Review: Just Cause 2

So you play this game. Things explode, cars crash, people die and you laugh. You laugh because it's the ultimate playground of destruction. And you laugh because it has offensively bad voice-acting, especially from one Bolo Santosi.

But little do you realize that Avalanche Studios and Eidos are laughing at you.

---

Sandbox games are dime a dozen now. Make no mistake, they aren't easy to develop. How do you capture a large scale environment and yet make it extremely focused for the player. Make everything work, nothing clunky (bad case in point: Saboteur), no details left out, and most importantly, how to keep gamers playing?

The game devs struck gold when they realized that it's not enough that people like to go around cities jacking cars and causing mayhem. People subconsciously like to blow up shit. And Just Cause 2 has that in aces.

You're thrown into a fictitious South East Asian island called Panau that's going through the standard military-coup-take-over thing that corrupt islands of that part of the world normally get up to, and as a CIA spook, it's your very-American duty to stick your nose in other people's business and cause trouble for American gains.


Most people playing this game will probably not get past the first few missions. Most people are probably just going to see how high they can fly a plane and jump out of it, and grapple on to moving vehicles. Or how long they can drag a poor helpless victim along the back of their car with a cable. And if they do play the missions, they are just going to laugh at the horrendously bad Singaporean accents, the crappy lines, and bombastic caricatures of people in the cutscenes.

Truth is, the game devs don't want you to take this game seriously. I mean, when the game lets you hijack helicopters whilst in mid-air, or level an entire base single-handedly, then you know this game is no serious GTA IV. You even have to fight random ninja, WTF. That's fine, play this game like a toy then. It's a very well made toy indeed.

The graphics positively scream out at you, the world is so exquisitely crafted; the jungles lush, the beaches golden, the peaks snowy, and the water wet and clear. I would even say that it is as beautiful a realized world as Far Cry 2's African landscape. There are lots of little detail thrown in that people may or may not not even see; temple ruins deep within the trees, little villages out by the sea, and an Easter egg to beat all Easter eggs. Let's just say that when you see what it is, and how well it references the TV show, you'll be tearing your hair out in fanboy ecstasy.


The cars handle like shit, the planes and boats handle too well, not that that's a bad thing as overall, driving is a joy. Either for sightseeing or causing carnage, both are too fun. There's a lot of shooting too, it works fine, although it's not the let's-be-cool-and-use-cover system kind of shooting you get nowadays. It's run, gun and dodge enemy bullets. But being able to to grapple everywhere makes you better than Spiderman.

To me, the best part of Just Cause 2 is that it's no walk in the park. You're given the license to blow shit up, a grapple and infinite parachutes at your disposal, but be warned, enemies will come in droves after your South American ass. That's probably the most un-fun thing the game can do to you, but it's also ironically the most "realistic". They'll throw armies, helicopters and planes to shoot you down, and if you're not fast or quick-witted enough, death comes often. But that's fun, if you ask me.

When you can keep cool under pressure, kill everybody or make a daring escape, then you are worthy to keep blowing up shit in this game. The challenge is exciting, and this is where you should begin to see that this game is to be taken seriously. Why?

On a simple level, blow up shit, kill everybody. On a deeper level, see that this game is the evolution of Far Cry 2. Everyone raved about how that game lets you tackle missions, approach enemy bases any way you wanted. This game does that too - you really can go into missions any way you want, and finish it any way you want. Complete player agency. It leaves you feeling chuffed after each mission if you've handled it superbly, and to your own high standards. You just want to have someone look over your shoulder and tell them, "Look at me! Look at me be cool!"


Because that's what Just Cause 2 does. It makes you look fucking cool. Whether you're walking away from an explosion just like they do in the movies, or free falling from a skyscraper on to the back of a jet plane, Niko Bellic just can't touch Scorpio. Neither can Nathan Drake for that matter. Scorpio doesn't crack bad jokes either, he just grimaces and is willing to get his hands dirty. Now that's a cool protagonist. And he has the best lines like "If you don't shut up, I'm going to cut off your hands and bitch slap you with them all the way to wherever we're going".

The missions themselves are plentiful. Whether you're doing side work for factions or powering through a main story mission, they are all fun and varied. Hijack vehicles, escort hostages, blow shit up, assassinate... you'll never tire of the fun ways to cause mayhem this game has in store for you. And the story missions are super intense.

One highlight is a boss fight in which you have to take down three military generals, one after the other. They're located on the rooftops of three buildings; there's little room to maneuver and the enemies have big weapons. The Russian general has a tank on the roof, whilst the Japanese uses a satellite-controlled particle beam cannon. The odds are certainly against you, but then again that's what the entire game is like. No walk in the park. But fun as hell.


And what of the story? It appears so dumbass, the lines just appalling and seriously, Singaporeans do not talk like that. But if you invest some time to get deep into the missions, towards the end-game, you will see as Scorpio sees, the grotesque nature of everything happening on the island. You will definitely see the corrupt opportunistic faction leaders, furthering their own gains at the expense of the island, the obvious tyranny of the dictator, and the imperialistic arrogance of America, the way they manipulate everything, and have to stick their fat stubby fingers in other people's pies. This game also cleverly makes a sly poke at Singapore.

Why else would it have Singaporean accents? Why is there a news reader that pops up every once in awhile to lie to the public. You blow up a base, and the news reader comes on to say that the explosion the people heard was just fireworks, or some bullshit like that, nothing that would case panic in the population. Singapore is not known for their free press either.

You laugh at the stupidity of the game's shallow presentation, but there's a point behind it. It's all a farce, a freaking caricature of geo-politics today, and Scorpio, you, the stoic hero, is at the center of it all, exposing one dirty little secret at a time with well-placed grenades. If you don't realize this and see the game as just a fun toy, than Square Enix is laughing at you and your ignorance.