By Martyn Licchelli
[originally published on March 23rd 2010]
Just Cause 2, is not shockingly, the sequel to Avalanches 2006 hit game Just Cause. The games are very similar, and people who did not like the original may look at this game and decide it's not for them, but to do so would be to themselves an injustice. This game is everything the 2006 game should have been, with a ton of improvements being made.
First of all, the graphics are noticeably slicker. OK, they're not going to be giving God of War 3, and Final Fantasy 13 a run for their money, but for this sort of game they're impressive. There's a hell of a lot going on all the time, the map is huge, and the range of environments is impressive. Given how much there is to see and do, you can forgive Avalanche for the cars in their game looking somewhat like cars from a PS2 game. They are basically textured boxes. Bikes, planes and Helicopters don't have the best details or textures either, but with visible damage modelling, dozens of on screen characters and vehicles it's not shocking that we're not looking at models with millions of polygons. It's also no shock that if you ride a certain vehicle, there's going to be a hell of a lot of that vehicle suddenly spamming your view with little variation until you change for something else, which will then suddenly create an influx of that car.
The civilians are also a bit rough looking. Many of them are repeated, as are the army, and the various Generals you hunt down all look the same. But the main characters look decent enough. The missions, were they written out would also all be very similar. It's generic, go here, kill everyone, steal this and leave the area. If you've played the demo, or even if you played Just Cause 1, then you'll have already experienced one mission at least and in doing so, you've unwillingly experienced pretty much every mission.
So I'm sure you're now thinking that the game lacks originality, but that's not the case at all. Whilst every character may look the same, the 104 vehicles are limited to only about a dozen in your area of view, and each mission in similar, every time you do something you will do it different. It's almost impossible not to just to this truly being an open world. For example, I had to go free a spy from a base. The first time, I went in guns blazing as the game does not lend itself to stealth very well. I got near to where I needed to be, and died via sniper fire. Next time, I called air support to give me an attack helicopter and I just blew everyone up before carefully parachuting down to save the spy. Had I chosen to, I could also have grappling hooked my way along the roof tops, shooting the grapple at each and every guard before pulling them to their doom.
OK, so maybe you can't do everything you may want to. You can't disguise yourself as the enemy for example, and as soon as you start a mission the local army are on alert and will shoot on sight meaning a tactfully slow approach is normally a mistake. But there is enough variety that I'd played a couple of dozen missions before it set in just how samey the missions were, and even then that only proved to drive me into trying harder to variate my methods. Some missions aren't as easy to do this with though, stronghold takeovers require you to lead a small group of men to the middle of a stronghold and then have a gunfight with a helicopter or a tank as you take it over. You're forced to stay in proximity to your team mates and if you leave, you have 10 seconds before you die. This limits your creativity slightly, but for some reason I often found these missions to be the most enjoyable.
Most missions though give you plenty of options, and that sense of freedom does spread over the whole world of Just Cause 2 quite evenly. You're free to go and do what you want, any time. If I wanted to get from one side of the map to the other, which could take upwards of 20 minutes using the main roads and water ways in order to do so, I could choose to have air support give me a lift. Or better yet, why not steal a motorbike and drive as fast as I can off the top of a mountain road, plummet towards the ground only to pull out my parachute and gently glide over a river, grapple onto a boat reel myself in and hijack it, drive down the river, climb on top of my boat as I approach a bridge, hook the bridge, reel in, let go and open my parachute as I launch into the air, grapple onto a plane, hijack it, fly to my destination and parachute safely down. It might still take me ten minutes, but I'll be damned if it's not fun doing it.
The grappling hook is actually, probably, the main source of fun in the game. Be it using it to drag yourself up mountains, or yanking people off passing motorbikes it's always fun to use and versatile too. You can shoot gas canisters which launch into the air like rocket packs, grapple onto one and you have yourself an escape vehicle, albeit one that blows up after 5 seconds so be sure to jump off. Are you a bit scared of riding the explosive gas cannister? Do you, maybe, want someone else to experience that fun? No problem, if you hold down the grapple button you can attach things to other things. Like, a gas cannister to, lets say, a passing soldier. Shoot the cannister and watch as the soldier is dragged unwillingly into the air and violently flung around before blowing up with the cannister. Other creative kills would include using the grapple hook to hang someone from a tree, and then beating them like a piñata, or tying someone to the back of a car, getting in the car and dragging them down the road. Or why not tie them to a chopper, fly 1000 feet in the air, and then release them and let them fall to the death. Killing an enemy has rarely been so creative.
PS3 users will be able to show their kills and stunts off to the world as well, as the PS3 has a youtube video feature crafted in which can record the last 30 seconds in a replay of something you did, or if you plan on recording a walk through, you can start it recording manually and then you'll be given a ten minute video instead.
So there we go then, in short, Just Cause 2 is a very open, very big, sand box world full of creative opportunities, just don't expect the game itself to give you diversity, you'll have to add that yourself. Fans of the first, will no doubt enjoy this one every bit as much as they did 4 years ago.
8/10
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