I finished Mercenaries 2 – World in Flames yesterday, and I have to say that I was positively surprised. Really surprised. After all the lukewarm reviews it received and the bashing on the internet, I expected nothing special, but I had so much fun with it.

Yes, it is bug-ridden; it’s probably the buggiest console game I have ever played. Yes, the graphics are nothing to write home about, the character models don’t look particularly nice, and the cut scenes are awkward. But you know what? It doesn’t matter, because quite unlike some other games these days, Mercenaries 2 knows what it is: a game. It doesn’t constantly shove cut scenes down your throat, trying to show how “deep” and “mature” its characters and story are. It doesn’t make you sit through hours of tutorial missions, either. There is one. And that’s it. None of the bullshit GTAIV pulled, where the player was taken by the hand and everything was explained to him, from driving to different types of combat to how to fucking change the radio station while in a car (all this pissed me, as someone who has been playing the GTA series since its very first installment, really off. I hope they include some kind of “Just let me play, I know how this works” mode in future GTA games).

And here’s something else Mercenaries 2 did much better than last year’s oh-so-incredible GTAIV: it doesn’t hold back and keep you away from the good things for ages. In GTAIV, it took about an hour until you got your first gun (the first Jacob mission IIRC), and several missions more until the Russians introduce you to the weapons store. And even then, the initial selection is very limited, and it takes hours until you get the good stuff. Now, Mercenaries 2 doesn’t offer everything it has from the beginning, either (after all, there has to be some kind of incentive to keep playing), but what you get from the very beginning is great enough on its own. Various rifles and handguns, RPGs, grenades, C4, artillery strikes etc.

But what really made the game for me was the gameplay. Yes, just like most other sandbox games, it’s a mix of running/driving around and shooting stuff. However, with its very open world, Mercenaries 2 allows a variety of approaches to fulfill your contracts. Yeah, I’ve heard all the jokes about how the game is only about air strikes, and that you cannot play it in any other way. To those people, I say: use your bloody imagination. Air strikes are useful, but by and large, I found myself hardly making use of them. Systematically eradicating everyone in a base just with your standard weapons is a much more challenging and satisfying experience. Disguising yourself as a member of a faction (or a civilian) and getting close to your target that way can be useful, too, and enemy tanks are absolutely lovely toys.