Just Cause bursted onto the scene about 4 years ago, putting gamers in control of Special operative Rico Rodriguez in an amazing open world 3rd person game. Just Cause was rather ambitious and unfortunately fell a bit short. But 4 years have past and Rico is back and this time Avalanche Software is ready to impress gamers with Just Cause 2.
Just Cause 2 finds Rico tasked to head to the islands of Panau, where he must track down his former boss and mentor Tom Sheldon. It’s unclear what Sheldon’s status is at first, has he gone rouge, is he captured or dead? It’s up to Rico to find out. With the help of three island rebel factions Rico must complete various missions for them while following the trial that leads to Sheldon’s whereabouts and leave a path of chaos in his wake.
While the story does have its action movie feel it is by far not the main focus of the game. While the story will entertain you, the majority of your time will be spent exploring the 400+ square miles of islands that make up Panau, and wrecking havoc on government run town, villages, and other installations. Just Cause 2 is a fully open world game and it really integrates the story well. Instead of just going from mission to mission of the main storyline, you need to rack up chaos to unlock the various missions. Causing Chaos doesn’t just open your next story mission, it also opens various sub missions and different items for you to purchase in game.
Since causing chaos is the main focus of the game, it wouldn’t be complete without a slew of weapons, vehicles and ways to do so. The game offers up a rather simple list of weapons from pistols to rocket launchers, from grenades to C4. But where the weapon selection comes up short, the vehicle selection doesn’t, with over 100 land, see and air vehicles at your disposal there are plenty of options to cause mayhem. My favorites are any helicopter outfitted with guns or rockets, which makes it easy blowing up bases or oil rigs. But it’s also fun latching some C4 onto a car then roof surfing into a road block just to pull your stunt parachute as you blow up the car in the guards faces! As you can see ways of causing chaos can be found with just about every item in the game.
Getting around Panau can also create some enjoyment. Rico is outfitted with two unique items. First is his stunt parachute which allows you to bail out of airplanes or base jump off buildings, or in last ditch scenarios to eject out of a burning car. The second item is his grappling hook, this allows you to not only get up to high spots, but also zip around in and out of gun fights with ease. The grappling hook can also be a weapon, you can hook onto enemies and pull them off ledges, or grab a hold of an attacking helicopter and hijack it. You can also tether multiple vehicles together with your grappling hook allowing you to lift a car over a group of enemies and drop it on them. But combine your grappling hook and parachute and you have a nice way of floating around the islands.
Another perk Rico has is his Black Market Trading contact. The Black Market Trader comes to you anywhere on the map in his helicopter and allows you to purchase different weapons, vehicles, or extraction. For the most part these options work, but there are a few issues. First you can only buy one item at a time, but you can keep calling him back, this gets annoying as you got to deal with the little cutscene of him landing each time. The second issue is the extraction system. The islands are huge and getting around can be a task in themselves. So the extraction option is helpful, but you can only get transported to a place you’ve already been. So lets say a new mission opens for you, well if you haven’t been to it’s starting point, then you’re out of luck and have to trek there.
Just Cause 2 isn’t just a fun game to play, it’s a great looking one as well. The islands are very lush and vibrant. The terrain also varies from the dense jungles, to the snow topped mountains or to the dry sandy deserts. And all this land loads on the fly with very few hiccups. At times moving across this huge map in a jet will cause some pop-in, but it’s not as bad as it could have been, plus you’ll never have to deal with a loading screen moving from area to area. But the real graphical goodness comes from the explosions. Fire and smoke look amazing, right from the beginning of the game I was in a helicopter at the local casino blowing out the glass walkway between two towers, glass was raining down below, pieces of the building were falling off, it was great. Then as you further progress and start taking out fuel tanks and vehicles the explosions get even bigger and more amazing. While the gameplay graphics are nothing short of great eye candy I can’t rave as much about the cutscenes. While gameplay looks great cutscenes are rather lackluster. Character models are subpar and many times the lip sync was horribly off. Usually the cutscenes are better then the gameplay, it’s the opposite for Just Cause 2.
While the graphics are amazing, the sound is another story. While yes there is a great dynamic soundtrack as you play, and a hefty amount of sound effects. Many times voiceovers would stutter or even just cut out. On-top of that cutscenes many times had major lip sync issues.
The game controls are for the most part solid. I found them a bit strange at first and even was a little annoyed with them. But after a bit of option tweaking and playing the game I can’t complain. Controlling the various vehicles are pretty easy, most times you’ll have no issues, some of the faster cars will be a bit loose, and airplanes and helicopters are all a cinch to fly.
Overall I was quite impressed with Just Cause 2. Many times with open world games I find myself just going from story mission to story mission. But Just Cause 2 offers up so many extras in the world that I found myself not wanting to do the missions. Plus the action and chaos that can ensue from just messing around on the island is incredibly enjoyable. While the game still has a few hiccups, luckily they don’t really hurt the overall game. The biggest issues are the cutscenes, broken extraction system and audio glitches. And I got a feeling the audio and extraction system might be able to get tweaked via patches, or at least I hope they can.
Even with these few issues Just Cause 2 is a blast to play. The game looks great and I find myself exploring and wrecking havoc for hours and not even furthering my story. This truly is an open world game with plenty of things to do, and it looks good doing them!
A copy of Just Cause 2 for Xbox 360 was provided to us for this review.
