Looking at: Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/162075-mercenaries-playground-of-destruction-xbox-screenshot-the.jpg

그 괴팍스러운 미치광이
geu goepagseuleoun michigwang-i

http://s.pro-gmedia.com/videogamer/media/images/xbox/mercenaries/screens/mercenaries_1.jpg

Air strikes are effective, and fun as hell.

North Korea is the whacky next door neighbor of world politics. They're always getting up to something crazy, be it threatening the world largest military power, claiming they have missiles, or getting really upset about a second-rate Seth Rogan comedy. The entire county is one non-stop comedy of errors and if it weren't for the atrocities committed to their citizens they'd be an absolute laughing stock and an international joke.

Who am kidding, they are anyway.

Despite this, DPRK has rarely been represented in the world of video games. Perhaps it's because one game featured them, and did such a great job that no one else wanted to even try.

파괴의 놀이터
pagoe ui nol-iteo

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/media/xbox/mercenaries/mercenaries1.jpg

The AI will dynamically fight battles against one another, letting you join or ignore them at your discretion.

Like the title of the game suggests, you play as one of three mercenaries from Executive Operations hired to enter North Korea in the midst of a second all out Korean war. Your task is to take out General Song, the newest dictator, as well as the Deck of 52, comprising of Song's 51 lieutenants. That's really it, the plot never goes anywhere else and there's never any twists, which kind of works to the game's favor. It reinforces the idea that you are a mercenary who's only in it for the money. You don't have a personal vendetta against Song, hell you don't even know him personally until the final mission. He and his men are just objectives for you to complete, and nothing else.

That's not to say Mercenaries is devoid of story. In order to progress through each of the four chapters of the game you'll need to interact with the various factions at play in North Korea. The UN and China are the two biggest players, with the UN looking to stabilize the region and China looking to add NK as the newest Chinese province. South Korea is in play, backed by the CIA who almost certainly has ulterior motives. Finally, the Russian mob is hanging around making trouble and selling equipment to the highest bidder. All of these, plus the DPRK forces will stand in your way, and often working for one faction will displease the others.

재미와 이익을 위해 촬영

jaemiwa iig-eul wihae chwal-yeong

http://images.gameskinny.com/gameskinny/5c270d150d94e305d0d19b627477fe97.jpg

Mattias Nilsson, one of the playable character, voiced by the awesom Peter Stormare

You don't name your game "Playground of Destruction" without offering something to blow up, and sure enough there's destruction in spades to be found in Mercenaries. Every building can be leveled, ever city block reduced to ash. Battles have a huge, bombastic feel as bullets whiz past and bombs create craters in the ground. Best of all fights are largely organic, and just traveling from one location to another can spill into a huge running battle that will keep you busy.

To facilitate this endless destruction is an alarming array of weapons and vehicles. Each faction has multiple vehicles to choose from, ranging from simple jeeps and humvees, all the way to heavy tanks and armoured personnel carriers. There's also helicopters to allow you to easily traverse the bumpy terrain of NK and clear enemy positions with ease.

Also supplementing your equipment is the various support options available from the various factions. The UN or China can provide you with access to their artillery systems, allowing you to completely decimate an area with the light of a flare, while SK and the Russians provide you numerous different equipment drops for a re-arm in the field. It's unfortunate that the system for requesting these ordinance is so clunky and unintuitive, because you'll find yourself using them a lot.

Graphically Mercenaries is just another victim of that mid-2000's attempt at 3d. Like most PS2 or Xbox games it doesn't look horrible, and there are enough details to make looking at it bearable, but there's no denying that it can't even compete with games like Doom 3 or MGS 3 from the same era. Where Mercenaries does stand out is it's use of explosions and destructible terrain, both of which are masterclass and unmatched even today. Destructible terrain on that scale became what Pandemic Studios was best known for until their closure in 2009.

큰 바보 재미
keun babo jaemi

http://www.game2k.cz/data/images/games/m/mercenaries_playground_of_destruction_ps2_6.jpg

You'll sow a path of destruction in your quest for Song.

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction isn't a life changing or genre defining game. By all account's it's a second-rate third person shooter that barely stands up to it's own contemporaries. At best it's a bizarre North Korean knock-off of the GTA franchise, albeit with slightly more explosions and slightly less swear words. Despite all of this, Mercenaries does remain as one of my more favoured games of it's type and one of the better games from the sixth gen.

There was a sequel a few years later for the next generation of consoles, but it didn't have nearly the same feel to it, and likely aided in the eventual demise of one of the better EA developers. Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is a simple game, with a simple premise, and a shitload of explosions, and that's just fine with me.