Things are looking good for Pandemic lately. Riding recent successes like Full Spectrum Warrior, Mercenaries and Battlefronts 1 and 2, and enjoying the stability of their current merger with Bioware/Elevation Partners, their dev team has been a bunch of productive little bees. Development on a sequel to 2004’s action adventure title “Mercenaries” is in full swing and although the release date is yet to be determined, the game thus far is looking pretty cool.

Improving on existing sandbox game mechanics, Pandemic appears to have listened to gamer complaints about the first game (such as having a hardass merc drown the second he touches water that’s more than ankle-deep) and also added a few cool new features. The first game was set in grey, dreary, war-torn North Korea. Mercs 2 by contrast is set in a bright, sunny, rainbow-colored Venezuela, which offers up a much cheerier brand of war-torn.

Featured in Mercs 2 is Matthias, the bad boy Swedish mercenary from the first game. By the look of him, he spent most of the money he earned in North Korea on tattoos and salon appointments. Sporting dark glasses, a tall platinum Mohawk, faded jeans, a rubber-banded double goatee and all-over arm tatts, he looks more like a carny than a merc but who am I to judge? For all I know, in the twilight world of survival knives and camouflage pants, he’s considered a cover boy for Guns and Ammo. Reprising the voice of Matthias is Peter Stormare, the laconic Swedish actor who stuffed Steve Buscemi into a wood chipper at the end of Fargo. For me, his performance could stand to be (as Emeril Legasse might say) “kicked up a notch” because he often kills the humor with his slow, seemingly Vicodin-inspired delivery. But since he IS Swedish, you can’t say the VO isn’t authentic.

Matthias is a self-interested guy and in Mercs 2, he’s working to build his own private military company. To achieve that end, he’ll be doing what he does best – blowing shit up. Pandemic’s made it even easier for him to take care of business; this time he won’t have to rely on the Russian Black Market to get ahold of all his cool implements of destruction. And since there will no longer be any limitation on weapon usage, that means the opportunities for wreaking havoc are virtually infinite.

Adding to the chaos is a new feature called “dynamic fire”, which allows you to burn just about anything that looks flammable. Matthias can nonchalantly toss a match over his shoulder and set a grassy field on fire, which then can blow up oil trucks or engulf nearby buildings. Along with apparently having learned to swim since we last saw him, Matthias has also learned to sail; you’ll be able to hijack and steal watercraft this go-round in addition to all manner of ground vehicles.

You can still hijack any vehicle but now hijacking is more challenging. As a context-sensitive mini-game, it’s no longer as passive and requires a series of timely button presses, making it something at which you can succeed or fail. As if that wasn't enough, a new tactical feature allows you to grapple. That’s exciting news because in the first game, buildings could only be destroyed and could not be used for tactical advantage. Now you’ll be able to climb onto balconies to get better shots off or to lie in ambush for enemies. Gameplay is still open-ended and maps are as big as they ever were, but this time they’re contiguous, eliminating load times between zones.

Other mercs can be recruited to help you in a simple take on squad-based play and if you prefer a real live partner to a ‘bot, Pandemic has now implemented co-op play! Sadly, thus far co-op is the only multiplayer mode that exists in the game. Two players can play the story mode simultaneously in split screen and can choose to either help each other complete missions for various local factions or can work night and day to edge each other out. In a very cool demo of this mechanic, two of the devs played Matthias and a female L.A. native named Eva Navarro and worked together to blow up an oil rig. Upon completing this mission, they engaged in a fist fight while hanging from a helicopter, the result of which was Matthias throwing Eva off the ‘copter and flying off in it.

Pandemic’s new franchise offers a lot to be excited about and I’ll be anxiously awaiting its release (the date is as yet unknown) on the PS3. With scads of new features and gameplay improvements, not to mention a vibrant new setting and totally new and ripped-from-the-headlines storyline, Mercenaries 2 promises to be the game the original title was meant to be.