Review: Just Cause 2

[Aurora219]

Hmmmmmm sounds somewhat like Far Cry 2.......

Close. It's Far Cry 2, with ways to dodge the ever-respawning mooks, fast travel and something OTHER than a jeep to drive around in.

Oh, and a grappling hook. And a parachute. And the ability to blow the shit out of everything.

And no stealth factors whatsoever. Subtlety? What's that?! *pulls out grenade launcher*

 

[slipknot4]

Complaining about traveling in Just Cause is like ranting about how you get shot at in COD6.
The game is more or less all about the traveling, and what's the deal with dieing? It's trial error, not call of duty-re-spawn/checkpoint-every-5-meters.
And... again... I've never had a dull moment with the game. It's easy to learn and hella fun all the time.

 

[RobCoxxy]

Yeah, that's pretty accurate.

But no mention of the truly atrocious voice acting?

Sure, bad voice acting is practically a video game tradition but this is the only game that forced me to turn on subtitles and hit the mute button every time a character opened his or her mouth.

Also:

Sorry, sounds like you got a tad bitter about the whole "Argh, travel" thing, purely because you didn't bother to learn to extract. If you actually used it, you would not be experiencing your SANDBOX TRAVEL RAGE.

Yeah... no. The extraction mechanic is clumsy as all hell. Each time you use it you have to go through about six steps, including three loading screens (albeit short ones) and two cutscenes (with the aforementioned horrible voice acting). Also, you can't use it during a mission or during "heat".

True, but if you had to get to some location in a time limit, for example, simply airlifting there would suck the fun away.

 

[mchoueiri]

Looks like a fun time just relaxing playing some just cause 2.

 

[addeB]

Yeah, that's pretty accurate.

But no mention of the truly atrocious voice acting?

Sure, bad voice acting is practically a video game tradition but this is the only game that forced me to turn on subtitles and hit the mute button every time a character opened his or her mouth.

Yeah I gotta agree with you on that one. The worst offender was the Russian/Italian/Jamacan/whatever the fuck she was, leader of the Reapers. Bolo Santooooozzeeeee.

But really, this isn't one of those games where you don't even care about the story. All you need to know is: Here's a big world to play in, now go blow shit up.

Yeah, i have only played the demo so far (ordered it and now it feels like the post man lost it...) and the first thing i though when that reapers girl started talking was "OMG where is the mute button?!)

 

[Woodsey]

Surely you're playing the game wrong if you're driving everywhere?

I've got 8 hours clocked on the demo, and I think I spent about 15 minutes of that actually driving.

 

[suzukaGongen]

This game is basically the Prototype argument all over again-- there are some technical issues and the story is basically a throwaway, but it's forgiveable because the game itself is such a blast to play.

Frankly, the voice acting is so hilariously bad that it's hard for me to believe that it wasn't intentional-- it goes well with the very tongue-in-cheek feel of the game itself.

 

[awesomeClaw]

Wow, this review is incredibly ingnorant for the most part. First of all, you didn´t bother to extract which removes your whining for driving to much and the rest are just nitpicks that you whine about to make them seem big, the only thing i agree on is that it gets slightly repetetive, but the amount of ways you can approach it more than makes up for that.

 

[GodKlown]

Overall, it isn't a horrible game. The physics are a bit wacky at times (such as the camera angle when you are parachuting in, spin around enough and you can make yourself sick), and I agree with everyone's opinion about the black market system. I think they could have placed a few of the black market dealers around the map... you know, maybe four of them scattered across the map somewhere that you could walk in to or up to and buy more than one thing at a time. The drops make some sense in the context of needing a weapon/vehicle in a pinch, but not if you are gearing up for a siege. The respawn is another unfortunate typo on this as the death scene is a bit dragged out, but I think they did that so if you were killed in the middle of an intense firefight, you get a few moments to calm down and rethink your strategy before diving back in to the fray. Then again, the 2-20 KM drive/flight/walk/carsurf back to your previous location proves often to be enough to get over the frustration of being killed. I did find some of the colonels a bit tougher than they should have been unless you were driving a tank! Short of having the rocket launcher, unless you are a trained sniper who can get repeat head shots in your sleep, you're going to have trouble with those guys.
The grappling hook was a nice feature (I haven't said hook shot since Zelda 3), and it was fun tethering enemies together, to vehicles and to the ground during chases. I never did under the pinata kills though...

Really, I think this game was a finer example of what Bionic Commando SHOULD have been. While this played more like Saint's Row/Red Faction, it is clear that devs can't find a comfortable spot between sandbox and scripting just yet, but they are getting close. I'd agree with the 3 out of 5 on this. A lot of fun, but the supplied motivation and story just aren't quite up to keeping you on the path to finishing the game without screwing around on your own to have fun.

 

[BobisOnlyBob]

Driving? Seriously? I've been watching my friend parachute around at high-speed thanks to the parachute/hookshot combo. Also, no mention of using the grappling hook to attach objects to objects? He's been dispatching generic mooks by attaching them to canisters and explosive barrels and then attacking them instead. Or vehicles.

The extraction system is easy and quick. The only problem I've seen is the lack of explanation; however, they're quick to work out with some experimentation.

It sounds like you've hit hard by journalistic time pressure and coming off the end of PAX. Hopefully you'll have some more time to dabble and either update the review or acknowledge the greater depth of the game here in the comments, because as it stands this review is poorly-researched at best.

 

[sunpop]

I was gonna get it then I played the demo so I'm just gonna wait for it to be on sale. Too many other games I want before it, like mount & blade warband.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Greg Tito would like to apologize to all of the innocent citizens of Panau for jumping onto their cars and tossing them out.

Yeah but you don't mean it.

OT: I just recently played Saint's Row 2 for the first time. Based on what I'm reading it looks like SR2 still holds the championship belt for best sand box game.

Actually, I thought Fallout 3 took the throne but that was more of an rpg.
I loved Saints Row 2 (it was the perfect thing at the time to wash the stale after-taste of gta4) and I think you got your perspective a little off.

They are very different games. Imagine if they guys who made Saints Row 2 said, "hey, we ripped off gta and made it better in the process. Let's do the same with Mercenaries." This would be the result.

It's not a perfect game but it's just fun and it gives you a hell of a lot of possibilities.

 

[Project .hack]

I'll be honest, I was a little iffy about it the first few times I played the demo when it came out. Then I got into it. Before long I was playing the demo almost religiously and never got bored with it. I think I could have months of fun with this game, and what's better is that the missions weren't boring, the controls are good, I LOVE the grappling hook/parachute system. Driving Cars isn't so bad, heli's and planes are decent once you get used to them, but motorcycles are HORRID to drive. Other than that, I love it.

EDIT: Though I'm not sure how Destroying countless villages' water towers in the desert could POSSIBLY help the people out...just sayin'

 

[Maxi-005]

Just Cause and Just Cause 2 prove that the less complicated game, the more playable it is. I must admit I love this "destroy everything" style

 

[KorLeonis]

Bad voice acting and glitchy sound, I'll agree with. The dying in the intro I don't get, didn't happen to me or any of my friends once, so maybe you just suck Extraction is a fantastic time saver, but I still fly most places myself so I can stop along the way. The supplies dropping where you place the reticule when you summon the black market is intuitive enough that trying to call him while aiming at the side of a building is just foolish. Can't say much about the driving, I use the grapple/'chute or a chopper to get around.

What else...? The gunplay worked for me. He can hit the target as long as the reticule is red ever if you aren't looking directly at the baddie, but if you make the effort of focusing fire on the head, even the toughest colonels drop quickly. Although, I prefer to kill colonels by dropping cars on them. I have never had ammo issues (playing on experienced), and I rarely call for a weapon drop, unless I feel like a different 2-handed weapon.

tl;dr Fantastic game, love most everything about it.

 

[lacktheknack]

The controls were quite easy to use on the PC demo...

And your character has the health of most planets, so dying wasn't an issue for me...

And I used the black market only for bombs (and on the PC, you press a button and click to summon it)...

I love exploding things...

Since I have no problems with your problems, I'm going to buy this. Very quickly.

 

[GundamSentinel]

I only have one big complaint besides the voice acting. I'm and inverted axis man on the PS3 and that makes attack helicopters insanely difficult and unnatural to use. Other than that, having a blast.

 

[Yokai]

...huh. I'm absolutely loving it. If you seriously went into the game expecting a deep and original plot and sympathetic characters, you're doing it wrong. The entire purpose of Just Cause 2 is to blow stuff up in the most ludicrous and amazing ways possible. Everything else is just there to support the fact.

Also, it seems many of the problems you encountered are the result of not paying attention to how the game works. You have to aim the crosshair at a level space big enough to park a vehicle when calling the Black Market dealer. Makes perfect sense. If you keep dying because some colonel and his bodyguards are in the way of your objective, make him your new objective. There's no rush. Kill him, by running him over or something, and then don't drive to your destination, grapple onto a near by tree and open your parachute while reeling in, and just fucking fly to where you want to go.

It sounds like you need to loosen up and play the game for its intended purpose: blowing shit up for points. If that's not your cup of tea, then no offense, but perhaps someone else should have reviewed this game.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Did anyone else notice in the demo the HUGE delay between pulling the trigger and firing? I timed it at a full second. When I tried to do headshots by single tapping it didn't even register.