I love this part! I hate this mission. The grappling hook is a godsend! These freaking wheels are made out of butter. That pretty much sums up my self-conversation as I blazed my way through Just Cause 2. For every stellar part in JC2, there is an equally annoying or frustrating part/mechanic. All in all, JC2 is a way over the top massive sandbox shooter that is easily worth $60 bones. The game picks back up with Rico Rodriguez employed by The Agency, a US based government-op. Rico travels to the lush islands of Panau in hopes of stopping Baby Panay, Panau’s new leader who also happens to be an evil dictator. Huge surprise, am I right? You definitely won’t find the writing or voice acting of GTA here, but often times the weak plot elements and voices got a laugh out of me, a laugh certainly intended by Avalanche Studios. The plot in JC2 is easily the weakest part of the game but it still rarely gets in the way of all the fun I had destroying everything in sight and holy crap, JC2 does destruction right. Rico must cause Chaos to get the attention of Baby Panay and chaos is earned by blowing #*@! up. Any object designated by the chaos mark or an object that has a health bar, can pretty much be set ablaze in some form or fashion. The destruction made me “ooh” and “aah” as Rico escapes some of the stickiest situations in the nick of time until the end throws some painful hours spent grinding by trying to obtain large amounts of Chaos. But for the most part, the destruction is what will keep your attention throughout the missions.
I think it’s time to talk about the two reasons everyone needs to play Just Cause 2, the grappling hook and the parachute. These two pieces of equipment are what make the game for the most part. Without them, the game would be painful to play and travel would be a huge nuisance, but lucky for us that’s not the case. The grappling hook and parachute work perfectly, and I mean hardly without fail. I never caught myself griping about either and you use them so often I was surprised at how fine tuned each is. Especially when you are dragging some poor soul behind your hot rod towards a wall at break neck speeds and you pull your parachute, watching the two collide in a glorious explosion. Yes, I really did that, multiple times I might add. These moments really made me fall in love with JC2 over and over; the grappling hook and parachute are really what the game is all about. There are plenty of vehicles in the game, some great and others not so much but the freedom to move from care to car or chopper to chopper is fairly smooth. Sure, the cars handle pretty poorly and are usually all squirrely, but the choppers and jets fly smooth as silk. Flight will often times be your transportation of choice, even if it’s just propelling yourself around with the grappling hook and parachute.
Visually, the game is stunning especially for the scope that it has. The draw distance is great, as you can easily see the surrounding islands of Panau from afar, and the view is amazing as your free fall 5 KM above them. The water is sexy and the destruction and explosions are not to be missed. Overall the framerate is really steady too, as I only experienced a chug less than a handful of times. The worst design within the game is sadly with the characters, Rico looks great but the other main characters are pretty generic and their hair looks absolutely ridiculous. Yes, the hair in the game looks like it is plastic covered in grease. Not a pretty sight and it’s something so minor that I usually don’t notice hair in games, but JC2 has some painfully bad hair. Anyways, JC2 manages to look which is surprising with size of the map and the number of locations to visit. Of which I might add all seem greatly varied, never finding much repetition in the design of the cities, villages, military bases and mountains. The other disappointing piece of JC2 is the missions all of which are repeated several times such as save the doctor, kill this guy, or blow this up. There were a few missions that stood out amongst the others, but I won’t spoil them in this review, as they were what kept me playing through the lengthy campaign.
Just Cause 2 would have been a much better game if the missions were more varied or sadly, thrown out completely. But again, you will only think about it a couple times as the gameplay will certainly keep you entertained. For those collectors out there, JC2 will keep you busy for a very long time. There are 2700 collectibles, side missions such as races, and the destructible items are also numbered so those who want to continue playing after the campaign ends will have their hands full for some time. I ended the game in 18 hours with a measly 30% completion and that’s after I did some extensive collecting. JC2 is probably the biggest sandbox game out there, by a long shot. The game is lacking any other modes outside of the single player, which I didn’t really care about seeing as how JC2 would probably take a good month to hit 100%. I wouldn’t have minded being able to explore the island with a buddy, but hopefully it is something we will see if Just Cause 3 happens. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved the game and feel strongly that JC2 is a must-buy and I’m dead serious about that. The problems with JC2 stand out quite a bit, but you will quickly forget all of them as the strengths of the game stand out quite a bit more. I have a strong feeling that Just Cause 2 will be one of the best underdog titles of the year, and it certainly has my vote.
