At a glance...

Just Cause 2 review

In my first play session with Just Cause 2, I jumped out of plane, collided with a body in mid-air, parachuted down to the ground. Soon after, I assaulted (and destroyed) a military compound and took down an enemy helicopter, before taking to the skies once more. What's more impressive is this all occurred in the first 10 minutes of me picking up the game.

Just Cause 2 is the sequel to Xbox 360, PS2 and PC title, Just Cause, developed by Avalanche Studios. The original game, whilst an enjoyable action title, was plagued by a few significant issues. Notably, it was caught in the period between two generations of consoles, and as a consequence, the game never really shone on either. The terrain felt a little empty and the odd bug reared its head. However, there were a few things they got right, such as a huge open ended world with many missions doted around the luscious landscape. Luckily this has translated into Just Cause 2 which is set in the fictitious country of Panau in Southeast Asia. Now to say Panau is large is an understatement. Like with the original game, Avalanche Studios have crafted a massive open world, this time covering over 90 square kilometres and unlike the first, there is a much wider variety in the terrain. In addition to tropical jungle, there's now snow-covered mountains in the North, a large island-spanning city in the West and deserts in the South. The amount of detail that the artists and developers have crammed in here is astounding and they have done themselves proud.

Inside this massive world, the Avalanche have packed no end of activities for you to get involved in. There's plenty of variety in the missions, from the plain vanilla (assault this base, escort this fella) to the more varied (sabotage a rocket before it's launched into space, destroy an ancient machine that causes planes to crash). In addition to these, there are nine core stranglehold missions (3 for each faction in the game), which see you leading a technician to the centre of a base so the faction can take it over. These tend to be the most frustrating, primarily due to the fact that you have no direct control over the technician. Sometimes he'll run off ahead only to get shot and other times he lags behind and is taken out by a stray guard that you failed to spot. Coupled with the fact that you can't leave a certain mission area during these assaults, mean that arming yourself and finding the right supplies before you accept the next takeover becomes crucial. Takeover missions aside, whilst playing the faction missions, you're often left with the feeling that the developer certainly could have done more to add to the excitement of each mission. This is a classic problem with sandbox games; no matter what the developers throw at you, there's always a scenario that you can come up with that's missing. This isn't something the developer can fix, though; how can they compete with the power of your own imagination? But one of the greatest strengths of this game is how enjoyable the free roam mode is. Grabbing a nearby vehicle and exploring the winding roads or taking to the skies in a helicopter is an experience in itself. Bright dots are scattered across the map, each one representing a village, city, military base or outpost and if you drive across one it appears on the map. Each of these is a mini-challenge in itself as they're littered with collectables or items to destroy. Collecting all the crates and chasing off the military completes the location which gets ticked off on your map. For the completionists amongst us, such as myself, this becomes almost an addiction as you race around the world, trying to cross each location off your list, with an Achievement waiting for you as a thank you for the trouble.

I have never heard of Chaos being used as a currency before, but it is a core concept in Just Cause 2. Completing missions offered by the three factions or simply exploring the land and destroying the various military installations that inhabit it award you with Chaos points. These gradually fill up your meters, and over time it provides with you with new Agency missions which progress the story, faction missions and weapon/vehicle unlocks from the Black Market. These serve to spread out the missions a little, giving you time to unwind (or not) after a tricky mission. This often works too well as I found myself often getting sidetracked by exploration that I had acquired enough Chaos points to advance myself in the story significantly.

A detailed and action-packed world doesn't really make much of an impact if it doesn’t look good. Once again, the developers at Avalanche Studios have crafted a fantastic engine, building upon the concepts of the original. Enemy models have great animations, vehicle models are detailed and varied (over 100 in total) and the environments look stunning. The Xbox 360 version was used in this review, but for PC enthusiasts out there, there's an entire behind the scenes video dedicated to the tech they've employed for the PC version so you shouldn't be disappointed. Unfortunately, I can't quite say its perfect, as a few odd bugs arise every once in a while. Take a flight over the jungle, for example, and the trees get rendered by 2D Sprites. An acceptable optimisation for viewing objects at a distance but it becomes a little unnerving when the trees directly below are rendering flat and rotate to face your direction as you fly past. I'm willing to forgive them these slight transgressions however, because when you stand on top of a skyscraper in the sprawling city or simply hitchhike a lift on a passing plane, the panoramic views continue to astound. Explosions look fantastic, which is a good thing because things are going to blowing up a lot. There's nothing more visually exciting than a pipeline exploding or a facility being destroyed. Jump out of a moving vehicle and it will explode into the first object it hits just like a ridiculous action movie.

Now what sandbox game isn't complete without a set of tools for you to use and abuse? Just Cause 2 doesn't disappoint here either and there are two key parts to the arsenal of lead protagonist, Rico; the grappling hook and the parachute. These two items alone allow you to blaze a crazy path across the world. Almost anything can be hooked on to; simply aim with the analogue stick and hit RB to fire. A long line will shoot out towards your target and here's where things get interesting. Hit the land or a tree or a building and Rico will be pulled towards it at startling speeds. Handy for climbing up the sides of buildings from the outside or extracting yourself from a tricky situation. Hook a guard and he'll get pulled towards you through the air. This gives you the opportunity to pummel him with bullets, keeping him suspending in the air for a little longer. If you hit a vehicle Rico will get pulled towards it and get into the stunt position. From here, you can manoeuvre yourself around the vehicle, dispatching any enemies that may be sticking their head out of a window or taking out a military vehicle giving chase. You can also attempt to hijack the vehicle; simply a press of a button if you're attempting to get yourself a car or jeep. It becomes a lot trickier if you're suspended from the belly of a helicopter prompting you to to complete a small set of quick-time events as you attempt to pull the pilot out to his death below.

These features alone would be enough to satisfy you but this is just the beginning. The grappling hook is not only used for pulling things towards you, but can also be used to tie things together adding another realm of possibilities. Do you simply pull the guard off the cliff or do you tie him to a nearby gas canister and launch him to the air? Do you take out the chase car with a rocket launcher or do you attach it to the road in front of him causing it to flip and crash when the rope becomes taught? Do you run the solider over or attach him to the back of the car and drag him along behind you? These are just a few of the things you can do with this technique and the game rewards you for experimenting with them, with a few Achievements available to you for exploiting certain combinations.

Remember when I told you that you pull yourself towards nearby buildings or land ahead of you? Before you reach your destination, a press of the button will trigger your parachute and you will launch yourself up into the air. Once there, you may think its a case of falling back down to the ground. Think again! A simple hook to the ground while in mid-air will pull you in that direction, a method that allows you to traverse the land faster than most cars. These quick and easy tools allow you to effectively assault a base, taking out a few guards before parachuting yourself to another sector to dispatch some more. And with the infinite supply of both parachutes and grappling hooks, you're sure to come up with a few unique playing styles of your own.

Unfortunately the regular weapons just don't seem as compelling. At the beginning they seem a little underwhelming but as you complete missions and acquire pickups, you get the option to upgrade them; whilst this does improve things, it just doesn't seem as effective as grabbing a nearby turret or piloting a helicopter armed with a minigun and missiles. In addition, the game provides you with vehicle upgrades too. These too feel like a letdown as they only apply to those vehicles you acquire from the Black Market (A dealer that provides you with weapons anywhere in the world). It would have been better if you could have used these upgrades on all vehicles (e.g. improve handling/speed across all vehicles, faster helicopter hijack, etc)

You may have noticed that I haven't really talked about the story yet. And this also illustrates one of the main problems with the game. Since key agency missions are so far apart, the story feels disjointed and you're left struggling to remember what happened in the last mission. Luckily Just Cause 2 doesn't worry too much about the fine details when it comes down to the plot. One of the bigger twists occurs within the first few missions and it feels like it could have been drawn out a little longer. Instead it becomes a side note in the grand scheme of things. In the end, much like the first game, you play Rico and you have one goal in mind. As a member of the American special forces, you need to topple the leadership of the Panau and bring peace to the region. As I hinted at earlier, there are three factions to help you out along the way, each with their own agenda and as the game progresses, a larger conspiracy unfolds. It's enough of a story to tie things together but it's not something you'll be racing ahead to find out more. Overall, the story takes a good 20 hours to complete but it depends how distracted you get by exploration. Either way, it's almost a certainly that you won't find yourself getting bored at any point during your adventure as there's always another activity or mission for you to get involved in.

Wrapping up, this game is incredibly fun; there's nothing like rolling up to a military base with a helicopter and blowing it into pieces, explosions going off everywhere. As I played, I couldn't help be reminded of two games. The original Just Cause which I've mentioned in a few places already and another title which may be familiar to some, Mercenaries 2; the open world, the gorgeous explosions, and the general atmosphere of that game are present here. However, when I realised this, I became aware of something that Just Cause 2 could have done with: co-op. Not a necessity, but I wonder how much fun it could have been to take on this world with a few friends, each with our own supply of parachutes and grappling hooks. Maybe next time...

Ratings

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