Ah, Rico Rodriguez... what I wouldn't give to be more like you. Springing from speeding car to thundering helicopter, parachuting across pristine island beaches, free-falling from misty mountain peaks, all with such flair, such Latin passion. My time spent in the shiny leathers of Mr. Rodriguez was a breath of fresh air in a world of overly complex and pretentious action games.
Just Cause 2 is so refreshingly simple in its goal to plaster a stupid grin across your face as you cause mayhem by whatever means necessary. Yes, there's a story, which we'll get to shortly, but the draw card here, the thing that will keep you coming back, is the pure unadulterated fun you'll have just making trouble on Panau Island.
After a relatively successful first outing, Just Cause 2 sees the return of protagonist Rico Rodriguez, sent this time to the South East Asian island group of Panau to sort out the nation's new leader who has anti-US sentiments, all the while keeping an eye out for a missing agent who the Agency fears has defected. It's your pretty standard action movie narrative, but the story has enough (somewhat predictable) twists to keep you interested. To aid Rico in his quest, he gets involved with the three rival gangs of Panau, who feed him information in exchange for his help attaining their individual goals. As Rico helps each faction, their sphere of influence on the island grows, opening up more complex and challenging missions, and driving the story forward.
Besides earning hard cash to buy weapons and the like, the main currency in Just Cause 2 is chaos. This is really what keeps Rico's quest moving. As the chaos level rises, a meter fills up showing how much more mayhem needs to be caused before the next missions are unlocked. This isn't a flawless system by any means, though, leading to the occasional dead spot in the game where there doesn't seem like there is much to do besides looking for something to blow up. However, once things get moving, and you are playing hired gun for all three gangs as well as doing your bit for the Agency, you soon have more missions and side quests to do than you have the time to do them. It almost becomes self-fulfilling, because the more quests you complete, the more chaos you cause, the easier it gets to unlock new missions.
Just Cause 2 works hard to try to keep things fresh when it comes to the different missions, but there are instances where repetition creeps in. Far less so with the main plot missions, though, and it's these missions where you can tell a lot of time has gone in to making them feel as fully developed as possible. What starts off as a simple reconnaissance mission can quickly change into a high speed motorbike race across a desert, followed by a desperate gun fight against a squadron of government thugs, topped off with a nail-biting base-jump from the top of a skyscraper seconds before a planted bomb lights up the sky right behind you. I know that might sound like it's all over the place, and I guess it is, but it's tied together with such an intuitive gameplay mechanic that the game just flows from one over the top action sequence to the next with ease.
As with the first Just Cause, Rico has a trick up his sleeve here too, once again in the form of his amazing grappling hook which allows him to vault across huge distances with Spiderman-like ease. This grappling hook is the one thing which newcomers to the series may find a little odd to use at first, mainly because its use has very little grounding in actual real-world physics. But, as with so much of the Just Cause 2's experience, once you get used to the fact that this game is all about fast, slick fun, the grappling hook starts to shine as the ultimate tool. It's your key to freedom in the gameworld. In a tight spot? Just hook up to a distant wall, reel in, pop your parachute and suddenly you are floating high above the screaming and gunfire, the breeze in your greasy hair, the island sun on your cheeks. It's fantastic, and using the grappling hook in conjunction with the parachute correctly will lead to some of the most entertaining and unscripted events to happen in the game.
A gameplay element which I usually despise, but which somehow fits in with the Just Cause 2's experience, is the now popular quicktime event. Here it is used sparingly, and doesn't come across as laziness on the part of the developer. It is employed mainly for things like hacking door codes, and also for quick fight scenes where you hijack certain vehicles. Get used to it, because once an attack helicopter is on your tail, you'll need to get up close and personal with that pilot to take him out. It's worth it though, because once you've taken control of the chopper, it's all yours to explore the island with. In fact, with the ridiculously powerful mini-guns some of the helicopters are equipped with, it almost feels like cheating to steal one and just hover over an enemy base and tear the place to pieces.
Besides the different types of helicopters available, there are many other vehicles to commandeer, ranging from scooters to armoured trucks to little spy jets which are handy for getting from one side of the massive island nation to the other. And what an island it is. From the sky, and even from close, this really is one of the most impressively created gameworlds I've seen. The snowy mountain ranges, the idyllic beaches with the crystal clear waters lapping on the sand - it's all so stunning. I spent way too much time just flying around in an old prop plane soaking up the view, resisting urges to test the plane's safety features when flying low over the craggy mountain peaks.
Graphically things don't hold up quite so well when it comes to the characters, or the more urban environments, but none of it is terrible. Rico is nicely detailed, with clever touches like snowy build-up on his clothing when he spends a long time in the snow, and the other main characters are also well rendered. It's really just the generic characters, the army cannon fodder and the island residents going about their daily business which lack detail and any real personality. The urban areas and the built up cities are nice from far, but far from nice, inviting you to rush through with guns blazing, but not really suited to the gamer who wants to window shop.
This is a criticism which can be aimed at other aspects of the gameworld too. Yes, the small islands and river networks which make up Panau are stunning as you fly by, but stop for too long and it quickly becomes clear that much of it is filler, with not much actual content. I didn't want to make comparisons to GTA IV here, but I'm going to: In GTA there is always something going on, no matter where you are. There's a cop chasing a mugger, or a taxi driver knocking someone over and getting into a fight, or a girl chatting on her cell phone. It gives the place its own personality, and it makes it feel alive. But sadly much of Panau feels dead and sterile. As beautiful as much of it is, you still get the feeling that things only happen because you are there, unlike in Liberty City where it feels like the city lives on without you.
There has been a lot of work done to keep you entertained while not on a mission, and it has worked for the most part, with things like base-jumping challenges and various races to keep things exciting. I was just left wishing that there were more random NPCs to interact with, more pointless activities to take part in to make what is already a stunning world into a more believable one.
What does add to the immersion in the gameworld though is the excellent ambient sound. From the distant rumblings on the motorway, to the wind whistling in the desert - it's brilliantly done, and probably the only subtle aspect of the game. More active sound effects are equally impressive, with explosions and gunfire really rattling your brain when things get heated. The voiceovers are really corny, with the most stereotypical accents for the different faction leaders and other main characters, but this actually adds even more to the already cheesy action movie atmosphere.
It's really hard to pin point why a game like this is just so much fun. It could be because the core concepts are so simple, yet so stylishly executed. You can spend so much time just blowing stuff up that you don't even realise that the story has hardly progressed. In fact, after four hours I had only completed 4% of the game. And I didn't care. I thought I'd only been playing for thirty minutes. As I pointed out, if you slow down too much to examine the finer details you may find yourself let down by the lack thereof, but this isn't that kind of game. It's not meant to be overanalysed, and if you are going to start asking things like "Uh, is what that guy just did even humanly possible?", then you've come to the wrong party. Just Cause 2 is a fast paced, in-your-face, shwashbuckling adventure, and it's one which will keep you entranced by its spell as long as you don't try to take it too seriously. I'd say action gamers owe it to themselves to give this wild ride a spin, let your hair down and head to the island paradise of Panau.
Pros:
- Massive, stunning island setting
- Grappling hook gameplay is slick and fast
- Explosive, unscripted action sequences
Cons:
- Occasionally bland moments where you have to look for something to do
- Some visual aspects aren't up to scratch
- Generic storyline
Rating: 
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