Just be-cause I wanna blow stuff up
This game is repetitive, has an extremely shallow story, characters that no-one will care about and has little to no replay value. It is however huge, beautiful ,contains bag loads of over the top run, gun, slingshot parachuting fun and is definitely worth playing if you like lots of action, explosions and exploring.
The game starts two years after the first one finished and again you play as Agency operative Rico Rodriguez on Panau, a fictional island nation based in Southeast Asia. The president of Panau is a militant oppressive type named Baby Panay, a leader that’s more interested in his bank balance then the people. It’s your job to take this dictator down as well as find a suspected rogue operative that’s gone missing since Baby Panay came into power.
Panau is absolutely gorgeous to look at as well with a wonderfully vibrant colour palette and a surprising array of varied environments to play in from huge coastal cities and small farm villages to thick jungle and even ice-capped mountains. It really is breathtaking at times as you glide down on your parachute taking in the sights really making you feel like you on a tropical island.
Your progress in the game is measured in chaos which you earn by completing the various missions in the game as well as causing chaos and destruction throughout the island. The amount of chaos you gain will determine what new missions will open up for you as well as unlocking new weapons and vehicles from sports cars and boats to incredibly powerful tanks and military helicopters. These unlockable weapons and vehicles can all be upgraded by collecting their respective parts found throughout the island.
The game really shines when your travelling around with your slingshot grappling hook and parachute combination apart from jumping in a jet or using the transport helicopter it’s the fastest and easiest way of getting around and is certainly the most enjoyable. As well as using it for travel the slingshot can be used against enemies to pull them off ledges or pull towards you and once you get used to the controls you can have hours of fun simply exploring the island and causing as much chaos as you can in various villages and military bases.
There’s 368 settlements to complete and these consist of villages, city’s and military bases. To complete them involves destroying statues of baby panau and various other structures, collecting armour, weapons and vehicle parts. I for one could not be bothered to complete all of these as it can get repetitive and it’s not required to complete the game’s story or other side missions. These too can get repetitive and I didn’t find the cut-scenes interesting at all.
Closing comments
Just Cause 2 is beautiful and will keep anyone with an unhealthy appetite for destruction entertained for hours and hours but for those looking for something deeper you will be disappointed. The slingshot parachuting gameplay is satisfying but as a whole the game failed to keep me interested.
