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Just Cause 2 Review

The game offers open-world fun, but unfortunately cannot sustain it long enough to keep the player's attention
Posted by SpectralShock
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Just Cause 2 is a sandbox-style action game. That might make some people run for the hills, but bear with me. The title comes our way courtesy of Swedish developer Avalanche Studios and Eidos Interactive labels, which were published by Square Enix. It is the sequel to the 2006 game Just Cause. The original had some glaring faults, and it actually took some players quite a while to warm up to the title, but once they did, it turned out to be an interesting and goofy open-world game. But alas, Just Cause 2 set out to be much more serious – at least in theory – as some modern “next-gen” titles do. This time around, the focus is on stunts and performing gravity-defying tricks, which is both a blessing and a curse for this title. Simply put, the game offers much of what most players will expect. But once that aspect has worn its welcome – granted, some players will last longer than others – many will discover that Just Cause 2 doesn’t have much to offer in regards to any kind of actual structured and involving gameplay.
 
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This is your playground. Now go entertain yourself.
 
In the sequel, the players once again take on the role of Rico Rodruguez. The free-roaming mercenary gets a contract with the “Agency” to infiltrate the South-east Asian island nation of Panau. Formerly a US ally, Panau is taken over by a dictator who decides to cut off all ties to the US. Rico’s mission is to oust Panay from office, as well as track down and assassinate Tom Sheldon, who the Agency fears has gone rogue after disappearing during the regime change. However, in order to get to the top of the food chain, Rico has to team up with three island factions and gain their trust, so that he may get close to the president for the kill. The setup is rather simple, the faction missions act as side quests, and the “Agency” missions progress the story. There is little tying the three factions together, and no moral choices to be made in regards of who you should help.
 
The faction leaders make for forgettable characters, and even Rico himself comes off as a generic tough guy with little emotion. While this is not exactly different in the original, modern day titles should have higher levels of presentation then that. The story is actually not very long, and missions start to become quite repetitive towards the end of the game, leaving it up to the players to entertain themselves. Some would argue that in an open world game such as this, the focus is on action, crazy stunts and exploring the world. Well folks, similar titles such as GTA4 and even Prototype had all that but still contained a story worth following.

Just Cause 2 takes place on a huge island of Panau, where the player is free to explore and do anything they can think of. The original game had a similar setting, but one of the main problems was the lack of things to do in this huge world. Just Cause 2 looked to address these issues from the start. Rico’s trademark tool, the grappling hook, is now much more far-reaching which allows for quicker travel and much better mobility. The island is also much more populated with small villages, cities, towns, military bases and various outposts. This may sound like a huge improvement, and yet the game still manages to have a lot of downtime, just travelling between locations in order to get to the next mission. That’s not to say that there is a lack of things to blow up – all outposts contain brightly colored objects such as water towers, fuel tanks and guard towers. Each town also has a “liberation” percent rating, meaning the town will become free of military oppression once Rico finds every hidden crate and blows up every military object in the area. But there is usually so much to destroy and so many objects to find, it becomes a chore. After you’ve blown up your hundredth water tower and blew up yet another military radar, things become stale quickly. Things will have to blow up tough, as it earns players “Chaos points”, which are required to unlock the next mission and progress the game.
 
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A painfully familiar view
 
The game’s focus on destruction seems like a missed opportunity. Instead of putting some actual design into the world’s open-ended nature, and engaging the player in various stunt challenges or similar exploits, the game only offers the player an open world and a ton of the same objects to explode. What happens next is up to the individual gamers. This may sound great to some, who would love nothing more than a big sandbox to play around. However, most players will quickly grow tired of zipping around and blowing stuff up or performing stunts for no reason other than to earn points or to see what could happen. After a while, the players will get enough of random exploration and expect Just Cause 2 to become a little more focused so they may actually make some progress and have a reason to explore all corners of the world. Here is when players will discover that the game doesn’t have much to offer in regards to actual gameplay that helps players actually focus their creativity on something specific. There are wildly frustrating chase missions, eliminations, escorting jobs and of course demolition. The variety isn’t great, and it feels as though none of the mission types actually take advantage of the open world and the freedom it offers. Short of picking the way you get to and enter the location (via air, ground, etc), Just Cause 2 begins to feel rather generic.
 
Many open world titles have gameplay annoyances that relate to the nature of the genre. Just Cause 2 has often been compared to GTA4, which isn’t entirely accurate, but the games do make for good comparisons. For instance, there are many players who feel that GTA4 needs a better mission system – if you fail, players have to reach the mission starting point once again and repeat the whole sequence. Those players will be happy to know that Just Cause 2 features a checkpoint system, so that if you die half way through, you will continue at the nearest checkpoint in the mission. There are also bad news however, and it is regarding how games treat the open world scenario. In GTA4, if players die or fail a mission, they re-spawn at the nearest hospital, with a nice taxi cab waiting to take them back to the starting point. Even if not taking the cab, hospitals are conveniently located throughout the world. Now, in Just Cause 2, things are a lot worse. The design of the game seems to place missions as far away from the acquisition location as possible, as to enforce the open world sandbox to the player and make them travel insanely long distances to the destination. It makes sense on paper – let the player have all the fun they want while getting to the mission. However, the extremely annoying problem is that if you die on your way to the mission – be it 10km away or 5 meters away – you are right back to the starting point. Sure, all the cash you’ve earned and world havoc caused will remain in tact, but you are back to the starting point, which is likely over 20km away from your destination. After a few such re-spawns, you realize that the game actually punishes the player for having any kind of fun if they hope to get somewhere. Players are forced to take no chances while travelling to the next mission location, otherwise it’s a long trip that has to be repeated over and over.

Aside from Rico’s grappling hook, Just Cause 2 offers a wide variety of weapons and targets to shoot at. There are three weapon slots, one for a primary weapon and two for secondary weapons. Rico can either wield the primary weapon, dual-wield the secondary weapons or wield only one secondary weapon and use his free hand for grenade throwing. The switching between these setups is a bit clunky at first, but players should be able to get used to it. The shooting mechanics feel unpolished, but this is in line with the original game, so players shouldn’t expect precise and fluid controls. Just Cause 2 features a criminal heat system similar to other titles (GTA4 once again comes to mind). Once you shoot enough military members, bigger and better enemies will be sent your way. However, given the grappling hook, it is often very easy to escape and lose the line of sight, which is all that’s required. The AI isn’t very bright, they will simply get within range and unload clips into the player, taking no effort to take cover and simply back away slowly if you approach for a melee kill. Often, it is actually a good idea to cause some trouble so that the military sends a helicopter – which you can hijack – and then travel much faster to your destination than by any other method. As mentioned earlier, the missions are very spread out, so travel time takes up a large portion of the game hours. The vehicle handling is very loose, so traveling by car is often not a very good idea. Bikes are a bit better, offering better speeds and added maneuverability. Rico can also simply float around using his parachute, but this method is slow and boring, which only adds to the burden of long travel times.
 
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Visuals are easily the best part of the game’s presentation
 
One of the highlights of the title is the setting. The island itself is huge, very beautiful and its unpopulated areas are wonderful to explore. There are easter eggs hidden throughout, though it is a long shot to find them unless you look up a guide. The views are great, and even running on older hardware, the game still looks very nice. The daylight cycle is used to full effect, though the game world changes little between day and night. Avalanche Engine has been upgraded to version 2 and runs the game very well, offering scalability for older machines and incorporating PhysX into the destruction. As mentioned before though, one of the letdowns of the game is presentation. The island doesn’t feel engaging and there is nothing particularly memorable. The dull characters in the game aren’t helped any by the poor voice acting and dialogue. There are fake accents throughout, and lines that were seemingly written in a hurry. The sound and tunes of the game only come through during cutscenes and the main menu – the game world itself is quiet and lacking anything as simple as a radio station to pass the time.
 
Just Cause 2 stays true to what the original game set out to accomplish. It offers an open world that looks great and can be the playground of your wildest stunts. Steps were made to ensure that there is more to do between missions, but the effort ultimately falls short. The game sets out to utilize the huge open world to full extent, but doesn’t quite give the players reasonable means to progress with any kind of reliable transportation or travel checkpoint saves. Even fans of the original may find that Just Cause 2 doesn’t offer enough variety to once again enter Rico’s world. While the endless sandbox possibilities are there and tons of fun is to be had, many players will find the lack of focus to be a major gameplay annoyance. Unless you are the type of player who may spend countless hours in Garry’s Mod or other seemingly goal-less titles, consider sticking with other open world games for now.