Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

Just been playing this game (which you might also remember as "the game EA promoted by giving away free petrol and clogging up the roads").

It feels a lot like GTA to play - third person, running around stealing vehicles and firing off weapons, plus you have a large game world you can roam around picking up missions or just blowing stuff up for the hell of it.

After the opening intro mission you're based in an abandoned Villa which you soon outfit with a stockpile of weapons plus a heli and jet. While out in the field, you can call down airstrikes on targets identified by a number of methods (laser guidance, smoke, and by guiding a sat-cam), and delivery of supplies/vehicles by helicopter. It's also very reminiscent of GTA in that there are a number of factions you gain and lose reputation with. Unlike GTA though, you have a choice of three characters to play.

The graphics tend to look a bit pixelated if you knock the settings down from max textures, but I found even my Radeon HD 2600 could cope with the full settings.

There is an online co-op mode (requires authentication with EA servers ), but it appears to only support two-player. This does mean however you can make use of the weapons mounts on vehicles while driving - or for single-player you can honk the horn next to friendly AI and they'll get in and man the turrets for you. Alternatively you can just hotseat around the vehicle driving a bit and then manning the weapons

The map is a nice mix of large landmasses, islands, and an expanse of water - giving you the opportunity to try out both land and sea vehicles (I believe you can fly a chopper at some point, but at the moment the only one I've used is the AI-piloted one). You can make your own way around the map or call in your chopper pilot for a pickup. Pretty much *everything* in the game can be destroyed, although you may need some serious hardware to take out large buildings (half a dozen shots from the tank seems to work nicely!). There's also a quite fun minigame sequence when you attempt to hijack tanks (anything smaller you just haul the driver out GTA-style and take their seat).

If you're a big fan of GTA-type games and lots of explosions, you should love this one.

Oh, and this is the PC version, but it's also available on console.

Lasted about two days before I got bored of it