Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction

I'm not the biggest fan of sandbox games. Ever since GTA3 became a hit, many other sandbox style games tried to get in on the action. Some were fun, sure, but only a few were awesome and memorable. Games like Prototype for example, are just mindless fun and that's about it. Sandbox games aren't just about smashing stuff in a wide open environment. You're IN that environment too after all, so it has to feel a certain way, some kind of flavor or style. Its hard to describe exactly.

Of all the sandbox games, I consider Mercenaries:Playground of Destruction the best I've played. That's right, THE BEST in my humble opinion. It was just an awesome game. It was a sandbox game done right. The gameplay, story and other elements just worked together so well. This gem is woefully underrated.

If you dismiss this game as just another "GTA clone", I will punch you in the mouth. M:PoD was developed by the late Pandemic Studios and published by LucasArts for the Ps2 and the Xbox. The setting is a fictionalized North Korea. The evil dictator, General Song, has allegedly killed his peacenik daddy and staged a coup. Also, weapons of mass destruction, oh my! A multi-national task force has moved in to take him out but who cares? You are a mercenary! You are working for Executive Operations and you're there to collect bounties and make lots and lots of money while things explode around you.


As you can see by the game's cover, You get to choose from three different mercenary characters to play as. There's Chris Jacobs, ex-Delta Force black guy who has the highest health of the three. Seriously, he can take a tank shell to the face and live. There's Jennifer Mui, a Chinese-British person born in Hong Kong, who was a member of M16. She's the stealthy one and harder to detect. Then there's Mattias Nillson, an ex-Swedish Navy artillery officer who's voiced by Peter Stormare and has an unhealthy obsession with explosions. He's the "crazy" one. He can run the fastest and can regenerate to the base 20% health faster than the others (I think). He's perfect for the kamikaze types. All mercenaries have Fiona Taylor as their ExOps radio support. She has a sexy voice and an even sexier Australian accent. Australian accents are the hottest accents ever. Its statistically proven, don't doubt me.

There are factions in the game who you take missions from and gain reputation with. There's the "Allied Nations" who are obviously American. There's the South Koreans who are there for obvious reasons, there's the Chinese who are there for shady reasons and then we have the Russian Mafiya who are there to make lots and lots of money while things explode around them. Oh yeah, there's the North Koreans, who are always chaotic evil and are just cannon fodder.

One thing that deserves mentioning is that the Russians run the weapons black market via website called "The Merchant of Menace". Through this website, you can order all sorts of weapons, vehicles and even airstrikes! Just wire some money in and uncle Sergei will convince the Americans to "test fire" a bunker-buster bomb in that "abandoned" bunker where, coincidentally, your enemies happen to be hiding in. Maintaining good relations with the Russians is a must although its a little hard seeing as how their missions, in particular, often pit you against everyone else. They are the troll faction basically.

The game works like this. You collect bounties. There's a most wanted list in the form of a deck of cards kind of like Saddam's regime in the second Gulf War. General Song is the ace of spades, the final boss you must capture dead or alive. To get to him, you need intel which is provided by the other aces. To get to the aces, you need intel from the lesser cards, from deuce to king. See how this works? The game is divided into four acts with each act corresponding to a suit of cards. Act one are club cards, two are diamonds, three are hearts and four are spades.

Numbered cards are found in the open game world. Hell, you can even stumble around and find one accidentally. Capture deuce to ten and you can unlock the ace mission. The royal card targets will only spawn in the game world if you do enough missions for a particular faction. The royals are worth more intel apiece than a numbered card. Capturing a bounty alive nets more cash and intel while a dead one is only half. Once enough intel is gathered, either from hunting down the numbers yourself or capturing a royal or two with the aid of the factions, the ace mission is unlocked. Ace missions are given by the AN and take place in their own unique maps with unique mission mechanics and set pieces. It feels more epic that way and makes taking down an ace feel like a big deal which it is. Its a nice touch. After an ace of a suit is captured, the next act begins. Cards of a previous suit can no longer be captured as a new suit comes into play.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the gameplay. For now, I'll leave you with the epic opening theme of M:PoD. Yes, the music kicks ass too.



Ciao.