Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
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Developer(s): Pandemic Studios
Publisher(s): LucasArts (US, EU, AU), Electronic Arts (JP)
Genre: Action, Adventure
Wikipedia: Link
Game review links: IGN: 9.1/10, Metacritic: 84/100
Game description: Inspired by real-world events, Mercenaries begins the search for the leader of a North Korean military coup who threatens the world with nuclear war. As one of the top operatives for a private mercenaries company, you have been called in to execute the general and his top military and scientific advisors. Hunt down all 52 targets--depicted on a deck of playing cards--with a variety of military weapons and vehicles. Earn cash from different missions to buy better weapons and vehicles, or sell your vehicles and weapons on the black market.
A "sandbox" war action game with open-ended gameplay in a gigantic world. Set against the outbreak of warfare spurred on a Korean dictator coup, players have free reign of a massive landscape to take bounties on the "Deck of 52" evil warlords and minions as you work towards taking down the general who started the onslaught.
Test configurations on Windows:
| Environment | Configurations | Comments | Tester | ||||
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| Region | OS | CPU/GPU | Revision | Graphics | Sound/Pad | ||
| PAL | ? |
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r4600 | GSDX r4643 0.1.16 SSE4.1 |
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BIOS: Europe v2.00, Goes ingame with GSDX11 HW mode, but has very bad visual glitches with the bloom effects and severe slowdowns. Runs fine in GSDX11 Software mode with 4 threads and aa1 enabled. Speedhacks used: INTC Spin detection, Wait Loop Detection, Fast CDVD, mVU flag hack, VU Cycle Stealing:1., Very demanding graphically, Relatively CPU heavy | 178.167.246.121 |
| NTSC-U | Windows |
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1.1.0 r5754 | GSdx r5752 SSSE3 |
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Game works alright (a bit slow) in Gsdx Software mode., Menus are absent in Gsdx HW mode. Also once ingame HW mode seems to be suffering from massive memory leak and almost hangs my pc. Use Gsdx software mode as most of the textures are missing with HW mode anyway. | |
| NTSC-U | Windows |
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1.5.gefc1274b2 | GSdx SSE 4.1 |
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• Requires a cheat to remove banding issue without resorting to skipdraw: "23510F99.pnach / gametitle=<<your gametitle>> / patch=1,EE,204F318C,extended,00000000" (don't forget to enable cheats) (credits to Souzooka).
• OpenGL gave the best results after some tweaks. • Use Auto Flush to fix car light bug. • Audio Synchronization: either Timesync or nothing, to prevent skipping audio lines. • Turn widescreen patches off for proper proportions. • MTVU gives fps boost without side effects. • Mipmapping should be off (forgot reason). • Blending Unit Accuracy on High (forgot reason). • Couldn't get 60FPS cheat to work, shows 60FPS but runs at 30FPS. |
Tobie-08 |
| NTSC-U | Windows |
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1.1.0 r5754 | GSdx r5752 SSSE3 |
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Game works alright (a bit slow) in Gsdx Software mode., Menus are absent in Gsdx HW mode. Also once ingame HW mode seems to be suffering from massive memory leak and almost hangs my pc. Use Gsdx software mode as most of the textures are missing with HW mode anyway. | |
| NTSC-U | Windows 7 x64 |
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1.5.0-dev-3025 | GSdx AVX2
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Works with only what i did set up in settings. Maybe it was added in fixes etc for this game in this release. I think with better gpus higher resolution is doable. | Everx7 |
| NTSC-U | Windows 7 x64 |
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v1.5.0-dev-3389 | GSdx SSE4
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Finally able to run the game without having to use OpenGL using the 1.5.0 dev. The apparent memory leaks when using HW mode to have been fixed. This is good news for AMD users as their drivers do not play well with OpenGL. The game plays and looks great, except for the odd slowdown or momentary freeze. | AndrewWithTheBeard |
| NTSC-U | Windows 1909 |
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1.5.0 dev build 3400 | GSdx 1.1.0 AVX2
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Game runes well. 60FPS with minimal slowdown.
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Lord Xeb |
Test configurations on Linux:
| Environment | Configurations | Comments | Tester | ||||
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| Region | OS | CPU/GPU | Revision | Graphics | Sound/Pad | ||
| PAL | Solus, kernel 5.2.2 |
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1.5.0 (0814690) | GSdx 1.1.0 AVX2
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Playable full speed with the specified settings (unspecified settings at default value).
• There are occasional momentary slowdowns when looking around while on foot. • There are sound/speed issues during FMVs. • The button icon does not always appear next to the text in prompts. • The sky is darker than in Software mode. |
Ratchet66 |
Test configurations on Macintosh:
| Environment | Configurations | Comments | Tester | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Region | OS | CPU/GPU | Revision | Graphics | Sound/Pad | ||
| NTSC | Monterey 12.2.1 |
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Nightly build 3-21-2022 | Metal Renderer (Hardware)
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N/A | MTVU enabled, fast CDVD enabled, EE Cyclerate set to 1. Near as makes no difference 100% speed with constant 30fps (cyclerate necessary for FPS, otherwise the game's internal frame rate will drop, but still perfectly playable like that). The only visual glitch I've found is that sometimes button prompts don't show up properly. | DigitalMajestic |
Trivia
- Original names: マーセナリーズ (SLPM-65942) & (SLPM-66465)
- Also known as Mercenaries
Known Issues
Lights Always Visible Through Vehicles
- Status: Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: Vehicle headlights are always visible through the vehicle itself.
- Workaround: Go to Config > Video(GS) > Plugin Settings. If using Software Mode, enable "Auto Flush". If using Hardware Mode, enable "Enable HW Hacks", click "Advanced Settings & Hacks", and enable "Auto Flush". You have to have both Auto Flush and Native resolution enabled for this to work. One or the other on its own won't fix anything. Tested on 1.5 dev 3242.
The gallery
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Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (SLES 52588)
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Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (SLES 52588)
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Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (SLES 52588)
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- Games rated T in North America
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