Publisher: Eidos/Square Enix Developer: Avalanche Studios Year of Release: 2010 Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3 Some games are designed as art, with exquisite art styles and/or a message or a specific point. Others are simply multiplayer death matches. Just Cause 2 is another style of game – a kiddies playpit with a B movie plot, terrible voice acting but a physics engines that plays to its strengths and the best open worlds I have ever seen. The original Just Cause introduced to Rico Rodriguez, Latin super spy and ladies man, a composite of all the best movie heroes from James Bond to El Mariachi. In the first game he freed the island of San Espirito from tyranny and now he is back to create some chaos in Panau, an archipelago in the South Pacific that has experienced a regime change via the new dictator, Baby Panay. Worse, Rico’s old mentor, Tom Sheldon, has gone rogue on this island chain. So your objectives are clear – find Sheldon, cause chaos, and win this island back from its dictator. So how to do it? Well this game does something magical and assigns chaos a numerical value. By blowing up carefully marked items in the world, finding collectables and doing faction missions you can gain more chaos which in turn unlocks more missions to gain more chaos to do more missions to progress with the story. Rinse, dry, repeat. The chaos also unlocks a black market items, allowing you to call in all the guns and vehicles you need to get on with the story. Its a nice framework for a rather generic set of missions, encouraging you to go round blowing up radio masts, propaganda statues and (bizarrely) water towers to show off the games amazing graphics/physics engines. Even better, due to the fact all these items are marked out in red, you start to go into autopilot and simply blow up every single thing as you simply drive through them.   That said you won’t be driving that much. The cars handle fine (although the police do like popping tires making most cars useless after 5 seconds) while the boats are so-so, but there are three other modes of transport that are much better. Bikes are great fun to bomb around in, jumping over bumps and pulling off stunts, while planes are so simple to fly and pull off action movie style tricks (want to jump from a stunt jet to an airliner and back again? You can!). However, there is one mode of transport that is not only unique to the series but also the best way to travel around I’ve seen. By using a grappling hook and an infinite supply of parachutes, you can fly around the island to your hearts delight, clamping onto the scenery to swing yourself around at high speed. For most of the game, I never touched the cars (and in fact I did several missions involving car chases by simply grappling alone. The grappling hook is also a great help, making missions more fun than simply running through with guns out. You can tie people to other people, people to jets, jets to cars and so on and so forth. My only real issue with it is that its has a short range but apart from that its hilarious to use. Of course you also have guns to kill people with. Most are fun to use (the submachine gun being the one to choose) but there is a major flaw with all of them – ammo runs out way too fast. You can’t carry enough and each enemy requires a metric ton of lead to the face to die. However, as soon as you pull out a rocket launcher or a grenade they die super easy. The balance of the weapons just feels off. Worse still is the black market which seemed like a good idea at the the time but is terrible to tool up for a night on the slightly burnt town. Between buying each item, you have to select it, watch a cut scene, bring up the beacon to bring the Sloth Demon (the black marketer) back, watch a video and then repeat. Its just clunky. So why have i spent over 20 hours playing this game? Because it is just great fun to bomb around what equates to Paradise on earth. Panau is a mixture of various terrain types, from the deserts of the south, to the tropical beaches up to the towering snowy mountains of the centre. All of these places look amazing with some of the best graphics I have seen. Additionally, the map is packed full of settlements (over 300 listed places with various others not on the list) with each totally different yet all based around a similar theme. They are the perfect for the whole action movie look, with Rico hanging off jeeps as they drive through lush jungles while being chased by thugs. What makes this even better is how well it runs on PC – a smooth 30fps no matter what on my PC with even older PCs running well. But all this happens while also looking beautiful with some of the most perfect sunsets you have ever seen. The character models are not quite as impressive but nearly everything else is quite nice. To fit in with the B movie atmosphere, the music and sound effects all suit an ‘80’s action film, with even cars flipping over in the air producing the “swish, swish” sound you’d expect to hear while Arnie shoots people up. What I’m trying to say is that this game is not the best game ever, but despite its flaws it is a brilliant toy. Its perfect for just five minutes of game, where you can jump in for a bit of bloodshed while you wait for Dr Who to start. Just don’t try and 100% it in one go – it may actually ruin it. But how many games allow you to tie a car to a jet, take off and then drop it into a oil refinery and watch it burn. I love chaos.     You guys are still reading? Okay here is how to really have fun with Just Cause 2 – buy it on PC and get hold of some of the mods and trainers. Once you’ve finished it, fill it up with crazy things – stuff like invincibilty or unlimited ammo. Also get hold of some mods to make the grappling hook have longer range, a stronger rope (means you can tie tanks to helicopters without the rope snapping) and allow multiple grapples. They make the game even more stupid than it already is.

Publisher: Eidos/Square Enix
Developer: Avalanche Studios
Year of Release: 2010
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3

Some games are designed as art, with exquisite art styles and/or a message or a specific point. Others are simply multiplayer death matches. Just Cause 2 is another style of game – a kiddies playpit with a B movie plot, terrible voice acting but a physics engines that plays to its strengths and the best open worlds I have ever seen.

The original Just Cause introduced to Rico Rodriguez, Latin super spy and ladies man, a composite of all the best movie heroes from James Bond to El Mariachi. In the first game he freed the island of San Espirito from tyranny and now he is back to create some chaos in Panau, an archipelago in the South Pacific that has experienced a regime change via the new dictator, Baby Panay. Worse, Rico’s old mentor, Tom Sheldon, has gone rogue on this island chain. So your objectives are clear – find Sheldon, cause chaos, and win this island back from its dictator.

So how to do it? Well this game does something magical and assigns chaos a numerical value. By blowing up carefully marked items in the world, finding collectables and doing faction missions you can gain more chaos which in turn unlocks more missions to gain more chaos to do more missions to progress with the story. Rinse, dry, repeat. The chaos also unlocks a black market items, allowing you to call in all the guns and vehicles you need to get on with the story. Its a nice framework for a rather generic set of missions, encouraging you to go round blowing up radio masts, propaganda statues and (bizarrely) water towers to show off the games amazing graphics/physics engines. Even better, due to the fact all these items are marked out in red, you start to go into autopilot and simply blow up every single thing as you simply drive through them.

That said you won’t be driving that much. The cars handle fine (although the police do like popping tires making most cars useless after 5 seconds) while the boats are so-so, but there are three other modes of transport that are much better. Bikes are great fun to bomb around in, jumping over bumps and pulling off stunts, while planes are so simple to fly and pull off action movie style tricks (want to jump from a stunt jet to an airliner and back again? You can!). However, there is one mode of transport that is not only unique to the series but also the best way to travel around I’ve seen. By using a grappling hook and an infinite supply of parachutes, you can fly around the island to your hearts delight, clamping onto the scenery to swing yourself around at high speed. For most of the game, I never touched the cars (and in fact I did several missions involving car chases by simply grappling alone. The grappling hook is also a great help, making missions more fun than simply running through with guns out. You can tie people to other people, people to jets, jets to cars and so on and so forth. My only real issue with it is that its has a short range but apart from that its hilarious to use.

Of course you also have guns to kill people with. Most are fun to use (the submachine gun being the one to choose) but there is a major flaw with all of them – ammo runs out way too fast. You can’t carry enough and each enemy requires a metric ton of lead to the face to die. However, as soon as you pull out a rocket launcher or a grenade they die super easy. The balance of the weapons just feels off. Worse still is the black market which seemed like a good idea at the the time but is terrible to tool up for a night on the slightly burnt town. Between buying each item, you have to select it, watch a cut scene, bring up the beacon to bring the Sloth Demon (the black marketer) back, watch a video and then repeat. Its just clunky.

So why have i spent over 20 hours playing this game? Because it is just great fun to bomb around what equates to Paradise on earth. Panau is a mixture of various terrain types, from the deserts of the south, to the tropical beaches up to the towering snowy mountains of the centre. All of these places look amazing with some of the best graphics I have seen. Additionally, the map is packed full of settlements (over 300 listed places with various others not on the list) with each totally different yet all based around a similar theme. They are the perfect for the whole action movie look, with Rico hanging off jeeps as they drive through lush jungles while being chased by thugs. What makes this even better is how well it runs on PC – a smooth 30fps no matter what on my PC with even older PCs running well. But all this happens while also looking beautiful with some of the most perfect sunsets you have ever seen. The character models are not quite as impressive but nearly everything else is quite nice. To fit in with the B movie atmosphere, the music and sound effects all suit an ‘80’s action film, with even cars flipping over in the air producing the “swish, swish” sound you’d expect to hear while Arnie shoots people up.

What I’m trying to say is that this game is not the best game ever, but despite its flaws it is a brilliant toy. Its perfect for just five minutes of game, where you can jump in for a bit of bloodshed while you wait for Dr Who to start. Just don’t try and 100% it in one go – it may actually ruin it. But how many games allow you to tie a car to a jet, take off and then drop it into a oil refinery and watch it burn. I love chaos.

You guys are still reading? Okay here is how to really have fun with Just Cause 2 – buy it on PC and get hold of some of the mods and trainers. Once you’ve finished it, fill it up with crazy things – stuff like invincibilty or unlimited ammo. Also get hold of some mods to make the grappling hook have longer range, a stronger rope (means you can tie tanks to helicopters without the rope snapping) and allow multiple grapples. They make the game even more stupid than it already is.