I enjoyed the original version of Mercenaries. It allowed you to blow shit up, in a very satisfying fashion. It was glitchy and clunky but it didn’t matter. The design of the game was just fine. The idea of being a cash driven mercenary, the third person view and the variety of weapons and explosives made a perfect mix for fun. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames does not disappoint. In short the glitches are gone and the power of the PS3 is put to good use with this game. Go get it, you won’t regret it. The best feature is the playable character Jennifer Mui. Just the fact that they included a female merc gives me a warm fuzzy feeling for these developers. But Mui is far from a warm nurturer. She is tough, snarky and all about the dollar. Why other games don’t include women, can never be explained in a convincing matter when you have such a good example as this.

This spoiler video shows Mui’s end game on PC

A few years back gamers were bitching and moaning about wanting deep interesting story lines in games. And developers have added them in almost every game. Having a context and some comedy adds more intrigue to the game. This one is no different. Even to the point of getting themselves into some dialog with the real life Venezuelan government.

There is a contender for President of Venezuela that hires you to do a job, which is something of a tutorial mission to get you started. But as the TV commercial shows, he characteristically screws you out of your pay. The guy gets the Presidency so now in order to avenge your vendetta you take on the entire VZ Army. There is oil involved which your enemy would like to sell. But thanks to you and your alliances with the other factions in the game, you can exact your revenge and deny the enemies their profits.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is an open world sandbox game, so you can drive the vehicles, steal them blow them up and go back for more. You can take up the missions or ignore them. You can devote yourself to accumulating cash or devote yourself to devastation. It isn’t really the graphics that you are here for in this game. The graphics in Mercenaries 2 are generally saved up for the lighting effects when you shoot stuff. The rag doll physics that makes your character flop around when she gets killed never fails to amuse.

Game-play consists of a variety of opportunities such as buildings to destroy and High Value Targets (HVTs) to capture, or kill. There are mini-games for cash rewards and unlocking additional items you can purchase from shops. the challenges are racing, target shooting and chopper winch trials. You get a PDA to control support options like an air strike on a building, transportation or military vehicles, weapon and ammo drops and transit pickups. A fun graphic quirk is your inventory appears in your headquarters building, but frustratingly you can’t pick any of it up. You will start to see pallets of money stacking up and munitions piled high to the ceilings as you progress in the game but you need to use the menu to equip them.

There is a wide variety of equipment at your disposal to use for blowing up shit. There are rowboats, jet skis, gunships with multiple guns and floors. There are assorted vehicles scooters, motorcycles, junkers, vans, big rigs, pickup tucks and sports cars, military class light and heavy tanks, armored personnel carriers, jeeps and trucks. Once you shoot down a chopper you get one added to your inventory. Some of them are for transport while others are anti tank. Once you get the mechanic, he has a grappling hook that allows you to hijack the choppers.

When going solo if you die, you have to re-start the whole mission. With a co-op partner, they can revive you within 45-seconds. There are randomly dropped health kits and your Merc can heal herself if you take a break behind some cover. To stealth around you can hop in a vehicle and pass as someone else. The disguise only lasts so long if you start a gunfight. There is plentiful C4, grenades and RPG to play with.

There is co-op mode so when someone joins your game, they will be playing in your world and the things they do will change it. Guests don’t get missions or story progress when playing in someone’s game. The only thing a guest takes away is money they have earned. When the host is talking to contacts for missions, the guest can’t see or hear it.

Mercenaries 2 is much improved over the first one. They added online co-op. Generally, as far as a good time game goes, they nailed it. I give Mercenaries 2: World in Flames 9 exploding demolished buildings out of 10.