MERCENARIES: Publisher: Lucasarts. Formats: PS2, Xbox. Price £39.99. Family friendly? Teens only.

WHILE every other games publisher is going crazy for the first-person shooters, it's good to see Lucasarts sticking with the traditional third-person action game.

Mercenaries is set in the near future on the eve of an historic reunification of North and South Korea. Unfortunately, just as the two sides are about to shake hands, a ruthless general stages a military coup to take control of North Korea and threatens the world with nuclear war. The international community launches a global task force to stabilise the region. However, when diplomatic efforts collapse and the region descends into anarchy, they announce a $100m bounty on the North Korean general and his top military and scientific advisors.

The targets are identified in a "most wanted" list in the form of a 52-card deck of playing cards. As one of the top operatives for a private mercenaries company called Executive Operations, you have been called in to collect on these bounties.

After a pretty torrid couple of years, Lucasarts is back at the top of its game and this title shows why. Superficially, it looks like any other shoot 'em up but when you dive in, the title it most closely resembles is Grand Theft Auto, even down to the need to hijack various vehicles.

The 52 "most wanted" are hiding somewhere across the huge landscape. So big, in fact, that you don't have a hope of finding them until some sort of clue comes your way (usually as the result of successfully completing a mission for one of the rival factions).

As with GTA, the ope- ended nature of the game gives it immense playability. Every mission is different, even contracts you have already successfully carried out, so you can go back and try everything another way. The game never tells you how to carry out a mission - just what the objective happens to be.

From the start, you can elect to be one of three mercenaries: Jennifer Mui, a British agent from Asia; a tough American called Chris Jacobs, or Mattias Nilsson, from Sweden.

The driving levels are generally well done. The vehicles have predictable handling, which makes them easy to control (although I found controlling a tank on one of my missions very tricky) and excellent directional sound effects. A thorough knowledge of the vehicles on offer is needed if you are to complete all your missions.

When you capture a member of the deck, you can kill him or cuff him and wait for an extraction team to take him away.

All of this looks very nice, especially the explosion effects, although the environments could be a bit sharper (an inevitable "dodge" needed to get around the lack of texture memory on the PS2 perhaps).

SONIC MEGA COLLECTION: Publisher: Sega. Platforms: PS2, Xbox. Price: £29.99. Family friendly? Yes.

TODAY'S games may cost millions to develop, have a cast of thousands and boast the kind of lavish visuals once the preserve of Hollywood blockbusters but they could still learn a trick or two from the gaming classics of yesteryear.

Take the Sonic Mega Collection - a mega-mix of the best 16-bit adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog and his pals. The DVD contains: Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Sonic The Hedgehog 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic The Hedgehog Spinball, Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, The Ooze, Comix Zone, Flicky and Ristar. There are also six hidden SEGA Game Gear games: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Chaos, Sonic Drift, Sonic Labyrinth, Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and Sonic Blast.

Had you lashed out on that collection when these games were new, it would have set you back a cool £540, which makes the £29.99 asking price the bargain of the year.

Although the Game Gear titles look a bit ropey nowadays, the Mega-Drive Sonics still play beautifully - your little blue hedgehog zooms around the screen collecting gold rings - and the first three titles remain as addictive as ever.

They also make the perfect gaming introduction for young children. You can let them hone their dexterity with the frenetic on-screen action with no fear of any nasty surprises.

Sega has released Sonic compilations before (on the Saturn and the PC) but this one is the biggest and best of them all.

Published: 11/02/2005