The first Just Cause was, at best, a forgettable near launch title for the Xbox 360. The improvements that this second game has made are mind blowing. Almost every single action has been blown out of proportion to the point of making any Michael Bay movie look downright plausible. It is almost like the game just doesn’t care, but in the best and most awesome ways possible.
The main character of the game only really has two things going for him over anyone else – a grappling hook and infinite parachutes. The grappling hook can be used in most of the traditional ways like pulling the player towards distant objects or pulling bad guys off of ledges, but it can also be used to connect two objects together. Any two objects work, so an enemy can be attached to a propane tank and the tank can be shot, thus launching the enemy into the distance as the tank becomes a rocket, to zany things like attaching NPC cars to the ground so that they can’t pursue. The parachutes pretty much make for easy transport, as they served as my primary means of transport on the island, and the ability to solve any challenge in the game by seemingly any means.
Just Cause 2 looks amazing. The game’s max draw distance is pretty much only defined by the shape of the island itself, instead of a pesky fog. While not necessarily photo realistic, most of the environments of the game feel like someone sat down and designed every inch by hand, instead of allowing a computer to just generate it. Many times while going from one mission to another I would slow down and just look at the mountain ranges in the distance, or the way that the details of the smaller islands where visible from the shores.
It cannot be stressed enough that this game is simply an amazing PC port. From the way that it instantly sees an Xbox 360 controller hooked to the computer, to how it runs at full resolution on a mid range gaming PC, the game simply feels like the PC platform was always in the developer’s minds.
The lowest point of the game is the voice acting. They are without a doubt amazingly terrible and pointlessly over the top. Every line in the game is hammed up to such a point that it is impossible to take anything seriously, and after playing the game for many hours it becomes clear that it was designed that way. While there is nothing wrong with having a game that tries to take its own insanity seriously for the point of comedy, the problem is that Just Cause 2 doesn’t really let the player in on the joke until later in the game. It would have been nice if some of the cracks where shown earlier in the game, but it is still pretty wonderful as it is.
Just Cause 2, for the PC, is 50 dollars. This price is a steal. The game takes place on miles and miles of island where pretty much every single object in the game is destructible, and the player is rewarded for destroying them. The island is designed with so many things to do, explore, and destroy that it almost seems silly.
Just Cause 2 isn’t a perfect game, many of the story missions are blah and the player isn’t really let into the joke of the game until late into it, but even with its very minor faults it still manages to be one of the best games I have played this year. For anyone who has a mid-range gaming PC or better it is worth buying just for the fun. It also doesn’t hurt that you can easily show it off to friends and family to justify the cost of that computer as well.
Not As Good As: A real grappling hook
Also Try: Just Cause, the first one
Wait For It: PC mods
Stay with MyGamer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mygamernews
President & CEO
Leave a Reply