Two words – Sandbox Bliss. If only Mercenaries 2 could have learned from this game, but alas, they both came out near the same time. What this game really is to me, is GTA without the BS.

Yeah, yeah, I know GTA is the greatest game ever made on the face of the earth and blah blah blah, but do yourself a favor and either buy or rent this game. If you are a GTA fan and love exceptionally well done sandbox games, this game will embue you with gaming bliss. Unfortunately, I just got Fable II today, so I’m kind of out of time to play this guy, although I’ve gotten near 10 hours of death and destruction from this already, and a good 50% of that time or more, played in a very, very well done coop. Being able to play the game out of order is a sweet new technique that really works in this title.

The cheats are also sweet. You can unlock a ufo, abeit with no rocket launchers… but the animation while you enter is hilarious. I also recommend completing all levels of the activities, which they have made it much easier to do than the first version. Use a partner in coop to make it more fun, and easier to complete the higher levels. Doing the drug dealer missions in coop is especially helpful, as you can coordinate cars, and not be stuck with the dealers crappy microbus and his terribly slow driving.

The rendering in the driving scenes is a little bit edgy, but you’ll notice that rarely, if ever, will you have framerate problems, freezing, etc, as I can see why they did this… not to make it a crappy rendering, but make it just good enough to enjoy, and seamless for when there is almost total action surrounding you. The controls are also very well done, I found them almost natural, and very intuitive. I get a little frustrated with the weapons switch from time to time, but i’m used to the left and right bumpers or the Dpad for that. Given that, I found hardly anything else in the game anything less than totally enjoyable.