Just Cause 2. Shit blows up, but...

[Stark]

The camera lag is very strange. I wonder if it's meant to be a feel design choice?

[chitoryu12]

I tried the demo and watched some of the game on Game Anyone. Probably just grab it off Gamefly for a bit, like I did with the first one.

The steering and parachutes just refuse to work for me. I always end up massively oversteering.

[weemadando]

I noticed Stark playing the demo on 360 - please, let me know what you think of the need for pixel perfect precision for the grappling hook, while the guns have a super-generous auto aim.

That right there, was the reason that I chose to play on PC.

[Stark]

Yeah on complex buildings it's a pain, but it has the same huge auto aim on anything moving. I'm not sure how it'd be better on PC since he's still so disabled he can't a tuallt climb anything, necestating five hook jumps if you miss.

The range is really gooey too; on a chute it's huge, on foot it's surprisingly short.

[Tolya]

Yeah, lack of any basic climbing mechanic really sucks. And to think that a simple mechanic like that from Saboteur would have made a difference.

Im not sure how massive is the auto aim on X360, but on PC it is fairly modest (at least by my standards). It does make the game easier, but it does not make it easy. To be honest, to me, its much more difficult than GTA IV, Assasins Creed or Saboteur. Terrain is very open ended which means you never know from which direction you will get a rocket up your arse. Using a parachute, SAMs will track you down. On the ground, rocket launcher troops will fire at you even at close distances.

As for the base destruction mechanic, the "if its destroyed it stays that way" is not such a bad thing, although it is a consequence of... boredom. There just isn't enough to do in a base once its down. With a massive map (32km x 32km according to the game) you just don't have any incentive to go back there so if it stays a barren wasteland its not a big deal. Still, bases that rebuild themselves over time could be interesting since this isn't Far Cry 2, where you had to go over the same checkpoints and kill people there ad nauseum. Here you could always find a way around.

However, that is just a model case of covering poor design decisions with massive landscape. Add a basic stealth mechanic, an interesting hand to hand combat model (instead of a lame rope bash that doesn't work anyway) and suddenly going around killing people becomes interesting.

I can understand the decision to make Just Cause 2 an all-out action shooter, but that doesn't really justify lack of variation. Especially that since this is a sequel and so little has changed in terms of basic gameplay. It looks like that the dev team just spent their time designing a cool world and cool equipment and forgot about some gameplay basics. A real shame.

Another irritating thing is the low quality map. It just stinks of console optimization (as do low-res menu and splash screens). The problem is that it just isnt helpful as a map - it does not display location of targets for one. This makes killing bases really tedious, since you have to scout an entire location to look for some stupid hidden gas tanks or generators.

The bases themselves are really understaffed (which from the plot POV is understandable since there was a coup de etat and probably the new presidents army is stretched thin keeping the order) which make some of them just feel empty and boring.

Also, the mechanic that forces you to inflict a certain amount of destruction (called "chaos points") before letting you on a mission is really stupid since I could forfeit base destruction altogether as a dull chore. In Saboteur you at least had some kind of an incentive of going around blowing shit up - they were TEH EVIL NAZIS and they committed evil acts all around the plot and map. This way you actually felt morally obliged to kill as many of those bastards as possible and you could actually enjoy mowing down a squad of soldiers harassing an old lady in the streets. In JC2 you are generally left with "why should I care?". There was a coup de etat, so fucking what? A bunch of drunken foreigners will be deported, so fucking what? Apart from Rico being CIA and being just ordered to go and kill stuff there is just no emotional bond with the story. Maybe it will come later (as I just began the game) but right now I just feel forced to go and kill a bunch of revolutionaries who were sick and tired of living in a US puppet state. Good for them? I shoot them because they shoot me. And that is not a good enough reason.

As for the good things:

I already wrote about this but let me reiterate: the landscape is just STUNNING (at least on the PC). Just going around the landscape in a plane is pure fun, especially in the mountains. There are lots of massive locales (like "Cape Carnival", which is an obvious play with "Cape Canaveral" and is a spaceport with HUGE launch pads and some "SWAT Kats" style runways. Really cool. Cities are very nice too, buildings are very varied.

Oh yeah, and there is an uber-cool "High mile club", which is basically a huge club suspended on two zeppelin-like balloons. When I first saw it from afar I just felt an urge to get there.

The same goes for equipment. I dunno who designed all that stuff but each and every military vehicle just hits that sweet "its cool!" spot in my head. From tanks and choppers to airplanes. You just feel obliged to steal and use them. Guns are pretty mediocre though. The only slick design I've seen so far is the sniper rifle. The rest is just your standard assortment of goods: Desert Eagle, Raging Bull-style revolver, some kind of an MP5 with not butt stock machine pistol, M4 based assault rifle - the works. Dual wielding mechanic is pretty nice too, since you can decide which gun to fire instead of just blazing away.

Driving, flying and swimming are average. Action stunts (like hitting a barrel and rolling over several times before exploding) are mighty cool, just don't expect a gram of realism: stuff will fly and explode like empty beer cans and condoms during mardi gras. In times when everyone tries to make things as realistic as possible that is a welcome change.

Story is really cheesy, although I like it. Sometimes it even feels like some of the characters were taken from a Tarantino movie. Voice acting however feels like the actors have just woken up from a coma because theeeeey speeeaaak veeeeryyyy slooooowly. So far none of the superweapon Godzilla style bullshit like in Bad Company 2 and I hope it stays that way.

Right now it seems like Square Enix got the right idea in the art and writing department but failed somewhat at gameplay. I still think it is an enjoyable game, but if we take away the massive landscape and excellent visuals you are just left with Just Cause 1,5. Which is fine if you enjoyed the original (I did) but it just feels... no, unpolished is not the right word... lazily designed.

Oh and I haven't encountered a single bug or a single crash, which is really good since GTA IV and Saboteur crash like crazy.

[Stark]

The game is riddled with broken or cut mechanics and hints that the intention was for much more complexity at one point; it is also so unpolished that you'll look at the same canned 'cutscene' every time certain things happen (which has to be loaded) for NO REASON. This makes buying/upgrading/extracting extremely tedious. The map being a 3d topo map and putting all the hint markers for sites on the surface (even the Mile High Club) is awful. The zoom on the map is nowhere near enough and often it'll be impossible to select a location because two or more other nearby locations steal focus.

Even on 'hard', the game is laughably easy. The main plot can be finished in maybe four hours, after which you are in 'mercenary mode', and are simply pushing up a completion percentage. This makes it pretty obvious that the game is just a grind through 200 cut and pastes of the same 3 military bases that you can destroy with the same helicopter.

My favourite part is that blowing up pipelines 'disrupts oil supply', killing officers 'reduces morale' and taking down comm towers 'disrupts communication'. None of this has FUCK ALL INGAME EFFECT. It's just a differently-shaped oil barrel.

[Aaron]

I think they half-completed the comms array thing. On 360 if you activate the antenna, the guards call for air support and if you destroy it before the chopper arrives, it just fucks off. So I think the intent was to have response time increased but they never quite made it there.

The game is still fun and huge, seeing as I like just roaming around thats OK but the campaign is too short. Thankfully the price dropped 20$ here recently.

[Stark]

They airdrop troops sometimes too; it seems that at one point there was supposed to be some kind of strategic level to the game rather than 'complete seven short and easy missions = game over'. If taking out comm towers, radars etc had an effect the game would be way more interesting. If you had to top radars to move in and take out comms without SAMs killing you with extended range that'd be neat. As it is SAMs have like a 300m range and planes are essentially immune because SAMs are slower.

[Aaron]

I haven't done all the faction missions yet (turns out you can just roam around blowing shit up until the chaos is high enough to unlock everything) but the Ulars have the mystery island mission that hints at a greater aspect to it. Apparently the factions are smuggling shit and moving stuff around and getting fucked by the military. There are mobile radar sites as well, that as it is don't do anything.

I might go back to Mercs 2, which was better implemented.

[Stark]

The dollar-sign island up in the NW has some obvious locations that don't show up as 'discovered' when you visit them (and an eternal lightning storm that destroys your plane, lol) so yeah, it looks like at some point they decided 'stuff complexity let's sell the game on YEEE HAAA RIDE A 747'.

[Aaron]

The dollar-sign island up in the NW has some obvious locations that don't show up as 'discovered' when you visit them (and an eternal lightning storm that destroys your plane, lol) so yeah, it looks like at some point they decided 'stuff complexity let's sell the game on YEEE HAAA RIDE A 747'.

Oh thats the mystery island that the Ulars send you to later on. It was actually the most interesting one in the whole game. I did go to the international airport though and stole an airliner (I didn't think that you would actually be able to) and then crashed it into an oil rig.

[Stark]

Ha. I've actually done zero missions or races so far. I should add you on Live so I can CYBER STALK you.

[Aaron]

Go ahead, I'm not sure if I can talk over it though, I don't have Gold.

[Stark]

It says you have 11k points but haven't played any games yet, which is a pretty neat trick.

[Aaron]

HA! That is fucked up. Maybe it's my privacy settings or something.

[Aaron]

It was my privacy settings, I had to approve your friend request (it took me a while to figure that out).

[Zac Naloen]

This game has started crashing my xbox now, hopefully it's just something wrong with the install on my hard drive..

Either that or it's about the Red-Ring for the 5th time, no issues with other games though.

[Stark]

It occurs to me that this game is actually more primitive in game flow than Desert Strike from twenty years ago; there, you had to target radars to reduce the range on SAMs inside their coverage area or their increased range would rape you, powerplants to disrupt cities, airfields to break up air cover so you can strike deeper into the map. This would have introduced a challenge and maybe even a late-game goal; instead each base is totally separate (and even hilariously still manned once everything functional in it is destroyed) and 'transformers' are strategic goals even though disrupting power supply does absolutely nothing.

If you could detonate all the generators to shut down the SAMs while you made your getaway, the game might have some much-needed depth or challenge.

[Vympel]

It occurs to me that this game is actually more primitive in game flow than Desert Strike from twenty years ago; there, you had to target radars to reduce the range on SAMs inside their coverage area or their increased range would rape you, powerplants to disrupt cities, airfields to break up air cover so you can strike deeper into the map. This would have introduced a challenge and maybe even a late-game goal; instead each base is totally separate (and even hilariously still manned once everything functional in it is destroyed) and 'transformers' are strategic goals even though disrupting power supply does absolutely nothing.

If you could detonate all the generators to shut down the SAMs while you made your getaway, the game might have some much-needed depth or challenge.

Gaming nostalgia nitpick - actually if you didn't take out the radars the enemy SAMs and AA guns were more accurate and had a much higher rate of fire. Instant death, really. I know, because I have Desert Strike on my PSP

[TheKwas]

This game does not treat itself seriously (c'mon, old president of Panau islands was called "Papa Panay" and was assasinated by his son "Baby Panay"...)

I don't know what 'Panay' means, but the 'Papa' and 'Baby' prefixes are obvious references to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Doc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Doc

[Oskuro]

ANGRY (Joe) REVIEW in case anyone cares (about Rico Suave)

I must admit it does look pretty, there's at last some color, the first one didn't look standard brownish/gray, but felt monochrome. And did he pick up the stationary minigun and wield it?!

[Stark]

Like others have said, the game looks great. There just isn't really anything meaningful to do in it.

[Aaron]

ANGRY (Joe) REVIEW in case anyone cares (about Rico Suave)

I must admit it does look pretty, there's at last some color, the first one didn't look standard brownish/gray, but felt monochrome. And did he pick up the stationary minigun and wield it?!

Yup you can remove a mounted minigun and use it. Though you move very slowly and have to stop to fire, you get infinite ammo though. It turns most any mission into a cakewalk.