By Yap Hui Bin, a freelance writer and serious gamer

GAME for a lethal mix of politics, profit and pleasure, with an overdose of explosions?

Mercenaries 2 is all that and more.

Set in chaotic Venezuela amid five warring factions, you play a mercenary, earning your keep by serving the various factions and stealing. You also have a personal vendetta to fulfil - hunt down Romano Solana, the dictator who double-crossed you.

Mercenaries 2 RATING: 8/10 $56.90 Third-person shooter (genre) PC (platform)

Cheat sheet IF YOU intend to infiltrate enemy territory, hijacking their vehicle will help you disguise yourself as one of them. Be warned: They will get suspicious if you linger in their midst. Getting a High Value Target (HVT) out alive for the full bounty is tricky as the enemies will attack both you and your hostage. Once you have subdued your hostage, hide him, say, behind a building or some foliage. As the helicopter needs to land on a flat area, you need to move to somewhere open before calling in the chopper. Hold off the attackers while waiting for the chopper to arrive and quickly load your hostage onboard. If all else fails, just escape with your life. Your HVT will likely be killed but you can go back later and take his picture to collect half the bounty. Factions will turn against you only if they witness your actions against them. So always make sure that no one sees you stealing or silence the witnesses. Various factions will hire you to take over enemy camps. Once you have cleared the camp of enemies, your hirers will occupy the camp and take all the loot. To ensure that you get to the loot first, leave one or two enemies alive in the camp and quickly call in your private chopper to airlift all the bounty. Then, kill them and leave an empty camp for your hirers to take over. Your chopper can airlift more than one target at a time. Mark all the loot that you want before calling in the chopper and it will carry everything at one go.

Apart from firearms such as automatic and sniper rifles, anti-aircraft rockets and grenade launchers, you can also use C4 charges to level buildings and even call for air strikes to flatten an entire camp. With over-the-top explosions, a la Jerry Bruckheimer, blowing things up in Mercenaries 2 makes for a satisfying experience.

More than just a shooter, Mercenaries 2 lets you recruit a motley crew of specialists.

They include a mechanic who conjures up customised vehicles, a helicopter pilot armed with a winch that pinches huge quantities of loot and a fighter pilot whose air strikes can lay waste your opponent's stronghold. With their help, dealing destruction and stealing munitions is a breeze.

The title's freestyle gameplay and sprawling map means vehicles are essential. You can carjack vehicles from innocent civilians, fly around in a helicopter and island-hop using jet skis or boats.

Besides completing story-related missions, you can comb the map for money, fuel or munitions that are lying around.

You will also need to flex your politicking muscle and maintain a balance - being friendly to factions while profiting from them.

For instance, stealing money from a faction will anger them but you can appease them by helping them kidnap a high-value target from their enemy.

A friendly faction offers you many privileges, such as safe passage into their territories and shops that provide upgrades, weapon stockpiles and vehicles. Hostile factions, though, will shoot you on sight.

Most missions involve capturing outposts, kidnapping or killing targets and escorting VIPs. For variety, there are mini games in the form of wagers. One poor excuse of a mission, however, is the totally irrelevant monster truck test-drive mission.

The game has its fair share of bugs and quirky AI (artificial intelligence) - enemies can eerily spawn on an open road right before your eyes and allies prefer to stand around stupidly rather than help you fight attackers.

Mercenaries 2 offers co-op play online where you can play with a friend or a stranger to complete missions and keep the stolen loot and money to fund your single-player campaign.

It's highly recommended for those with an insatiable appetite for destruction.

This article was first published in Digital Life, The Straits Times on Oct 8, 2008.