Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 is a game developed by Avalanche Studios and Eidos Interactive. The game was published by Square Enix. The game was released on the 23th of March in 2010. The game can best be described as a sandbox-style action game. Avalanche Studios is known for games such as The Hunter and Just Cause(1). Eidos Interactive is known for games like the Hitman series, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Shellshock: Nam '67. Square Enix is known for games such as the Final Fantasy series and a whole range of other RPG games, chances are that you've probably already heard from them.

This game doesn't really have much of a story. You're Rico Rodriguez, an employee from the Agency, being send out to knock over a dictatorship in Panua, because it seems that Panay, the dictator, is becoming more and more unfriendly towards the US, so it's your task to make sure that Panay is killed and that his country gets a different leader. Along the way you'll help various factions to increase their influence over the country, so that they can fight government, which helps the US evade a full-out war, while it's still in the shades knocking over the regime. Throughout the storyline you'll meet various people, such as Tom Sheldon. But the reality is that the game doesn't really focus on it's storyline, seeing as most of the time you're allowed to do whatever you like. So it's basically: Cause chaos and win, simple concept.

The gameplay in this game is quite unique due to the grappling hook, which will play a major role in this game. In combination with a parachute it makes up for one of the fastest travelling techniques in the game, it also allows you to climb buildings and mountains very fast. But the grappling hook is the only original part about the game. You have ordinary weapons such as rocket-launchers, machine guns, pistols and many more, which you can upgrade by calling the black market and spending your weapon parts on the upgrades. Same goes for vehicles, you'll have to trade in vehicle parts to upgrade your vehicles. The weapon and vehicle parts can be found scattered throughout the map. The Black Market Dealer will also sell vehicles and weapons, so that you can get them dropped near you at any given moment, if you have the cash for it. The game also offers Extraction through the black market dealer, which is essentially nothing more than fast travel, although the loading time makes it not really that fast. During the game you'll be doing nothing more than doing really short missions for various factions, as a matter of fact, I've never experienced such short missions in a game, which is a bit of a bad thing if you ask me, I had missions that asked me to destroy 2 boats and after I did that, I immediately got rewarded for completing the mission, which took less than 2 minutes. Aside from those missions you'll also find faction items, which are marked on your map, so it's nothing more than going to the location and picking the item up. But most of the time you'll simply be busy leaving a trail of death and destruction throughout the country, by rampaging villages, bases and communication centres.

The graphics in this game are very nice, the mountains, ocean and trees look very realistic and give you the idea that you're on a tropical island. The buildings are also very detailed, so you can really see that the developers put a lot of time into this aspect of the game.

There is also a lot of humour to be found within the game, such as the Mile High Club, which is a strip-club hanging from 2 Zeppelins high in the sky. And there's also the instance where you have to fight elderly japanese soldiers that are still defending an island, being oblivious to the fact that World War II is over. So, the game does spice things up every once in a while by using humour.

Now there are a lot of good points to this game, but it also has it's share of bad points. First of all, the glitches. You'll often find various objects within the game floating above the ground, not to the extent that it makes it impossible for the player to get to the object but still, it's weird to see such things occur. Another glitch that you'll see, that also has to do with clipping, is that the player can sometimes walk below the ground, so you'll see Rico waist-down in concrete and in even more extreme cases he can actually fall below the ground and keep falling into infinite space. Another bad point in this game is its repetition, whilst spreading death and destruction is quite fun for quite some time, after having destroyed a similar base for the 15th time it gets boring, yet you'll have to keep doing this in order to unlock more stuff, which makes the game drag quite a bit. Another little annoyance is the loading time, you'll have to wait quite some time due to the loading times, even when using extraction, whilst playing you have no loading times, which is quite odd.

So to conclude this review, this game is quite good, it offers great graphics and gameplay, yet it will become boring when playing the game for too long. But if you really like to play shooters and action games, I suggest you buy this game, although renting the game seems like a suitable option as well, even though the game is enormous. If you really want to get everything out of the game you'll easily spend more than a hundred hours playing this game. So, overall, this game is worth your money if you like the genre, otherwise I'd suggest renting or lending the game in order to see whether it's your cup of tea or not.