Just Cause 2

In Just Cause 2 agent Rico Rodriguez, or Scorpio as he is usually called, hunts down rogue agent Tom Sheldon who has stolen intelligence and millions from the Agency. Scorpio has the entire island nation of Panau to search through as well as playing with and against three rival gangs and dictator Baby Panay’s military.

Story wise this game is seriously lacking, but the concept is pretty cool and the dynamic of using and abusing the gangs helps create an overall fun game experience. Part of the goal for the game is to create chaos, and doing missions for a gang can help that become easier. With every mission the gang’s influence expands and the area in which they operate expands. Clash gang members with military and fun gun fights will ensue with possibilities for mass chaos.

If the player gets bored with doing missions there is an entire island nation to play with. The map is impressive in itself. A player can go from a city to a ski resort to jungle to a desert, all without a loading screen. However, navigating the map can become quite daunting. Thankfully there is a vast array of vehicles to use, including jets. That being said, it can still take close to five minutes to go from one corner of the map to the other even in the fastest jet. Thankfully the game includes a way of quickly navigating jungle too thick for vehicles. Scorpio can navigate using a series of grappling hooks and parachutes. It seems a little ridiculous, but try playing this game for hours every day for a week and then try to play another free world game without it. The frustration with not being able to use grappling hooks to get around is astonishing.

Part of what makes this game so much fun is the wide variety of things to do. Even after beating the game there was still so much left unaccomplished. There are many side challenges, although most of them are tough race type challenges that I did not even attempt to complete. It has nothing to do with the story or any mission but my favorite part of the game is a Lost island. Yes that capitalization is correct and yes this is about the awesome show. Flying over part of the island flying in the right direction causes your plane to crash and if you search enough you will find a hatch and I have heard that there is a smoke monster, but I could not find it.

Now for the not so good. With such a large map dying can be an issue. Some respawn  points are far away from anything including helicopters or airplanes. So much time is spent traveling in this game that sometimes I would get in a plane, get my bearings, and then go to the kitchen to grab a drink.  Ammunition can also become difficult to come across is certain areas, and if you run out you have to run away or become creative with the grappling hook. There also is not a wide variety of weapons to begin with, but I cannot imagine there being more given the scarcity of ammunition that already exists. The largest problem with the game I had was that is was 3^rd person, which I can rarely stand in a game with guns. I feel that 3^rd person shooters have more unrealistic aiming in most cases and that takes away some of the excitement of fights.

Overall this is a fun and engaging game. It is imaginative with its grappling hook and parachute usage, which it really needs with the size of the map and distance between points of interest.  It is not a good example of story telling and may become frustrating at points, but there are enough interesting things to do that breaks from missions can help ease any frustrated feelings.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars