It always makes me happy when I get to make pretty explosions in a game, so I immediately liked "Mercenaries 2: World in Flames."

In "Mercs 2," you choose one of three characters to play as: Mattias Nilsson (the mohawk guy you might have seen in the commercials), Jennifer Mui or Chris Jacobs. Each has a special advantage over the others, though it's not a game-changing ability. I chose to play as Mui, who can run faster than the other two.

As the mercenary, you travel to Venezuela to do a job for bad-guy Ramon Solano. After the job, he stabs you in the back (or, more literally, shoots you in the rear end). Your mercenary escapes but vows revenge on Solano, who goes on to take over the leadership of Venezuela.

The back story focuses on oil and who controls it, and Venezuela is in the midst of a power struggle. Different factions war with each other around the country, and you use this to your advantage as you try to work your way to Solano.

"Mercs 2" is a sandbox world, meaning you can go anywhere and do anything in the order you like. If you want to stick to the main story missions, you can do so. Or you can roam around the world and complete side objectives for the various factions.

If you have a helicopter pilot, you can have him pick up oil tanks or piles of money that you find lying around the world. In addition, there are bounties you can collect on and buildings that are on a destruction request list.

Destruction is the key word in "Mercs 2." EA promises that everything can be destroyed. And it really can. Shoot up a car, and it will explode. Hit a building a few times with a rocket-propelled grenade, and it collapses. Bring in an air strike, and an entire city block falls in on itself.

The damage you cause sticks around, too, until you end the play session. Awesome!

"Mercs 2" isn't without issues, however. The random dialogue from computer-controlled guys get repetitive, though it's easy enough to ignore. The enemies themselves aren't particularly smart, either.

More annoying is the disproportionate amount of damage a fall can cause. For example, jumping into the lake causes some damage, which is dumb. I'm not talking jumping from a cliff or anything; I mean simply jumping from a foot or two above the water. In the middle of battle, it can be fatal.

I also ran into some glitches. The most memorable was during one of my bounty hunts: I found the guy and subdued him, then lost sight of him while I cleared out the other enemies. I ran around for 10 minutes trying to figure out where he'd gone before I realized he had glitched into the building (which I couldn't enter), so I couldn't complete the objective. Luckily, when I came back later, I was able to confirm his body through the wall, even though I couldn't see him. Weird little things like that pop up every once in a while.

But any problems the game has pale in comparison to the sheer joy I got out of simply running around and blowing up things.

"Mercs 2" may not be perfect, but it's a heck of a lot of fun. And it's got a great sense of humor to go along with it. If you like third-person shooters with an explosive presence, "Mercs 2" is for you.

Note: There's an online co-op mode, but I didn't have anybody to test it out with.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

By: Electronic Arts, for Xbox 360 (also for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PC)

Rated: Teen

Cost: $59.99

Score: 8/10