Pros: Great graphics, easy to use gameplay, content.
Cons: Too easy, no difficulty, references to Star Wars...
The Bottom Line: This is a great game to borrow, however, I wouldn't recommend someone buy it. It is a great game, but no replay value after you beat it once.
I really enjoyed "Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction" from LucasArts...
For about an hour. I'll explain later.
The gameplay was fast and easy to get used to, with tonnes of vehicles and weapons, and a huge landscape to explore, with none of the annoying "load times" (they entire map is loaded).
The action was again, very fast, menus were easy, except if you hit "Start" or "Select", since they pause the game and pull this annoying screen up.
For being a shooter game, with a huge arsenal of weapons and vehicles, and the main plot of the game seeming to be killing people, I felt I could let my son play this game, since there was no blood, and you really didn't have to kill anyone, but simply "suppress" them by bashing them over the head and tying their arms behind their back.
The story was simple and catchy, you are on the hunt for the despot leader of North Korea, General Song, who usurped his father in an attempt to gain access to their nuclear capability in order to launch weapons against South Korea, for whatever reason.
After Australian forces stop a freighter with a weapon of mass destruction destined for "terrorists", the "Allied Nations" invade North Korea, spreading North Korean troops under General Song's control all over the country.
Various other nations, such as South Korea, China, and even the Russian Mafia, attempt to take control of North Korea. it is from these "factions" that the various missions are derived and the scope of having enemies (other than North Korea) and allies. The Russian Mafia even help out by providing weapons, vehicles, and airstrikes or artillery.
Stopping General Song consists of gaining intelligence from higher ranking troops labeled respectively as playing cards in the "Deck of 52". Every "Number Card" and "Face Card" gives you intelligence towards finding the "Ace Card", which the mission usually takes place in seperate, but North Korean controlled areas teeming with enemy soldiers. These missions usually have multiple objectives that must be completed even before the "Ace Card" shows up on the screen, then you have to capture them alive and call in for extraction for the maximum bounty.
In addition to the "Deck of 52" hunt, there are over one hundred little side missions, such as destroying monuments, listening post, and North Korean troops, to things such as racing across the countryside in all sorts of vehicles, or finding "weapons of mass destruction" spread out around the landscape.
The quality of the animated scenes is nice, but nothing spectacular.
The game fell short in many areas, mostly having to do with difficulty. With no difficulty setting, what you see is what you get. Enemies have weak weapons with little accuracy easy to kill. They even have a setting you can toggle that puts an icon over there head, telling you which faction they are with, making them easy to avoid. Even on the really hard missions, it can be as simple as driving in a certain vehicle past all the bad guys to the final part of the level.
Putting that aside, I was very pleased with the game, and felt that if it were more developed, that it would have captured my attention for more than an hour, which was how long it took me to beat it straight out of the box.
Even going back and trying to beat every little task was boring after you did it once. But there is nothing like leveling an entire city just to say you did it.
The ending is very nice, though, since it is based on numerous factors, such as which faction you were most friendly with has a clip at the end, usually showing that they took command of North Korea, and also show peace or destruction if you are able to prevent the weapons from being launched.
Flexible, action-packed missions as you go after everyone on the Most Wanted list Explosive combat as you draw from a huge arsenal - you have the fire...More at Amazon Marketplace
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