Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2005 Video Game) User Reviews

Excellent!

[middle_earthfan454 · 9/10 · 11 July 2006]

This without a doubt one of the best games I've ever played.

This game is not only full of explosive action but lots of opportunities. You can make money (which is deeply needed) in so many ways, you can destroy enemy vehicles, capture enemy key members, collect crates of nuclear codes or stolen treasures and take on jobs given by different factions.

You have a huge array of weapons and vehicles to use, including rocket launchers, tanks, machine guns and helicopters. You can also unleash powerful artillery or air-strikes such as bunker buster bombs, strategic missiles and even fuel air bombs.

Explore the cities, fields and hills of North and South Korea as you cruise along by land or air.

I can't see any cons, aside from the map sizes which may become frustrating when it comes to getting around without having to deal with mountains blocking shortcuts. Try this game, at least rent it and see what you may be missing as the best sandbox game of all time!

Insane!

[MrBlank · 4 February 2005]

Mercenaries is the best game I've played in ages. It borrows various elements from other games and brings them together into one great package. In the game, you play as a mercenary in North Korea. Here, you see the insanity of war. As you drive along the roads, you see the various factions fighting each other. The relations between the factions are perfect. The Russian Mafia is enemies with everyone, the South Koreans and Chinese are enemies, and the Allies are friends with everyone. As you play the game, searching for the "deck of 52", you must juggle your relationships with the various factions for maximum cash. Don't miss this game. Go. Get. It. Now!

Addictive as hell

[orangekubrick · 10/10 · 15 October 2007]

I've been playing this game for weeks now.

I think, in my opinion, the greatest thing about the game is its freedom in typical sandbox style. More than often I would stop doing the missions and head off in search for the hidden crates and treasures, go on search for the twenty statues to destroy, hunt the mountains for tiny North Korean strongholds to destroy, or even join in some of the skirmishes that occur randomly around the map with two factions.

I even think there's a whole new level of the game concerning C4s. Apart from attaching one to a car and pushing it down a hill, you can also boot them away and detonate them as they fly towards a group of guards. It's hard not to shout "GOOALLL!" after that one, I'm telling you.

Overall it's made it into my favourite games - and since all my favourites include older games like Beneath a Steel Sky, The Dig, Another World, Civilization, Chakan, Resident Evil 2 and Red Faction - I'd say that's a great achievement! And so it was added to my list with a smile, along with other ps2 games like Final Fantasy X, Metal Gear Solid 3 and the Silent Hill series, to the list of the greatest games on Earth.

Ridiculously fun!

[bartko-trevor · 10/10 · 30 March 2012]

Quite possibly the world's most addictive game ever! It's better than any other third-person shooter. Everything about this game is incredible. I have a hard time getting "unaddicted" to it. However, there are a few flaws in the game. 1. Some missions can get pretty hard. Especially the last mission where you capture/kill the North Korean leader General "Song." It's the hardest level I've ever played... It almost is easier to dodge rainfall during a thunderstorm! Thankfully the game's cheat codes can help take care of that. The game designers basically demand that you to use the invincibility cheat! 2. The game glitches many times. Although most of them are harmless, some can screw up your game (Once I had gotten through to nearly the final mission and China and South Korea stopped fighting with each other). 3. The game is too easy if you only kill the entire "Deck of Fifty-Two" instead of capturing them. But enough with the game's flaws, let's move on to the positives. The coolest thing about the game is that you can enter cheats to change into characters like Indiana Jones and Han Solo (Did Harrison Ford have something to do with this? If only you could be Rick Deckard from Blade Runner.) Overall, this game is amazing. Go buy it, because you won't regret it!

If you're looking for the most underrated PS2 cult classic, you've found it.

[pohad-30861 · 10/10 · 27 September 2022]

At the time the game brought unseen before and utterly amazing mechanics that haven't been seen too much nowadays, which is a shame because I don't think we'll see another game that gives you this ultimate sense of power and freedom to ground an immersive and story rich world to dust with a carpet bombing.

There are many very memorable moments like meeting the russian or the whole prologue in itself or <REDACTED<.

Music: they hired an entire orchestra.

Combat: outdated but back then you couldn't find much better, straight gunplay gets stale midway thru but it could've been a conscious decision to force creativity, and it does let you be creative...

Graphics: I said this was the most underrated game so no fan-made graphics patches for the emulator, atleast it runs well without much artifacting or instability but this truly is the weakest and most outdated part of the game, it was made in 2005 and it shows.

I think this game is a blast from the past, from a bygone era of gaming where mass innovations and experimentation in the gameplay and mechanics department where seen as the way of progress as opposed to today's same game that's been published by AAA hundreds of times over.

This is a product of passion and talent with the budget of AAA lost to fate because it came out a decade or 2 too early, It's incredibly fun and I urge you to play it.