There's more to it than just shooting folks
For once though, I find it difficult to care that much – primarily because Just Cause 2 embraces its failings and doesn’t take itself that seriously. As you start racking up mini-achievements for destroying over 10 objects in 60 seconds, for driving each and every vehicle, and for needlessly destroying assets of the armed forces, you realise that this is what Just Cause 2 was made for.The whole story and gameplay is geared towards taking insane routes across the jungle with the parachute and grappling hook combination, detonating enormous explosive fuel tanks, and attaching soldiers with the grappling hook to gas canisters, before shooting until the canister ignites and rockets several hundred feet into the air. And credit to Square Enix, it’s a formula that works. The graphics are stunning at times, with fantastic panoramas across sunset-illuminated bays, glowing city-scapes, and immensely-detailed jungles, and you’re never far away from the action.
If you get bored of shooting people with pistols, you can parachute into a military base and steal a helicopter, a minigun, or a tank, and obliterate them with those instead. Or you could steal a jet and just destroy everything. There are easter-eggs aplenty, miles and miles of vastly different environments to explore, and innumerable objects to collect and targets to destroy, so you’ll never run out of things to do. They might lack some variety, but there are just so many ways you can approach and attack the targets that it takes a very long time to get old – and enormous explosions are always satisfying.
Click for larger imageThe vast majority of the game is utterly forgettable, and it certainly won’t win any awards for its game engines, its storyline, or indeed its storytelling. But if you’re looking for a game where you can kick back and relax, roam around an enormous open space and do whatever your heart desires, causing mayhem wherever you go, there’s very little out there to rival Just Cause 2.
Score - 7.4/10
