Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction Xbox game

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction

2005

Overall rating: 3.5 out of 5

from 779 members

Ahhh. Death, destruction and extreme violence: how better than to spend a cold winter's evening. In fact, it's a great way to spend any evening. Blowing stuff up generally appeals to our inner warrior, and the more spectacular the explosion, the more compelling this psychopathic indulgence becomes. Hence, Pandemic's latest blow 'em up, Mercenaries, has us cackling incessantly in a blood-curdlingly menacing fashion. It's a free-roaming stomp around a pseudo-fictional Korean war zone and it boasts a propensity for violence even greater than those kids who hang around launching fireworks at stray cats. As much as Mercenaries is its own game, if you were to envisage a cross between GTA, Hitman and an actual war, you'd be picturing a similar sort of thing. However, it is more than just a mosaic of proven successes and the idea as a whole does actually feel like something new and innovative. After a seemingly endless procession of sequel releases and shamelessly plagiarised concepts, that is a truly satisfying thing. Although the content of the game itself isn't revolutionary, the richness and immersiveness of the tense atmosphere marks this down as something quite special. All-in-all, we?re extremely impressed with Mercenaries. The graphics are excellent, and although there is a lot of fog and smoke, it can certainly be construed as atmospheric in this particular instance. Technically, it?s comfortably ensconced on the top tier of PS2 releases. At its core, the action is relentless, and thanks to the sheer scale and ferocity of the continuous explosions, it?s all extremely satisfying for those with a penchant for large-scale destruction. All this is packed into a chaotic, destructible world that is fundamentally fear-inducing; and that works for us? on many levels.

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction details

Formats:	16 PS2, Xbox
Players:	1
Genres:	Adventure, Fighting, Shooter
Developers:	PANDEMIC
Rental release:	18 Feb 2005

Write your own review

Most helpful review Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction

A potentially unfair review

By Owen Dowling from London , 04 Jul 2006

[Highly rated reviewer]

A videogame that promises you can blow stuff up, then blow it up again, etc., sounds great. But when you feel like you're wondering around a sub GTA clone thinly camouflaged in military fatigues, the greatness is hard to find. This will get a sequel, and hopefully as much attention will be given to the gameplay as to the genuinely lively sandpit in which it faffs about.

But I may be unfair, it's your call
- Was this review helpful to you?
- (1) Yes |
- No (0)
Report this review

All reviews

(1)

Sort by:

A potentially unfair review

By Owen Dowling from London , 04 Jul 2006

A videogame that promises you can blow stuff up, then blow it up again, etc., sounds great. But when you feel like you're wondering around a sub GTA clone thinly camouflaged in military fatigues, the greatness is hard to find. This will get a sequel, and hopefully as much attention will be given to the gameplay as to the genuinely lively sandpit in which it faffs about.

But I may be unfair, it's your call
- Was this review helpful to you?
- (1) Yes |
- No (0)
Report this review