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Members Rating For Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction

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Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction - Review
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Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction - ReviewPosted:

Miss
  • Zombie Referee
Status: Offline
Joined: Jan 12, 201113Year Member
Posts: 11,617
Reputation Power: 654
Status: Offline
Joined: Jan 12, 201113Year Member
Posts: 11,617
Reputation Power: 654
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Game Information

Release Date: January 10, 2005
Developer: Pandemic Studios
Publisher: LucasArts
Platform(s): PlayStation 2, Xbox
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Players: 1



Synopsis

A "sandbox" war action game with open-ended gameplay in a gigantic world. Set against the outbreak of warfare spurred on a Korean dictator coup, players have free reign of a massive landscape to take bounties on the "Deck of 52" evil warlords and minions as you work towards taking down the general who started the onslaught. Commandeer tanks, choppers and other military hardware to traverse the game's literally miles of landscape across two complete battlefield areas, and build up cash for armory to finance the big jobs by taking on bounties from field agents.



Story

Playground of Destruction takes places during the 50's in North Korea. North Korea's current leader, Choi Kim, wants to open up it's doors to the world, however, is son, Choi Song -commander of the military-, has a different agenda in mind. He leads a coup which has both the North's and South's leaders killed. This sends Korea back into isolation and is later revealed to have sold nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations abroad. To combat this, four outside powers occupy North Korea sending Song into hiding whilst threatening to use the nations nuclear missiles on the outside world. Each power has it's own agenda: China wants to annex North Korea, and so does South Korea, The Allied Nations want to restore peace, and the Russian Mafia wants to make millions off the instability. You must work with each faction to capture Song.



Gameplay

The player is dumped into a sandbox environment from a cargo plane into the DMZ free to do missions, blow things up, side task, pick up collectibles, or whatever they feel like doing. Since it is a sandbox, the player can choose to do any one of these things at any time. You're free to go blow up China's HQ if you wanted to, however, this will hurt your relationship with them and they will start to attack you at a certain point. That being said, you can do this to any nation and build back your friendship or, bribe them to like you again, with the exception of North Korea. Doing missions for each nation unlocks packages you can get airdropped that include the specific weapons said nation uses. Eventually you will start to unlock jeeps, tanks, and helicopters.

At anytime, you can also hunt down Song's top officials throughout the country. They are all fitted with a "suit" from a deck of cards. Numbers 2-10 are low-level officials and can be found anywhere on the map, face cards such as Jack, King, and Queen can be found through doing missions for nations. Once you verify enough of these, the Allied Nations will give you an Ace to hunt down. These are Song's closest officials and are usually on a highly-fortified island which you are dropped into.



Graphics

The graphics are top notch here. Buildings, architecture, vehicles, fields, and weapons all look very crisp and clear. You can see smoke in the far distance which looks good and explosions even leave marks and the floor, meaning you can make an entire city into a giant explosion mark. Even the debris around the country will leave you appalled. You will find very detailed wanted posters of Song in the most random places and just floating around, sometimes even falling off the back of trucks. You would also think that this game will lag a lot considering all the action and it's an open world, but it does not one bit. Call in 5 cruise missiles on your position and the only thing that will happen is your death.



Controls

Though it has your basic FPS controls to shoot and move, you'll have quite a bit of trouble learning and getting used to the vehicles controls. Cars won't move with your triggers and tanks will be a hassle to acquainted to, especially in the heat of the moment. One of the few games you will have to read the manual to learn vehicle controls. Once you get used to them though, it'll be hard to go back.



Ratings

Gameplay: 9.8/10
Graphics: 9.5/10
Controls: 9/10
Overall: 9.7/10
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