Explosions. Mercenaries 2 World in Flames has lots of them. Once you see the first air strike you just want to have more of them. There are so many things you can blow up and destroy you may well end up spending more time doing that than getting on with the mission. It may not have the graphical edge of some of today’s current and upcoming hits, but then those games don’t have as much freedom of movement, so they can spend more time making things look prettier. Still looks pretty decent though.

As with all things capable of going boom, you need to have some audio grunt as well as the visual fulfillment of destroying things. Mercenaries 2 doesn’t let anyone down here either. All the weaponry and vehicles sound just right and the music does add to the game well. The same can’t quite be said about the vocals. The gags are funny and the story good, but it just feels a little artificial when you hear them speaking, particularly in game, where it suffers from chronic repetitive phrase syndrome. See how long you can last before you want to give Mattias a tank after he wishes for one for about the 80th time. You have been warned.

Most of the missions are just a load of fun to do and can be quite intricate, requiring a steady hand, rather than an itchy trigger finger. Take one of the first major missions involving a big Petroleum company in Venezuela. You have to hijack a truck and prevent the guns in the back from falling out. Sounds easy enough, but when you see big vehicles coming towards you at a rapid clip you can sometimes get a bit jumpy. Took me 2 attempts, but then I was clumsy enough to hit a slow moving lorry.