UGO writes: "When developer Pandemic's Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction was released near the end of the previous console cycle, many gamers missed it. An open-world war zone in which players are expected to capture or kill 52 members of a rebellious North Korean splinter faction, the game is most noteworthy for one simple fact: you can demolish any structure, vehicle, human or plant that you see. Were it not for that one fantastically well-implemented saving grace the original Mercenaries, with its somewhat aimless plot and buggy behavior, would have been relegated to gaming's Purgatory alongside the likes of Just Cause and Boiling Point: Road to Hell.
"Enter Mercenaries 2: World in Flames for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs (a scaled-down PS2 version is also available). It's bigger, there are more buildings, vehicles, people and trees to destroy in the new Venezuelan setting and the story has been tightened up with a bit more focus. And the publisher is Electronic Arts instead of Lucasarts. The full-scale destruction is truly a joy to behold, moreso now than it was before thanks to the fancy new affordances of current generation hardware. Truly, Mercenaries 2 inches ever closer towards delivering the mother of open-world sandboxes. If only there weren't so many got-damn bugs."
