Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 had a very long stretch of time in development. Long enough, hopefully, for us to erase our memories of Just Cause 1 and allow Avalanche to start anew, and to put back to the drawing board a game which had potential for kingship of the sandbox genre and blew it. Just Cause 2, however, is most certainly not a lost cause.

The two things that dominate both Just Cause games are without a doubt a huge map, and ridiculous stunts. In the previous game, the huge map was there, but the fact of the matter was that there was nothing to do, unless you genuinely enjoyed running through endless miles of empty rainforest. Thankfully, not only is the new map both absolutely huge (16 times the size of Fallout 3's map) but it's beautifully realised with the best draw distance I've seen in a game, being able to see all the forest, snowy mountaintops and desert that lie in front of you, and filled to the brim with places to see and missions to do. With the context of the game being similar to the last one - that is, cause as much anarchy within the country to stir up a full-blown revolution - every location is an opportunity to blow stuff up, steal vehicles and reap the benefits in money and upgrades. The sheer number of unique locations, races to be beaten and odds and ends to collect around the game world allows for plenty of extra hours of fun to be had outside of the story missions. This is truly a sandbox game and, despite the lack of airstrikes and a decent destruction engine, this is more fun than you'll be having in a majority of competing explore-and-blow-up games of today.

In terms of actual gameplay, Just Cause 2 has its strong points, amongst its weakest. Stunts and skydiving are vastly improved and feel a lot more polished, bolstered by the grappling hook which has been taken back to the drawing board and made absolutely awesome. Instead of just being able to hook onto moving cars and effectively parasail, you now have options to yank yourself onto any object in range in a Spiderman-like fashion or tether objects together and let physics do the work. Surprisingly, this allows for hundreds of possibilities, such as tying an enemy to a gas canister, shooting it and watching them both fly off into the sky and explode. This isn't exceptionally useful but it's definitely very original and amusing to do from time to time. Practically, however, it be valued enough. Whilst gliding in the 'chute, you can grab the ground or a tree and pull yourself forwards to keep momentum, and this with a little practice can be one of the fastest ways to get around, and get away from a fight when it gets a little too hot. Shooting is also improved from the first game and no longer is there the plain silly training-wheels auto aim. However, this is often where one of the main problems of Just Cause 2 intervenes. Enemies, in most places, will constantly spawn until you've completed your objective or completely destroyed the base, and they can absorb a lot of bullets if you're not hitting them in the head. This leads to a very heavy ammo usage, and you will run out fairly quickly, meaning either you go through the lengthy process of calling in a resupply through your irritating Texan chopper pilot, or picking up an enemy weapon which is usually fairly poor and low on ammo as it is.

Another problem is annoyingly in one of the places in which the game prides itself most - vehicles. Yes, there are a lot of them (though the variety in them isn't huge) but absolutely none of them feel just right. Cars have horrendous handing and feel far too heavy; go too fast a try to turn just a bit and you'll likely end up spinning off into a forest. Helicopters are much the same, they take too long to take off and are particularly clumsy, and while planes are perhaps the most successful of the vehicles, the fighter jets are far too sensitive and also don't go as quickly as you'd like. A 'boost' button to go at 800mph or so would have been both thrilling and a great way to get across the map quickly, though perhaps I'm too ambitious. Most of the time, you'll probably want to get the Extraction to your destination, though, like getting more ammo, it's a lengthy process that involves an irritating Texan.

Just Cause 2 has missed out various other additions that could have added to its general enjoyability like a decent soundtrack, good voice actors - as the game does feature some of the worst voices I have ever heard in a video game - and it could even have tried to scrape a storyline out of the highly unlikable protagonist Rico Rodriguez, but in all it's a much more solid experience than Just Cause 1. While Avalanche have not created the perfect sandbox game, this is a must-buy for anyone who wants a carefree single player game that can provide 20 hours plus of running, gunning, driving and flying (both in and out of planes) without having to think about strategy, story or artistic merit. 8/10.