Matt Jones writes:
"Sandbox-style games are some of the most popular on the market. Games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row have sold extremely well, in part because of the freedom they offer. But not all of these open world experiences are limited to urban underworlds. The first Mercenaries game on the Playstation 2 and Xbox was an excellent game that went outside the city, and helped to expand the horizons of open world environments. Its successor, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, tries to continue this expansion.
Mercenaries 2 puts players in the country of Venezuela in a fake conflict. The government is in turmoil and in danger of collapsing. Of course, everyone and their mother seems to want to choose who gets to run the country. Enter you, the mercenary. You don't care who wins this little battle. You don't care what happens to the people. You don't even care if the entire nation of Venezuela is obliterated.
All you care about is cold, hard cash. There is also the fact that someone backstabbed you and shot you in the rear end. But you can take care of that along the way.
Mercenaries' paper-thin plot is simply a device used to give players a reason to blow the crap out of anything and everything they want to. There are numerous factions in the game that you can take contracts from. As contracts and bonus objectives are completed, different weapons, vehicles, and upgrades become available to purchase."
