Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (XB/PS2, 2005)

• Very little hard ability gating and you don't gain any movement abilities (sometimes have to use a chopper, fast ground vehicle or an air strike (or C4) for a mission - can move boxes to skip the C4 in one or two spots)

• Mostly non-linear structure with two large hub areas (gain access to 15 minor side missions after the first main one, linear main story structure until after you've done one mission for each faction - after that you can choose who to work for and when for the most part (for ace leader missions you can't choose), can also capture some clubs/leaders outside of the main missions by following clues picked up during missions, optional side objectives/bonus conditions during most of the main missions, gain access to the second hub area after finishing enough missions - ?, work for the south koreans becomes unavailable at one point (after the timed artillery mission at the NE gate even if you beat it in time), not much point in going back to the first hub after getting to the second - can only do the leftover side missions at that point)

• Can abandon or retry a mission via the pause menu - keep playing where you left the mission with minimal interruption

• Can change allegiances (the game shows a faction's gauge going up or down depending on your actions; Pirates!). Can also bribe a hostile faction at their HQ to be able to work for them. Some gates only open for vehicles of a certain faction

• Optional side objectives/bonus conditions during most of the main missions

• Decent freedom in how you use your weapons and vehicles (or stealth or speed) to tackle a mission and you can choose to capture and extract or kill wanted enemy leaders/cards (capturing yields more money)

• Three somewhat different playable characters (Chris Jacobs (black american) - resilient but slow+speaks korean, Jennifer Mui (Asian Brit) - better sneaking (she doesn't get detected at all if on foot outside of an enemy's cone of vision)+speaks chinese, Mattias Nilsson ("Swede") - fast and tough+speaks russian). Can't switch character during the game

• Pretty good map system (marks the next objective+your location+side mission locations, mini-map which also shows side missions (dollar signs)+wanted enemy leaders/cards+faction areas in blue+enemy and ally aerial vehicles+restricted areas in red where you'll be killed if you enter)

• Highly destructible environment and you start off with C4 (can blow up entire buildings with certain turrets and air strikes, some skyscrapers can be demolished)

• Rescue/Medivac feature which also serves as a teleport to a single location on each hub map (costs some money but it's cheap at 1k, also restocks you+repairs your vehicle if you drove/flied to the MASH - see notes below, you also end up getting medivaced automatically if you get KO'd as long as you have $1k). Can also fast travel via helicopter though these are pretty rare until the late game and a captured one can sometimes disappear when taking on a mission

• Save anywhere outside of contracts/missions (multiple slots, character and time taken only). Partial HP regen (up to 20 HP only)

• Some voiced assistance and commentary (occasionally the instructions and comments are too obvious)

• Can investigate units and objectives for more info with the binoculars

• Can listen in on some radio transmissions talking about how things are progressing

• Different ending depending on which faction you help the most and if you stopped the nuclear missiles or not

• Can only carry two different guns at a time - not flexible enough at times and you can't mark where a weapon you didn't pick up was (later on you can bring supplies in though)

• No lock-on but some aim assist when on foot - not very reliable as it moves kinda slow and sometimes just drops the aim (a bit worse with Nilsson maybe? - nothing about this in guides)

• No dodge or block moves - would've been useful vs rockets (you're expected to take damage here and there in the game). Dodging anti-air in a chopper is also near impossible though if you know where they are you can sometimes sneak up on them

• Limited ammo for all non-melee weapons

• Can run into soldier NPCs outside of HQs but nothing happens (they just get displaced). Civilians on the other hand get killed and you lose money for it. Can shoot a supply crate's chopper pilot to get the chopper (non-allied supplies only)

• Keeps track of various stats like amount of saves and shots fired but doesn't rank you on them

• Non-interactive dialogue

• Game goes into slow motion/survival mode when near death (can help but the screen also gets a strong red tint and you can hear your heartbeat which can be stressful)

• Exaggerated physics

• Can't carry health packs with you for later use

• Can't grab ledges while jumping

• Allied soldiers forget about you being in a vehicle a bit too quickly (and then think you're the enemy if you honk at them) - can just honk but you lose the disguise which sometimes feels clunky such as when a certain faction should know that you're on a mission be expecting certain vehicles

• Respawning enemies at certain enemy structures (can be destroyed)

• Sometimes have to work for a different faction than the one you want

• No difficulty options

• No character armor or health bar upgrades (can't upgrade vehicles either)

• Generally can't choose which vehicle to use for Ace missions

Some notable cons:

• The map doesn't show railroads - these can be used to get past roadblocks when escaping bases. Can't place map markers - would've been useful for where you parked your chopper or another vehicle (or allied forces which also aren't shown on the map) for example

• No camera quick turn button (also can't shoot opposite to the direction the camera is facing). It also zooms in rather than the wall becoming transparent when your back is up against a wall - gives you a worse overview to the sides

• No control config besides inverted Y axis for aiming/looking around and aiming speed (horizontal axis isn't flipped if inverting the y axis - I could eventually fix this by using dshidmini in PCSX2 (scptoolkit didn't work for this particular thing for some reason))

• Can't check a mission and say no then come back later

• Annoying how your sights get tossed around if you get shot while trying to snipe and it's too hard to snipe certain pilots

• Can't give other orders to allied soldiers than summon to vehicle and get out of vehicle - telling them to move out of the way of your vehicle, retreat, give cover fire or take cover would've been useful

• Some trial & error (surprise reinforcements, if you say no to a side mission after entering a vehicle then it's gone forever - you might just've wanted to grab the vehicle for now, so-so draw distance for people and some fog, etc.)

• Sometimes stupid allied AI in terms of friendly fire and shooting deck 52 members/key enemies (which you should capture instead). NPCs sometimes run into the road as you're driving near them as well

• Some tedious aspects (a chopper can sometimes disappear if parked outside of a faction HQ (or even at the helipad at the MASH camp!) after taking on a mission therenear impossible to snipe certain chopper pilots, dead space - after three missions you'll be able to buy new vehicles and have them delivered to you however it takes a while before you get proper fast travel via helicopter unless you kill the pilot of a supply helicopter (and travel distances between bases can get pretty long, too easy to die from falling, nearly impossible to stay undetected when sneaking around on foot (unless playing as Jennifer?) - OTOH you're counted as not seen unless an alarm is sounded for rescue missions so you'll generally just lose some favour with that faction, jeeps blow up+turn over+get stuck too easily plus you lose a bit too much speed from touching obstacles, The game is overly picky about landing zones for helicopters, pop-up style tutorial messages that pause gameplay and are sometimes repeated (the game does have non-pausing ones for context sensitive actions with triangle so what gives) - the game also pauses when you gain a new inventory item, etc.)

• A parked chopper seems to disappear after an ace mission Can't enter a vehicle or move over knee-high obstacles while carrying someone, can't blow through fence gates with rockets or grenades - only C4, etc.)

• Indestructible trees and they can also block your view if standing right in front of them and facing away from them

• Can't enter most buildings and can't talk to most NPCs

Mini Review

Influenced by: GTA 3, possibly SimCopter, Seek and Destroy (PS2)

Infuenced: Possibly Just Cause, Far Cry series