If you're the kind of person who spends their weekends wearing a T-shirt that reads 'Saving The World Peace By Peace' and eating Tofurky bites whilst lying in a puddle of mud in front of a bulldozer, trying to stop it cutting down a tree that's home to a family of lesser spotted nobnibblers, then the chances are that Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is going to make you cry.

As with the original Mercenaries, you have the choice of three playable characters, each of whom is the equivalent of a human kill switch - you press a button and they take out everything in the surrounding area. This is a game that encourages you - no, pleads with you - to blow stuff up, and then to blow up the stuff you just used to blow up the first lot of stuff. In possibly the most appropriate decision ever, the Havok game engine has been employed to create environments where almost everything you see can be burnt, bulleted or bombed to hell several times over; and developers Pandemic Studios would probably prefer it if you always used all three methods in honour of the amount of possible destruction they have built into their game.

While the weapons list in many sandbox titles would include guns and grenades before topping out with something like a rocket launcher, this is only a starting point in Mercs 2. When you decide to bring the heavy lumber in this game, it comes in the form of a variety of air strikes that include daisy cutters, laser guided bombs and tactical nukes, which engulf everything onscreen with a light so white and a fire so ferocious that, for a second, you think the apocalypse has actually arrived. The vehicle options are even more plentiful, with a wide selection for land, sea and air travel, which include the normal models and things like sports cars, monster trucks and dune buggies with rockets. See something you want that is currently being piloted or driven by an enemy and it can be yours in a couple of seconds, if you can complete a quick mini-game. For example, use your grappling hook to winch yourself up to a helicopter flying above you and then hit the right buttons in the prompted order and your merc opens the cockpit door, grabs the pilot, slams the door shut on his head and jumps in as is he is given a helping hand to exit. Once you're in one of the vehicles, even more opportunities to bring chaos develop and the limits on these really only depend on how creative you want to be. Sure, blowing up a petrol station by firing missiles at it from the helicopter you've just commandeered is fun, but how about using that helicopter to pick up a fuel tanker and drop that on it instead?

Just as in other open world games, Mercs 2 has you completing primary missions that drive the storyline forward and secondary missions that allow you to earn extra money and bonuses, as well as having a bit of extra-curricular fun. Whereas the first Mercs was set in North Korea, the destination for this sequel is another country off the normal tourist trail - Venezuela. The area has already become a political powder keg when you arrive, with different factions, including big oil, local militia, peacekeepers and pirates, all trying to serve their own, differing interests. By making contacts within these rival factions you are given missions that enable you to build up increasingly large caches of money and fuel, something that's equally important as cold, hard cash, which allows you to build up your own support team and achieve your goal of tracking down the dictator who tried to kill you at the very beginning of the game.

With jump in/jump out two player co-op, a central campaign that will take around fifteen to twenty hours and a military warehouseful of other content, there looks to be more than enough included in Mercs 2 to convince many people to pull the trigger on a purchase. If you do, it's not so much a game you'll be getting in your nice presentation box as a lump of C4 moulded into the shape of a disk.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is released in the UK on Xbox 360, PS3, PC and PS2 on 05 September and in the U.S. on 31 August 2008.

Previewed by James Hamblin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).