Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 was developed with one rule in mind: “It must be over-the-top fun”. It appears the main inspiration for the game was a combination of every badass super-man movie from James Bond to Indiana Jones mixed with a healthy doses of B-movie material – and it shows in all its absurdity.

Balls of granite

Enter Rico Rodriguez, a man with an attitude so badass that he must’ve played with grenades as baseballs as a young child. He’s a secret spy for the Agency, some organization that wants to do something about someone because something bad will happen otherwise. Yeah, awesome. Explosions, right?

Anagram codenames!

Indeed, the story is example to the typical B-movie. And honestly, if you wanted narrative excellence, you should keep to Mass Effect 2, or potentially the upcoming Alan Wake. Just Cause 2 is about fun, and thus, delivers its story-line through dialogue with horrid dialogue and absurdly fake accents in the voice acting, and there’s no reason not to giggle maniacally as Rico delivers another sloppy punch line while huge buildings topple in blazing balls of fire in the distance. I mean, as far as story is concerned: there’s a secret informant with a codename whose name is an anagram for the assumed main antagonist at the start of the game. Yeah.

Mighty fun

But that does not mean this game isn’t good. Far from it – Just Cause 2 is mighty fun. A combination of factors makes it so – the first one being the core gameplay mechanic: Chaos. To advance in the game, Rico has to create enough chaos to destabilize the corrupt dictators’ regime. How does one create chaos? Well, it ranges from shooting someone to flying planes into oil rigs. It’s anything that damages anything and there’s a lot of ways to damage a lot of things in this game. It helps that the explosions – like most of the game graphics - are a sight to behold, too.

Grappling Hook

The second is the combination between two individual items. One is the dual grappling hook. Emphasis on dual. Using the grappling hook, Rico can move himself, other items or bind two objects together. Examples would be attaching one end onto an advancing enemy, the other end on a motorbike – then drive the motorbike off the cliff. The second item is the parachute. Seeing falling down the cliff with bike and all can’t be that healthy, Rico has permanent access to a stunt parachute. Watching from the skies above while the motor plows into a fuel tank and explodes along with the victim is a welcome break from the action and again: fun. Or, my favorite attaching a pursuing car to a huge statue of the dictator: chaos, rubble and laughter.

Distraction

The third factor is distraction. The game is massive, spanning over 90 cubic kilometers of beautiful environments. If you set a waypoint for any location, you’re bound to run into something so awesome, it’ll make you want to try it. Like destroying a military base, hijacking a airplane midair, sinking a ship or attaching a fire truck to a Boeing 747. Or, if you’re feeling particularly destructive, killing a colonel for added chaos, doing a stunt race, drop a car onto a fuel tank from 5 miles in the air or flying a military jet fighter into a launching space rocket – well, you name it. There’s a lot to do, and it’s all fun.

Diversity

Just Cause 2 has over a 100 unique vehicles, a dozen or so weapons and a black market that can deliver some specific vehicles (including airplanes and helicopters) or ammo to nearly any place in the world. Diversity and accessibility are key – there are cities, arctic, mountain, desert, tropical and forest regions, there are rocket launchers and pistols, missions ranging from escorting a limousine to capturing a nuclear facility or disabling nukes mid-flight.

Not perfect

The game isn’t perfect. The auto-saving system saves a few times too little, and the respawning after death can place you on the other side of the island. Car handling isn’t ideal and there’s no reverse on most larger vehicles. But heck, you can frigging drop a car on an unsuspecting colonel, then attach one of his goons to a gas station and overload that. I mean, honestly.

Action

Concluding, Just Cause 2 is a must have for any action junkie. If you were lyrical about Heavy Rain and its depth and cannot imagine anything but that in the future, this game might not be for you. If you’re a gamer, however, this is definitely one of those games that nails their design goals.