Despite all the really nice things I've said about this game, it is sadly far from a perfect title. Many of the complaints I have are somewhat nit-picky and not all that significant, but they occurred often enough to warrant a good deal of frustration on my part. For starters, the AI initially seems really good, with enemies and allied units alike maneuvering around constantly, throwing grenades when necessary and trying to get out of the way of my oncoming vehicles, but sometimes I found lapses that drove me nuts. The target selection routines for an NPC manning my vehicular turrets seemed flawed, in that the AI would fire at a passing target, then spend the next couple of minutes staring at the spot that target had been rather than firing upon new threats bearing down on me. I also ran into a couple of odd circumstances where friendly units fired on me for no apparent reason whatsoever. AI units also seemed capable of shooting at me with great accuracy through foliage and trees when I couldn't see them worth a damn -something which not only affected combat, but also infiltration missions where I was trying to be sneaky. Furthermore, one major complaint I have about the gameplay is that the Mercenary character is utterly incapable of swimming - something that took me totally off-guard the first time I attempted to retreat into a river to get away from an enemy ambush and ended up drowning instead. There's also no parachute available, which basically makes the bail out?function for a crippled aircraft entirely useless (falling damage is so exaggerated that I commonly took damage just running down a slope). These problems don't do enough to really offset the otherwise awesome experience Mercenaries puts forth, but it certainly hurt my immersion and enjoyment quite a bit.

On the other hand, the graphical presentation in Mercenaries is nothing less than amazing, and can be summed up in three words: explosions, explosions, and more explosions! To be frank, watching things blow up in this game is really damned cool, thanks both to some really cleverly designed special effects, and an excellent use of physics. As is the gimmick for most of today's games, Mercenaries has a physics engine for everything from vehicles to crates and pieces of debris strewn across the landscape, and seeing them all interact with each other is immensely satisfying. It got to the point where I was shouting "Ho ho, silly North Koreans! See what I think of your puny primitive roadblocks!" as I plowed over sandbag walls and through stacks of crates and signs, sending debris flying all over the place - although curiously, trees and shrubbery are totally indestructible and stopped even the heaviest of tanks flat in their tracks.

And as I mentioned, the explosions are beautiful. Destroying vehicles with a well-placed rocket or tank shell is one thing (especially when the explosion sends the wreckage bouncing end-over-end across the terrain), but the airstrikes and other support attacks are the game? true beauty. Artillery barrages, cruise missiles, carpet bombings, and anti-tank rockets really show off all the graphical splendor the game has to offer. The artistic style used to represent the terrain is also incredible, with some gritty, detailed textures that perfectly portray what a war-torn plot of land should look like. The game is also excellent about keeping track of objects the player has manipulated, so it? entirely feasible to leave your vehicle, go on a trek across the map, return later (not too much later, of course), and find your vehicle is still there - but sadly, there? no way to actually preserve vehicles in garages or anything like in Grand Theft Auto, so saving and shutting down my game usually meant I had to find a totally fresh ride, something not totally inconvenient, but still disappointing. Also, the draw distance in the game is quite generous, but still very restricting (even if they cover it up with a lot of nice looking fog) and would make navigation from the air quite tricky were it not for the radar display. Framerates stayed rock-solid at all times though, so it looks like Pandemic has made pretty good use of the aging Xbox hardware.

This game really took me by surprise. I was expecting something decent from the previews and commercials, but actually ended up with a game that truly is a playground for the arsonist-at-heart. The storyline is actually decent, the amount of background information is very impressive (the manual is actually handy for a change too), and the large number of weapons, vehicles, and gameplay styles available make for a significant amount of replayability and flexibility in choosing how to play - always a plus. The only thing suspiciously absent from this game is multiplayer (I hate to toot my usual horn, but co-operative play with this game would have been awesome), but that doesn? interfere with the fact that the game is still incredibly well done. With some of the best explosive action I've seen yet and incredibly addictive gameplay, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is an excellent start to the year, and a must-have for any Xbox owner.