Introducing: Just Cause 2

A review by Alex Bauman.





'Just Cause 2' is a whole lot of fun. Boasting 400 square miles of open sandbox to play in, roughly 3000 collectibles, 350 locations (to decimate), 200 missions, and 100 vehicles to choose from; there is no shortage of things to do. Most of the stuff you can do is really fun, the stuff you have to do however...

Let's start with the good. Grappling hook, awesome. Climbing, zip lining, and double tethering all provide for hours of enjoyment. The unique double tethering ability is especially good. You are given the ability (desire not included) to grapple hook an enemy then hook, oh lets say a car, jump in the car and drive away with senior rag doll following. Maybe you haven't dragged him far enough to kill him, that's alright hit the hand brake jerk the wheel and fling his sorry ass into a building, or over a cliff, or off a cliff into a building. When you play this game make sure to tether one helicopter in flight to another, it hilariously explody.

If there was one word to sum up the overall experience that is 'Just Cause 2' it would have to be funsplosion. You've got to love a game who's central driving force is you absolutely destroying the crap out of everything. From military com. towers to gas stations in po-dunk fishing villages; the island of Panau is a fire sale... Everything must go. Explosions are literally the center of the game. You must cause chaos to progress the story; that is to say your chaos meter must be sufficiently full to activate the next story mission.

This south east Asian island of Panau looks fantastic. Environments such as snow topped mountain peaks, lush tropical rain forest, sandy beaches, and the rest here on Panau island; are all rendered with style and grace. Pop-in is a non issue, seeing a cluster of lights emerge from the forest below as you're flying to a destination gives that good feeling to the player; that "hey that's a place I can go" living environment feeling. It wouldn't be surprising to see the Avalanche 2.0 engine getting some use in the future based on it's performance in 'Just Cause 2'.

Several options are available for traversing this huge lush island. Sadly this is where some of the bad in 'Just Cause 2' comes out. Car, truck, helo., plane, and boat are all options with some faring better than others. The aerial vehicles handle nicely but your ground transports are very awkward and basically feel like you're driving a sack of piles of poo. A big sack. This is however a simple problem to overcome... don't use them. Instead use the super nifty grapple hook infini-shoot combo. You see Rico Rodriguez (you) is equipped not only with a kick ass grappling hook but also a parachute. Not just an ordinary parachute, as the infini-shoot moniker would imply, but an open/close at will infinitely reusable super shoot. This combination makes overland travel both fun and interesting. Hook the ledge of a tall building and three quarters of the way up open your shoot to soar over the top. While in the air grapple a tree or helo. or plane, zip line toward it, pop your shoot again and sling shot yourself across the jungle. Or go the semi vanilla route; grapple a car on the road and go parasailing down the road.

Gameplay, graphics, mechanics, and innovation are great. Where the game stumbles is in the game part of the game. The story is pretty bare which is forgivable in a game like this; who cares what this guy is saying to that guy when all you want is to try for that pinata achievement (hang several dudes with the grapple hook then melee him to death). What isn't so excusable are the missions. They just don't live up to the non game part of the game. It's all go kill this dude, go protect that dude, same old same old. In addition to the been there done that feel of the missions they also never seem to challenge you to use the tools and abilities at your disposal.

Bottom line: Forget the missions, use them as a break from finding new ways of destroying stuff. If you like games that are both fun and hilarious buy 'Just Cause 2'. If your more a fan of games that suck, give 'Just Cause 2' a rent maybe the funtastrophy contained within that game box will be enough to change your mind... or you could just stick to those Barbie horse games.

Meaningless completely arbitrary numerical score: 7 exploding Havok fueled rag dolls out of 3.75

Aesome review and pics via