Story
When a job goes bad, you get a target on your back and a bullet in your ass, and thus begins Mercenaries 2. Playing as one of three characters, Jennifer Mui, Mattias Nilsson, or Christopher Jacobs, each with their own little boost (I played as Mui, who was a bit quicker on her feet, saved my ass more than once) you start off taking over the mansion of Ramon Solano, the game's antagonist who royally screwed you over (see "bullet in gluteus maximus"). Once your base of operations is set up you take missions from different factions around Venezuela, each one rewarding you with cash and information needed to take down Solano. The plot of the game never takes itself too seriously even though we are talking oil, foreign policy, and erupting war, I didn't ever feel particularly close to the characters, or even care about what was going on. Each little vignette between missions was time wasted that I could have spent causing mayhem.

Gameplay
This is where Mercenaries 2 can tip into a game I can actually recommend people spend their money on. Controlling your character is painless and shooting is handled with the trigger buttons with the option to shoot on the run or slow down for some more precise shots. I never had trouble aiming and found myself a pro and taking out my enemies within five minutes of starting the game. Driving is handled with the face buttons which racing fans don't seem to be happy about, but the driving never needs to be as precisely handled as it is in games like the Grand Theft Auto series. You'll rarely lose a race due to poor controls; you'll usually lose when your vehicle is blown up by a tank or mine. Being an open world game means Mercs 2 gets lumped together with GTA IV, which really isn't fair. GTA IV offers a game that stretches beyond merely killing and racing around. Mercenaries 2 doesn't really vary missions beyond finding an area, killing some baddies, and either securing or destroying the current location. There are some racing segments thrown in, which are mainly just cruising from checkpoint to checkpoint and you have all the makings of mediocrity.

Completing missions makes you a little bit richer, and this money can be used to purchase weapons, as well as ammo drops and very destructive air-to-ground attacks. Unfortunately causing civilians pain and untimely death will cost you where it hurts, your wallet.

So why would I recommend a repetitive mission-filled game? Because while the missions are painfully similar, your strategy in tackling these objectives is where the fun comes in. Take for instance one of the side missions that have you identifying persons of interest and either capturing them or killing them. On one of these missions I snuck into the village he was hiding out in, took out a few of his friends, captured him and tossed him in my helicopter. That was boring and level-headed, so on my next target I drove my jeep into the town, hit and killed him, took a photo of his corpse, then leveled his compound with my rocket launcher. Crazy? Maybe. Tons of fun? Yes!

Graphics
Oh my dear sweet Mercenaries 2, who beat you with the ugly stick? Nobody will ever mistake Mercenaries 2 for a work of technical genius. The character models look straight out of last generation and their animations don't fair much better. I really hope they didn't pay those motion capture actors more than minimum wage because during cut scenes you'd think the mo-cap data was taken from an epileptic monkey. In game visuals aren't exactly a treat. When driving, expect loads of pop-up that get so bad that you run into trees and vehicles that seemed to have been teleported right in front of you at the last minute. Not that it affected my driving, but at one point you're racing around a quarry and the texture of rocks on the ground are literally appearing 5 feet in front of you the entire time you're in the vehicle. Maybe Pandemic was trying to imply that mercenaries are blinded by greed and can't see the world beyond what is in front of them... what? It could happen.

Where the game does shine graphically are in the explosions. From calling in airstrikes to wipeout castles to riding around in a tank to blow up your enemies the blasts are a sight to behold. Because almost every structure in the game can be taken down, a great deal of time has been invested in making these destructive impulses as pretty as possible. Too bad the rest of the game feels like an up scaled PS2 game.

Co-Op
If you have a friend, and they have Mercs 2, and you have Mercs 2, then play this game co-op. I spent a great amount of my play through teamed up with my buddy and we had a blast. There are some limitations with co-op such as only one person getting credit for completed missions (although any money you gain during co-op transfers to your single player campaign), as well as racing missions only being really playable if one person is just chilling in the passenger seat. Some have pointed out that unlike in Crackdown, players are forced to stay within a certain distance of their partner, but when you're both working together there is no need to have someone on the other side of the map. Oh, just make sure you both have headsets; we didn't have these on the first night and had to maneuver our cell phones with our heads while trying to stay focused on the game.

Overall
Mercenaries 2 is by no means a good game. With a mountain of problems from graphical ugliness to a repetitive mission structure many of you are better off holding on to your cash. If you have the money to burn though and a friend with a copy of the game then you'll certainly be entertained, if only for a few extended play sessions. Just lower your expectations. Nope, keep lowering them, lower, lower, still lower... maybe a bit lower.

6 out of 10