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Write-Up:
With all of the Real Time Strategy and Role Playing Games I’ve been playing lately, it’s been a nice change of pace to get a good action game thrown into the mix. Having not played the first game, I had no idea what I was about to get myself into when I started Avalanche Studios’ and Eidos Interactive’s Just Cause 2. After playing through this massive game, I’d have to say it’s Grand Theft Auto meets Bionic Commando and everything in between that that would imply. I’d like to thank the publisher, Square-Enix, for providing me with a copy to review for all of you. Make sure to check out my other channel, ZeitgeistOther, for a bunch of HD game-play footage in addition to what you’re going to see in the review, and follow me on Twitter to get the latest updates to all of my upcoming reviews. Released for the Xbox 360, PS3 and the PC on March 23rd, here’s Just Cause 2.
The game opens with you, Rico Rodriguez, one of the Agency’s most powerful agents, flying to the island of Panau in Southeast Asia as you are briefed as to what exactly is going on. The former president has been murdered by his son, and the son is causing a bunch of trouble by cutting off communication with the rest of the world. You’ve got to take on his military regime and track down your former boss, Tom Sheldon, who has potentially gone rogue with millions of Agency cash and intel. Essentially you’ve got to start working with the three crime factions in order to cause enough chaos to get them to give you intel as to what the hell is going on and draw key players onto the field. The plot thickens once you find the missing agent, but I won’t spoil anything for you. To me, the story wasn’t really that interesting and I actually had a tough time following what was even going on until the end of the game. I also really didn’t like any of the characters except for one engineer who accompanies you on a few missions, as he reminding me of Kim Jong Il from Team America: World Police. The final battles in the game are pretty intense but the ending is super cheesy.
I was able to beat the game in about 22 hours and that was actually only 26% of the total content. This game is absolutely massive. If you want to do everything you may be looking at something like 100 hours. The island itself is something like 400 square miles; there are over 100 vehicles you can control, and over 350 cities, towns, villages and military bases that you’ll need to explore. Upon completion of the game you’ll unlock a mercenary mode which essentially lets you continue to do missions, quests, challenges and just cause chaos all over the island until you get 100% completion.
There is actually a built in video capture tool that allows you to record your game-play and save it to your hard drive or even upload it directly to YouTube. This is an amazing feature and I feel that this should be implemented into every game.
Pretty much this is a huge sandbox game, as you can really do any of the quests and missions in any order that you want. To advance the actual story of the game, you’ll need to do quests for each of the factions and once you’ve caused enough chaos, new agency missions will unlock. In addition to the faction and agency missions, there are a bunch of challenge missions that allow you to do cool things like flying planes and drive boats and cars through a time trial course to make a bunch of quick cash. Basically, you have a LOT of things to do to keep yourself entertained for many many hours.
Just Cause 2 really shines in it’s great game-play. While you have access to a lot of different types of weapons, you can really get creative with your use of infinite parachutes and your grappling hook that can be used to pull things toward you, you towards them, or even attach two things together just to watch the hilarity that follows. Really these tools allow your creativity to go to work as to how you want to go about your objectives and kill the enemies. Like in Grand Theft Auto, you’ll generate heat as you start causing chaos, so you need to either take on the popo that shows up or run like hell to avoid them, because over time, they’ll start to get a lot more difficult.
Each of the 350 or so towns and military bases has an indicator letting you know how much chaos you have caused. As you try to create 100% chaos in each town, it can sometimes get a little frustrating as there are only certain objects that are destructible, and finding that last object can be a pain in the butt. You don’t need to worry about dying, as you’ve got unlimited lives, but if you aren’t actively involved in a mission, you’ll respawn at the closest faction stronghold, which could be quite a distance from where you just were. Being that the island is so large, it may take you a while to get back.
Finally, the Black Market allows you to purchase weapons and vehicles, and get extracted to any location on the island that you’ve previously discovered, which greatly decreases travel time. As you play, you’ll also collect weapon and vehicle parts that can be used at the Black Market to upgrade your overall gear, which really helps as the enemies begin to get more difficult.
The graphics in Just Cause 2 are not top of the line by any means. There is a lot of aliasing, low rez details and even the trees look like crap if you get too close to them. I imagine though that the graphics exist as they do to allow such a massive and open world without any loading screens as you travel. The cut scenes also look pretty crappy, but luckily there aren’t too many of them. The voice acting wasn’t that great either and the sound track is really pretty mediocre. All in all, the presentation of the game is pretty average, it’s the game-play that really makes this title worth playing.
If you are an explorer, the game is filled with Easter Eggs. High in the sky you can find the Mile High Club… A floating party in the sky with strippers and booze, and the island from Lost, including crashed plane and monster sound effects.
Just Cause 2 is simply a massive game; you will definitely get your monies worth with this title if you try to complete it 100%. While the game’s presentation isn’t all that great, the game-play is absolutely amazing. With over 400 square miles of land to explore and 350 towns to cause chaos in, you’re going to have your hands full for a while. Sling-shoting yourself around the island with your grappling hook and parachute is a lot of fun, and if you are creative, you can come up with some pretty crazy ways to kill your foes. I had a lot of fun this week playing this game and I think a lot of you out there will as well. If you are looking for a title to give you a lot of great game-play, Just Cause 2 might be worth your time to check out. For those of you who have played it, what is some of the craziest shit you’ve done in-game so far?
