The original Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction was a rather linear and predictable game. Yeah, it was open world and there was always something to do, but the gameplay was pretty basic and all along the lines of "hey there's a guy you have to kill, sure hope you don't die offing him!". Mercs 2 is more or less the same in that respect, but I'm having way more fun blowing the crap out of helicopters with tanks and artillery striking whole cities.
The graphics are a big improvement, obviously since Mercs 1 came out for the original Xbox, and the sound/controls are both average for a shooter such as this. The story is unique, it takes one of the characters from Mercs 1 (Mattias Nilson) and puts him into a new area of the world with new enemies and more interesting challenges. Now that you have to recruit a team to help you, it adds a certain urgency and importance to those missions because you don't know what happens if you lose. Do you lose the potential recruit if you fail? No, but it adds some realism.
The AI is better, they actually shoot back now and even instigate firefights themselves! The emplaced weapons are fun too, and to those of you who don't know yet, a recoil-less rifle is much better than a 50cal for shooting down helicopters. Well, it's good for just about everything.
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