Just Cause 2 follows the story of super agent Rico Rodriguez, who is sent on a mission to kill a renegade friend and fellow agent residing in Panau, a massive tropical resort armed to the teeth by military, gangs and organised crime. From there you...we forgot. Just Cause 2 is much like its predecessor, Just Cause in that the story is incredibly forgettable and fairly uninteresting. But while the original was wasted potential and really only had the story to stand on, Just Cause 2 uses the story and missions as more an excuse to do utterly ridiculous stunts and cause as much chaos as humanly possible.
The game is structured in that in order to progress further and unlock the story missions, you need to do missions for one of three gang factions, or just go around destroying everything you see in fancy ways. This gives you chaos points, which eventually unlock more story missions, faction missions and items to buy in the black market (and money is unsurprisingly earned by destroying things too). 90% of the time, we went with just doing whatever we wanted and explored, as the chaos that can be caused is simply spectacular amounts of fun, but we’ll give the faction missions some props in that it can really help bolster extra chaos, currency, and dare we say it, some sense of proper progression.
...as you do.
But alas, regardless of the plethora of options you have, most of the time in Just Cause 2 is spent playing around in the world and going ballistic, and you’re outfitted extremely well for this. Rico is the kind of guy that can hijack a plane in mid air just because he can, and parachute out of a car just before it collides with another and land completely unscathed. Realism is thrown out the window in favour of total exaggeration, but considering how much amazing fun can be had with it, we’re certainly not complaining.
This is also further enhanced by what we consider to be one of the most awesome additions to an arsenal in any game ever: the grappling hook. While its basic function allows you to grapple onto walls, cars and helicopters from a long distance and hijack them, the best part about it lies in its ability to tether things together, which seems to have near limitless possibilities. Tether a soldier to a tank of compressed air, then fire upon the tank; watch him fly off into the stratosphere screaming. Tether a car to a large helicopter and use it as a wrecking ball. Tether a human to a jet and fly away, with him in the background swinging about, probably scared beyond measure. It’s ridiculous and completely unrealistic; but it never gets old or ceases to be fun.
And that is ultimately the kicker for Just Cause 2. While the story missions and such are usual point-A-to-point-B structures and can be fairly uninventive in their scripting, it’s the feeling of total freedom and ability to do some insane stunts that makes it very much bearable. This can also be done without ever following the story in your life, so you never feel obligated to follow a linear pathway; a true expression of freedom in the game. Panau is absolutely enormous as well, with hundreds of things to collect, destroy and find, so it’ll take a very long time before the random exploration and destruction starts to feel a little dull.
Yankin' yer chains.
The crazy action and stunts of the game are also complimented very well by the game’s engine, which is both technically impressive and very beautiful to look at. Colour is everywhere and gives the world a vibrant feel, and the scale and draw distance is breathtaking at times. Textures are quite nice and very diverse as well, so things never feel quite as copy paste as you’d imagine something of this scale would be. The world has a very nice lighting engine behind it too, with full global illumination and dynamic lighting all over the place, constantly changing depending on time of day. It’s just a very well rounded and pleasant game to look at, with both the 360 and PS3 versions running smoothly with little difference in between, and the PC version blasting ahead with extra visual effects such as Ambient Occlusion and much higher texture detail. It’s also quite well optimised, with our high end setup sporting a Q6600, 4GB DDR2 RAM and Radeon 5850 smoothly running the game maxed out at a panoramic resolution of 5040x1050, so PC gamers and in particular the enthusiasts are in for a very nice and smooth visual treat when they load the game up on their setups, as it’s the definitive version if you can have it running.
To describe Just Cause 2 briefly; we’d call it the ultimate value for cheesy entertainment. It never seems to try hard in taking itself seriously, with over the top stunts, so-bad-it’s-good dialogue and over-exaggerated (but strangely fitting) voice acting. It makes you feel like you’re in some kind of B-grade action flick, but you’re the stunt co-ordinator and stunt man at the same time, and you’re never inclined to turn the telly off because it’s just too much fun. We harked on about what exactly constitutes value at the beginning of this review, and if we were to name one game so far this year that will definitely give you much more than your money’s worth, it’s Just Cause 2. A highly recommended purchase and a game that lets you finally surf jets.
Loading...
