January 10, 2005 - You've got to hand it to LucasArts. As a company known for creating inconsistent quality Star Wars games and some very forgettable non-Star Wars games, the last 18 months have been a boon. With few exceptions, you can now look confidently at the Marin, Ca.-based publisher and find something compelling or downright desirable. With Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, the upcoming Star Wars: Republic Commando, and the strangely addicting Mercenaries, you'll be hard-pressed to resist any of them.

Developed by the red-hot Pandemic (Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars Battlefront) and produced by the well-versed Peter Hirschmann (creator of Medal of Honor, producer of Secret Weapons Over Normandy), Mercenaries is a third-person action that delivers on its promise of massive unending destruction. Incorporating elements of Battlefield 1942 and Grand Theft Auto, LucasArts and Pandemic have created a militaristic sandbox-style tour de force. You're handed the keys to drive dozens of military vehicles from civilian cars to tanks to helicopters, offered a massive North Korean landscape on which to drive, and five belligerent factions, all of which you get to play off one another for fun and profit.

Gameplay
Developed for Xbox and PlayStation 2, LucasArts' Mercenaries should feel both familiar to those who've played open-design games, and fresh, as the 20-plus hour, single-player action game stars three mercenaries who run around North Korea like it was their neighborhood stomping ground. You start with one of three characters, the swift, roguish Swede who speaks Russian, a stealthy British female from Hong Kong who is fluent in Chinese, and a tough Korean-speaking African-American. (There is supposedly a fourth, unlockable character, which LucasArts has yet to reveal.) You'll be brought up to speed on the controls, vehicles and weapons as you progress through the first mission and within minutes you'll be introduced to the factions, which are at the core of Mercenaries's unique progression scheme.

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Being a mercenary, you work for a Private Military Company (PMC) but you're hired by all the factions at one time or another. Your aim is to take down 52 of the most deadly North Korean militants (thus the most wanted deck of 52), with General Song being the primary objective. Each faction (Allied Nations, South Koreans, Russian Mafia, and the Chinese) is part of the general chaos of trying to fight or contain the explosive and unstable North Korea, which is on the brink of a potential global war. By taking contracts from a faction, you'll earn money and gather data, helping to stop North Korea's assaults. The money is good to buy increasingly powerful weapons, vehicles, airdrops, and military power, while the data provides the most recent whereabouts of another card in the deck of 52.

The Swede takes the tank!

While like GTA and Battlefield 1942, Mercenaries offers a distinct sense of balance and gameplay. The contract missions are key to progression, but exploring the vast Korean landscape is fun and helpful as it's filled with secrets, mini-missions and an ever-changing war-torn environment. The balance issue comes into play as soon as you take contract work for any one faction. Each time you take one on you'll likely to fight another. As you progress, you realize you'll fall in favor with the Chinese but find the South Koreans angry -- or vice versa. An efficient menu system enables you to see what your rating is with each faction, and part of your overall goal is to keep all of them generally happy with you. The result of an angry faction is their direct assault whenever you come near.

The system works well most of the time; you'll feel compelled to keep them all happy, and they all provide new info and cash. On the other hand, it doesn't matter all that much if one or even two factions are pissed. You can simply bribe the guards of any faction and quickly earn back their love. And you're always getting shot at, so it doesn't force you to be nice all the time. Once you start progressing, you'll fight each suit, with the "boss" Ace as your goal. Each one gets progressively harder and increasingly surrounded by heavier military muscle. And Pandemic has done an excellent job of varying the style of each "boss" mission. Also, the cash incentives become more obvious as you progress: they give you ample options to buy more powerful weapons on a mission where you prefer a carpet bomb instead on a surgical strike, a rocket launcher instead of a sniper rifle.