Mercenaries

Take the go anywhere, do anything gameplay of Grand Theft Auto and toss in all of the military hardware you can dream up and you'll end up with Mercenaries. You are free to steal any vehicle you see, blow up any structure, and otherwise do whatever you want whenever you want. It is nice to see a game that actually delivers exactly what the developers have promised all along. It isn't without flaws, but Mercenaries is still a fun, satisfying game that is worth picking up.

You Are A Mercenary ...

The story in Mercenaries is that North Korean president Kim is assassinated by his son, General Song. Song immediately sets up a weapons of mass destruction program and then sells the weapons to terrorists. Upon hearing this news, several factions swoop in to try and stop them. The Allied Nations seek to remove General Song from power and prevent any larger conflicts. China wants to simply take over Korea and make them a part of the People's Republic. South Korea wants to reunite the country and make peace with the north. And the Russian Mafia is there simply to try and make money off of the conflict in any way possible.

In the middle of all of this chaos is you. When you start the game, you choose one of three characters - Chris Jacobs, Jennifer Mui, and Mattias Nillson - and then set them loose upon the forces of North Korea. You are a mercenary, so you have no real objective other than to make money by providing your considerable expertise to whoever is willing to pay. A main goal of all of the forces is to track down the 52 most wanted North Korean officials but you'll be doing much more as you play through the game.

Try To Play Nice

An interesting aspect of Mercenaries is that the various factions will react differently to you depending on your actions. North Korea is always hostile towards you, but how China, South Korea, the Allied Nations, and Russian Mafia react to you is determined by a mood meter. If you upset one of them, they won't give you any assignments and they will attack you when they see you. You can bribe them to get back on their good side, but that is money that you could be using to buy new weapons, so it is a fairly tricky situation. The kicker is that it is impossible to keep everyone happy because the missions you will be offered will have you attacking not just North Korean forces but occasionally members of the "friendly" factions as well. This makes the game very interesting because everything you do has an effect on everyone around you. There isn't really anything you can do about it, and since you are a Mercenary you don't really care either way, but it is fun to see so many different sides of the same conflict.

Gameplay

The gameplay in Mercenaries is similar to Grand Theft Auto in that you are given the freedom to steal any vehicle, blow up any building, and do whatever you want. The sheer amount of stuff in the game is amazing. There are several different types of helicopters and jeeps and tanks and APCs and pretty much any other type of military hardware you can think of. If you can see it, you can steal it or blow it up or whatever you want to do. You can also order weapons and vehicles through a store called the Merchand of Menace and then call for them to be airlifted into you out in the field. Everything from ammo and health to missile strikes can be called in. This makes the whole experience even more exciting because you have limitless military power behind you and it is very fun to experiment with it all.

Missions

The missions you will be given include protecting ally bases, stealing or destroying enemy vehicles, rescuing allies, and destroying enemy structures. There are also side missions that require you to blow up all of the North Korean national monuments and destroy a number of listening posts. On top of all of this you are also constantly on the lookout for the "deck of 52" bad guys. You can either capture or kill them, but you get paid more for capturing them to that is usually the way you want to go. When you are near one of the 52 main baddies, you'll get a call on the radio telling you where you need to go to find them. As you play through the game, the difficulty ramps up and missions will be longer and more complex and the 52 will have increasingly more firepower protecting them. Mercenaries provides a pretty good challenge in its 20+ hour campaign and it is a blast to play through.