The Grand Theft Auto games are great fun to play and I have a particular fondness for the eighties-themed ‘Vice City’. But the only problem is that I never manage to finish any of the missions. The appeal of going off on a freestyle rampage is just far too strong and I will have oodles of cops hunting me down within the first five minutes!

So, when I first got ‘Mercenaries’ I was concerned that I might have the same niggling problem… could I manage to complete any of the actual missions without being lured into bouts random and wanton violence? Well, surprisingly enough, I could! The whole feel of ‘Mercenaries’ is far more tactical than ‘Vice City’ and I can just about manage to behave; well, most of the time…

Free-roaming games are a hugely enjoyable because they make everything seem so real. I don’t know if the playing area of ‘Mercenaries’ is as big as any of the Grand Theft Auto’s, but it certainly takes a long time to explore. And like the GTA games, there are not only missions to be completed; many bonus items are waiting to be discovered and there are some more unusual vehicles to be found along your way.

I have yet to see the second instalment of the ‘Mercenaries’ series, but ‘Playground of Destruction’ is a brilliant title to own. However good you are at this type of game, you will certainly not be completing it in a hurry. When you finally have finished it all, you can play it through with another one of the characters and make a number of different decisions the next time around. Saying all that, I do think that some of the characters that you can play would benefit from a visit to laser tattoo removal Maidenhead, I understand that sometimes game graphics people get out of hand but we are trying to keep this realistic!