After a smashing success in 2005, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction redefined the whole 3rd Person shooter genre by merging it with a Grand Theft Auto-esqu sandbox game. Did the sequel live up to the first game, or like most sequels out of EA, did it tank?

SINGLEPLAYER:

Graphics - When I play Mercenaries 2 I keep thinking to myself "This is the Vice City complex." It's the same graphics, and everything looks the same, except the game is brighter, and has more of a warmer coloring scheme. But, it's not like Mercenaries 1 looked bad, it looked good. So, this game looks... 'good', not great, or bad... just good. - 6/10

Controls - The control scheme to Mercs 2 is actually pretty decent, though I have some complaints. When you aim down sights, you automatically duck. Should you be behind a small enough (well, big enough I suppose)wall, when you aim you duck behind it and can only see the wall, not the enemies. Then when you are getting shot at and need to duck... you can't unless you count hunching over. Secondly, when you use the d-pad to manuvuer through the air support, you can't walk or else you are thrown out of the menu. Kind of inconvenient when your being shot at and need to throw down a beacon for the airstrike. 7/10

Story - Um, think Army of Two... but SHORTER. Yeah, you heard that... a game shorter than Army of Two. I'll give you a second to gasp.
...
Second's over. I honestly believe there are 15 missions (excluding races) in this game that you mut complete. Each take 10-20 minutes. That's over 2 hours of gameplay! However... you have 50 HVTs (High Value Targets) across the map to capture (two shy of Mercs 1) and over 70 targets (buildings) to destroy. This opens up the next category. 5/10

Replay Value - This game may be short but I am on my second playthrough, and not once have I been bored. I almost never replay singleplayer in a game... but EVERYTHING can be destroyed (Buildings, Bridges, Vehicles, Scenery)... not even Battlefield can be FULLY destroyed. Plus, the HVT's and demo missions allow for over 10 more hours of replay until you hit the new game button. 8.5/10

Missions - For those 15 missions, there are 3 objectives you get (defend something/someone, destory something/someone, capture something/someone). That's it. But it doesn't get repetative because it ends so quickly. The only thing that extends the story i traveling to Headquarters without Helicopters. 4/10


MULTIPLAYER-

Take everything mentioned above and put it here. Multiplayer is Singleplayer with a friend.
However, every mission or at least side mission changes while in co-op. If you have to take a truck full of guns there are now 2 trucks, if you need to use a turret there are 2. If you do a race, there are 2 vehicles. And let's face it... this game i FUN with a friend. You can only be 400 meters away until you reach an invisible circle. Whose end is like Skate's. When you reach the boundary, the screen goes fuzzy grey until you return.
Also, co-op is drop in/drop out. You can change your joinable settings from invite to friends to anyone. If you ever get bored, invite a friend and you WILL have fun.

SINGLEPLAYER SCORE - 7.5
MULTIPLAYER SCORE - 8.5
SANDBOXSHOOTOUT SCORE - 8

I've never played any of the Mercenaries games but it sounds and looks good, I almost picked a copy up from Game yesterday, in need of a new game now so might have a look on Ebay for it

Yeah Jexic and I rocked out on that game together haha. It was quite fun. Although, I think it's more of a rent game for me.