Utilising a much-improved proprietary Avalanche Engine, Just Cause 2’s open world is 100 square kilometres (the equivalent of 258,000 football fields, we’re told) of desert, snow and jungle terrain, giving you what Johannson calls, “one big playground to cause chaos.” Having quelled the oppressive dictatorial regime of San Esperito in the first game, Rico journeys to the fictional island of Panau to track down his former best friend Tom Shelton, who has gone rogue and must be stopped at all costs. In all honesty the story doesn’t really matter when you’re stealing a jet from out of the air (via a QTE ‘struggle’ mini-game) or assaulting a heavily guarded enemy outpost in an attack helicopter. And it certainly doesn’t matter when you’re inexplicably ambushed by ninjas guarding the back door to a sprawling military facility.
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| Rico can be extracted and dispensed anywhere on the island, skydiving into the action like James Bond. | Car surfing is all in a day's work for Rico. |
Thankfully, Rico is suitably tooled up, able to wield any two weapons at any one time. Environments are almost fully destructible too, exemplified by the steel towers we’re shown being toppled by rockets, falling with accurate physics and crashing to the ground in a thunderous clatter of twisted girders. With the ninjas duly dispatched, a nuclear sub surfaces in the water below before launching a payload of rockets towards your position. High time to make an escape, Rico parachutes off the precipice into an intense jeep chase straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster, clambering to whichever part of the jeep he likes before climbing in and taking the wheel, leaving the unfortunate driver snagged to the bumper and dragged through the sand. This is but one example of JC 2’s intense action sequences, which breathlessly bounce from one set piece to the next.
As well as Rico’s increased athleticism and versatile grappling hook, the combat has also been enhanced allowing you to pull off some brutally efficient close quarters moves adding up to make things slightly more challenging and tactical than before. There’s a brand new aiming system and superior enemy AI too, so they’ll run for cover, call in back up or attempt to flank you. Rico can utilise his wrist-mounted grapple to jump and swing from ground level opening his parachute to get airborne quickly, so any attempt at being outflanked can instantly be combated with some lithe Spider-Man style zip-lining. Of your arsenal, the grapple is your most valuable asset allowing you to rapidly get around your surroundings and leap onto vehicles, reach in through the window and throw the driver out by the scruff of his neck.
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| You can ditch your aircraft in mid-flight and escape using your parachute. | All manner of insane stunts are possible with the grapple and ‘chute combo. |
Watching Just Cause 2 and the freewheeling chaos of explosions, crumbling buildings, car chases and impromptu skydiving left us confident that the game will be a vast improvement over its predecessor with the developer clearly aware of what did and didn’t work in the first game. Building upon the strengths of the original while fleshing out the parts that fell short, JC 2 has every chance of being something pretty exciting, with a vast open world indicated by the enormous overhead relief map accessed via the pause menu, Panau is populated by hundreds of missions. We’re told that there are 50 core narrative missions that should take between 20 and 30 hours to finish before you’ve even scratched the surface of the innumerable side missions. There are 261 settlements to liberate that you can travel around freely by calling in an extraction at any time. Your job is to sweep away the enemy presence and destroy any propaganda in each area to raise the population’s morale and garner the support of the oppressed people of the fabricated South East Asian island. Doing so promises to be unabashed, compulsive fun with your progress constantly monitored by progress bars that pop up whenever you fulfil an objective so you can keep track of how much of the game you’ve completed.
Perhaps Avalanche have had their eye on the competition, but the attention to detail in Just Cause 2 almost gives GTA IV a run for its money with incidental touches like sand, snow or water realistically adhering to Rico’s clothes, as well as completely overhauled animations and modelling for the Antonio Banderas look-alike. Rich, lush rolling vistas make the game a pleasure to explore with the landscape shifting seamlessly between dusty plains, verdant jungle and dense forests. A full day to night cycle runs from bright blue skies, hazy orange sunsets, violet hued dusk to starry pitch darkness where towns and villages can be located by the glittering lights radiating on the horizon. Rest assured, JC 2 is an attractive game, especially for such an immense game world. More importantly though, the game is guaranteed to be deliriously fun to play, free from illusion-shattering barriers and bursting at the seams with possibilities to wreak chaos (yes - that word again) in spades.
