this by implementing a first-person-shooter control scheme. The left stick is forward/back and strafing, while the right stick is complete analog control of where you are targeting. Aiming becomes much more intuitive and fun, which is completely necessary for this game, with its emphasis on blowing the crap out of things.

Crouching and the lack of going prone are big problems with the game. Crouching makes you move at an unrealistic snail's pace. And for a military game to not allow you to hit the deck completely makes no sense at all.

Mercenaries' graphics are not stand-out, make-you-drool but good enough. The game does a decent job to stay at 30 frames per second, but after the occasional gigantic explosion, the game does pause for a split second to load the explosion and change in environment. This is okay, though, because basically every building in the game can be destroyed. You really can blow the crap out of anything and blow the crap out of it again.

My only real complaint when it comes to graphics is the draw distance. The game uses a fog to cover up the lack of distance the game can draw, which is fine until you try to snipe. Your target will be in sniping distance, but you won't be able to see it because the draw distance won't allow you. Realistic for foggy environs? Maybe. For all battlefields in the game? No.

The audio is likewise nothing amazing but passable. By far the best part of the audio is the voice acting by the NPCs. They all speak their respective language and are authentic. I know Mandarin, so it was really cool to be able to understand what the Chinese NPCs were saying throughout the game. The score is repetitive, but not enough to drag the game down. The effects are average, though the guns and explosions don't sound as powerful as they should. Not good for a game that sells itself with explosions.

A lot of people will say that Mercenaries is what the next GTA game should model off. I agree with this with respect to the controls, but Mercenaries lacks a story. You won't really care about your characters or what's going on story-wise in this game. You'll basically be playing to blow the crap out of things (though all you ladies out there with crushes on Harrison Ford will want to check the unlockables!). That said, Mercenaries is definitely a rental, and if it sticks you should buy it.

Graphics: B

Sound: B-

First Play: B+

Last Play: B

Gameplay: B+

Overall: 86% B