Just Cause 2

So recently I picked up Just Cause 2. It was released back in March, but I overlooked it. I wish I hadn't, 'cause it's hecka fun. Then again, I got it for cheap through a Steam sale, so maybe that's a good thing. :D

Anyhow, you play as Rico Rodriguez, the most badass Latino man since El Mariachi. He works for a US agency called... um, the Agency. Recently an island off the coast of Asia, considered key strategic importance by the US for some reason, has come under new leadership, so Rico is sent in to blow the place up.

Yep, that's your primary objective: blow stuff up.

Or more precisely, you advance the game by doing story missions. You unlock story missions by doing stronghold missions, and you unlock stronghold missions by earning chaos points. I think you can guess how you get those.

Normally I don't like sandbox games, but I find Just Cause 2 to be very enjoyable for a number of reasons. The biggest of which is that you can call an airlift to get to any area you've been to before, which is a godsend compared to games like Grand Theft Auto 4 or inFamous, where you spend several minutes just trying to get to where you want to be.

And it's a good thing, too, because the island is huge. You've got a large variety of locations, from urban centers and jungles to snow-covered mountains and deserts.

Rico also possess a completely manually controlled grappling hook and an unlimited number of parachutes, which makes foot travel alone hecka fun. There's 104 vehicles spread out among land vehicles, helicopters, boats and planes.

In addition to getting around, the grappling hook can also be used as a melee weapon, used to pull guys off ledges, or hook things together. That last one is supposedly a new mechanic from Just Cause 1 (which I haven't played), but there's not really much use for it. You can hook a guy to the back of a vehicle and drag him to death, but you'll probably get shot a few times doing it. You can hook him to a ceiling, then attack him as he's helpless, but you'll probably get shot a few times doing it. You can hook him to a can of helium, shoot said can, and watch him fly off into the sky, but... you get the idea. It's might not be as flashy, but it's much more effective just to shoot the guards in the head. You can also hook a car to another car (not much point) or a statue to a truck, which will let you pull the statue down (kind of a point, since otherwise you need to use grenades or heavy weapons to destroy it).

Cool that there's variety, I guess, but it seems odd that there's only 10 guns. I'd have expected a game like this to have several versions of the same gun, like a glock and a desert eagle, with slightly different stats for each.

Speaking of guns, you can dual-wield any combination of one-handed weapons, which is kinda cool, but not really much use. It's hard to dual wield weapons with different rates of fire, and if you have two of the same weapon, they draw from the same ammo stock.

You can also call a chopper to bring you weapons and vehicles, but I haven't seen much point to that. Weapons are easily obtained from enemies unless you need the more rarely found grenade or rocket launchers. The dealer has some unique vehicles you can't get elsewhere, but it's unlikely you'll use them more than once, and vehicles are also easily obtained from civilians or enemy troops.

Any problems with this game, then? Well, aren't there always? The one that stands out the most is that many of the bases and villages are carbon copies of each other. The worst is the oil platforms. There's maybe 10 of these, and each one is exactly the same as the others, right down to item locations. LAZY.

There's no cover mechanic. Sure you can move behind a wall or duck behind a box to avoid getting shot, but you can't glue yourself to it like most other third-person shooters would. You also can't crouch and fire, which is annoying because your enemy can.

I also find it annoying how once you catch the military's attention, it almost always ends with you running away or dying. If you kill them, they send more guys. Kill them and they send a chopper (they LOVE sending choppers). Hijack the chopper (the easiest way to be rid of it) and they send more, and so it just goes on until you die or escape, which is annoying if you haven't found all the items or destroyed all the objects (you get bonus chaos points and money for getting 100% completion in an area).

Finally, there's the accents. Oh god, the accents.

The island natives have terrible pseudo-Indian accents. The worst offender is one of the faction leaders, Bolo Santosi, who is obviously trying WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too hard on an accent. Her voice is so annoying >.< The guards aren't much better, spouting lines that I can't understand, but sound like "He's going out on the sleigh!" Your guess is as good as mine.

But these are minor complaints at best. I've been having a blast with this game, and would definitely recommend it.