I started playing Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction believing that every aspect of the game would be over the top. After a few minutes of playing, I found that I was sorely mistaken. The game’s storyline features a band of mercenaries that pit opposing forces against each other in a fictional North Korean war for their personal gain. Even though you can hijack a tank to go joyriding, I never thought the game was over the top. Mercenaries is far too entertaining to doubt the practicality of this far-fetched premise.

Set in present-day North Korea, the world has decided that it is time to stop the North Korean military from causing any more trouble. The Allies, the South Koreans and the Chinese have all invaded, but they are not alone. The Russian mafia has decided to set up a satellite operation in the heart of the mess, and the private company Executive Operations adds to the chaos of the situation. Each faction operates in a unique way to accomplish its varying goals. This opens the door for you, a well-trained mercenary, to step in and play all sides of the table.

Fortunately, each faction has a friendly middleman who will inform you whenever your specialized services are needed. Most of the time you receive contracts to capture or kill some of the most wanted North Korean military officials. The 52 most wanted men in North Korea are conveniently organized similarly to a deck of playing cards. This concept should sound familiar. The North Korean leader, General Song, is the ace of spades, and the deck continues all the way down to the two of hearts, who is a generic bad guy.

As the name of the game implies, you are not risking your life capturing the deck of 52 based on your convictions. You do it for the money. Money in this game works as it does in the real world. It makes your life better. After raking in a few large bounties, your character can ride in the finest military vehicles the Russian mafia can provide. Money also makes subsequent missions easier to complete. There is no need to risk your life when, for the right price, you can purchase a precision air strike to get the job done.

This game is filled with a wide spread of missions to capture the entire Deck of Evil along with some varied side missions exploring the massive free roaming map. Each mission increases in difficulty, forcing the player to master the use of new vehicles and evolving military tactics. This style of game play shows off the game’s excellent physics and graphics that recreate the excitement of flying an attack helicopter and the horror of trying to out run the Chinese army in a broken-down truck.

Mercenaries utilizes controls that are simple to learn and prove useful throughout the game. This encourages you to explore the game for yourself, instead of being led by the hand for the entire game. The user-friendly interface is great because most of the joy of the game does not come from the simple storyline. The game’s appeal is found in the freedom the player has in each mission to run around and cause trouble.

Overall, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is an amazing game. Having the mafia airlift in a pickup truck with a missile launcher mounted on the back never got old. This game also contains the best cheat code I have ever played with. You can play as Han Solo or Indiana Jones. Nothing can top Han Solo fighting the entire North Korean army by himself. The only drawback to this game is that it does not have a multiplayer mode. That is a huge disappointment, but I got over it quickly enough. Despite my one criticism of this game, I am still more than pleased with this title. You will understand how fun this game is the first time you play it.