With an immense physics engine, enormous sandbox environment and the ability to do pretty much absolutely anything you want, Just Cause 2 rests on firm ground in delivering its unique and extremely fulfilling gameplay experience. While the game drifts off the plot slightly in terms of realism, it certainly scores high on the fun factor.

On the enormous pacific island nation of Panau, Rico Rodriguez is one tough agent with a ravenous appetite for destruction. The Government of Panau lies in corruption and three criminal gangs contest in their grasp for power. You are given missions from each of these gangs to carry out which mainly involve disruption and destruction of Government property. You will meet a few interesting characters along the way but the rather unfulfilling story is not the game’s high point and some of the missions can be frustrating, particularly the more challenging ones in later stages of the game. It won’t take you long to figure that the true shine to the game is not Rico but the island itself. Panau is absolutely massive and if you’ve played the ample sized demo you will have been astounded at how big the full map is. It is split into various sections featuring different terrain ranging from snow-covered mountain peaks and sandy beaches to dense jungle and urban metropolis. There is also a day and night cycle along with various types of tropical weather conditions to add further variety to the landscape. The vista from high points such as clifftops is spectacular draws in a sense of scalse of the game as well as helping you get to grips with the surroundings. The overall presentation of the island is outstanding with very long draw distances and immense detail right the way across.

  In such a huge open ended environment, there are over 100 types of vehicle such as jet airplanes, helicopters, speed boats, tanks and motorcycles to assist you in getting round the island. However, the most satisfying way of getting about is using your combination of the parachute and grapple hook. You can hoist yourself along and project yourself into the air with great effectiveness using this method and it is a great tool to use for escaping the island’s authorities and getting airborne in those heated situations. The grapple hook has a variety of other purposes such as its melee attack, hijacking vehicles, pulling enemies of buildings and even latching any two objects together to create some ridiculous but hugely entertaining scenarios. However, all the credit goes to the game’s powerful and robust physics engine which makes all this action packed gameplay possible. Armed with various weapons, countless parachutes and your multi-purpose grapple hook, you can really let rip on this living breathing playground of paradise.

You have one principle goal – to destroy and blow as much stuff up as possible. You will never be running low on adrenaline fuelled action as there is so much to destroy and so many ways in which you can go about doing it. Anything marked with a red and white star is Government property, be it a radio tower, fuel depot or even a satelite array. You will be able to use a broad variety of weapons to assist your destruction ranging from SMGs, grenade launchers, shotguns and even miniguns. As well as being highly financially rewarded for all this sabotage, you also earn chaos points which allow you to progress through the story and unlock new missions. You receive  faction missions from the various criminal gangs after reaching a certain threshold in chaos (These are basically just side missions). This then leads on to Agency missions where the real story backbone lies… or at least what’s left of it. In addition you will also be rewarded for causing chaos by gaining access to the Black Market where you can purchase vehicles and weapons of your choice. As you can imagine, all this property damage does not go unnoticed and the island’s authorities will quickly be on you tail. You will definitely end up in some intense chases land, sea and air and while performing multiple stunt moves to escape your pursuers. The game becomes considerably more challenging during the later stages and a steep increase is put on military strength.

The missions themselves will send you to the far corners of the map but since the island is so massive you will discover most locations out of curiosity rather than obligation. To register a new location on your PDA you will have to have actually been there so if you want to keep your map well informed then you will need to go on a lengthy exploration. Every single location has its own chaos statistics so you can always check what you have or still need to destroy before you complete that settlement. It will probably take you hundreds of hours of play before you discover every last military base or village settlement in Panau so there are plenty of distractions at hand to add length to the game.

You are now probably thinking that Just Cause 2 looks like heaven in the eyes of any gamer – indeed it does from the outside. However, there are some persistent problems which can become rather frustrating at times. Although, the game appeals strongly to the eyes with great character animations and scenic environments with tremendous levels of detail, it doesn’t sound nearly half as good. The voice acting is sloppy and the character dialogue is superficial and lacks meaning or passion. The vehicle controls can take a while to get to grips with. This is especially the case with aircraft, which seem to be particularly hard to manoeuvre. The run n’ gun combat could also do with some refinement in terms of the auto-targeting system which is a bit too generous in some instances. Nevertheless, many of these issues are easily forgiven due to the size and flexibility of the game.

It cannot be denied that Just Cause 2 makes messing around and exploring with little or no purpose hugely entertaining in the best possible way. The amount of substance which has been implemented into the game prevents things from becoming sterile. It may not be a story driven game but this is one of those rare exceptions where that doesn’t matter. With tonnes of stuff to do in so many different ways, this game will not get old for a very long time. Never before has freedom been so rewarding in the gaming world.

+ Huge detailed island to explore.

+ Constant high intensity action.

+ Loads of wepons and vehicles.

+ Plenty of detructive opportunities throughout.

- Voice acting and dialogue sound superficial.

- Auto-targeting system needs some refinement.

- Weak story line with a few dull missions.

9.0/10

By Ian Ratledge Posted Sunday, March 28th, 2010 1:30 pm