Though my experience with them is sadly minimal, I'm a huge fan of sandbox games. The idea of being able to go wherever I want and do whatever I want is one of the greatest draws in all of gaming, for me. Mercenaries 2 is apparently one of those sandbox games, though I admittedly don't know to what extent they take that sandbox. When the demo popped up on XBL this past week, I couldn't not download it.

In Mercs 2, you're a mercenary given the task of blah blah blah, Venezuela, blah blah blah. Whatever. Completing the mission objectives is likely just a necessary evil that allows you to keep on destroying more things in satisfying explosions. The demo certainly makes that clear. You're given around 15 minutes to complete your objective, which involves a helicopter and a listening post and... I don't know. In my several playthroughs of the demo, I didn't complete a single objective, as far as I could tell. Admittedly, I'm stupid, but I felt like the menus and info were a little lacking.

Honestly, I found the demo restrictive, in that regard. The fact that it limited my playtime with the objective timer was a little obnoxious. But I found the gameplay surprisingly strategy-intensive, deeper than I'd anticipated. I had assumed you would just run through levels, casually wreaking havoc. In reality, you actually have to think things through a lot more. Numerous times, I found myself face-to-face with superior firepower, requiring that I either run or strategically, and slowly, take down my enemies. The time limit made these adjustments cumbersome, but otherwise they were welcome.



The game has an interesting in-game currency system. Evidently, you can make money by committing certain acts, such as destroying billboards. You can also lose money by killing civillians. I thought this was a nice touch, even though the reason for the financial loss -- your employers pay off the media(?) to sweep it under the rug -- is a little creepy. I did enjoy the fact that I could fly or drive into the city and hijack sportscars, even using vehicles to go incognito.

Essentially, despite some shortcomings, Mercenaries 2 appears to be a fairly well thought-out game. I was downright shocked to find that I'd actually run out of missiles in the helicopter, and that I didn't have an inexplicably unlimited supply. Even the chopper's bullets had a (generous) limit. Some might say that this breaks the already-ludicrous flow of the game. You can hijack helicopters from the ground, for frak's sake. It wasn't too jarring of an intrusion by reality, though.

Frustration did, however, set in a few times. For example, I picked up a pistol that someone had dropped, only to find that the assault rifle I'd dropped had mysteriously vanished, leaving me with only a pistol and a near-empty rocket launcher. So, it's not without its bugs. But even when I found myself with the short end of the stick in a ridiculously overwhelming situation, I was still having a figurative blast. All in all, a good demo for a promising, though questionable, game.

Does it make me want to buy it? Yes. Just barely. I feel like the (in my opinion) confusing mission objectives could get on one's nerves, but the game should hopefully make up for that with its sheer, glorious "mayhem factor."