Let me say straight off the bat that Just Cause 2 is what the original game should have been. When I saw the original demo at E3 a few years ago I was blown away, only to be disappointed when I played the full game.
This sequel however is a lot more fun, has more variety and has the winning formula of the parachute and grappling hook which I’ll come to in a minute.
So once again you play as Rico Rodriquez and this time you’re working for an agency which must cause as much chaos on the East-Asian island of Panau as possible. You do this by working for three factions on the island and blowing up as much stuff as possible. Once you cause a certain amount of chaos the next agency mission is unlocked and the story can progress.
Missions come in a number of categories. You may have to take over a stronghold to increase faction influence, go to a military base and sabotage a piece of equipment or hijack cars and assassinate people. There are also races dotted around the massive island that you can take or leave depending on how you feel.
There are plenty of weapons and vehicles to unlock and find for land, sea and air but the most fun way of getting around is using the grappling hook and parachute. Far more fun than Bionic Command or Pilotwings, you can shoot out your hook, open your chute and swing around the island causing death from above or hopping onto vehicles in order to punch the driver in the face in a mini quick time event and stealing his ride – you can even do this with helicopters!
As mentioned before the game world is huge both horizontally and vertically and with this does come the odd bug. The game crashed on me a few times and sometimes Rico gets stuck. I once jumped out of a burning car only to remain seated in mid-air and had to restart. Still, these minor bugs don’t spoil the overall enjoyment of a game that will take you around 20 hours to complete with so much left to do it’s unreal.
Voice acting is also a little bit ropey but the whole thing is very tongue-in-cheek anyway so, like a b-movie, it sort of adds to the overall experience. If you fancy a true sandbox game that will let you play about with what to do and how to do things you can’t go wrong with Just Cause 2. It gets an excellent 8 out of 10.
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Related: GTA 4 review, Just Cause 2 release date, Just Cause 2 review on Youtube