Just Cause 2

The Good
Just Cause 2 takes the US agent Rico Rodriguez to Panau, a fictitious small country controlled by "Baby" Panay, the dictator controlling the local armed forces. Guess what? You are here to take him down...

Just Cause 2 is a blaze of action and destruction. You will love to play it and to let it amaze you with its serious action and beautiful graphics. You are controlling the actions of Rico but make no mistake, the stunning vista of Panau is the star in this game!

Its hair-raising action starts right after the first ingame cutscene (the cutscenes by the way will certainly not thrill anybody these days). As you jump out of a helicopter to go after a dead body falling to the ground, you will not know where to look at at first. The vista is simply amazing and the good thing is - it doesn't get old. Even after several hours of gameplay the graphic engine still knows how to impress. Back to the action: There are a lot of ways to travel throughout Panau - 104 to be exact. Bikes, cars, helicopters and planes can all be controlled, hijacked and - of course - crashed. Spending your time in a helicopter or jet is not only the most fun but also the most efficient way to travel between missions, mission waypoints or simply roaming throughout the island.

Rico's most important tool is the grappling hook. With the push of a button, the grappling hook snaps out to enemies or object to interact with it. Grabbing an enemy will pull it towards you, so one might try it with enemies on a tower or such. Grabbing an object will make Rico get to the object while the grappling hook retracts itself. With these basics Rico is able to capture and hijack vehicles and take out some enemies. The real fun starts when combining objects with the grappling hook. For example: Rico can attach a barrel to a truck or a helicopter by pointing to the object and using the grappling hook on the vehicle, or vice versa. Getting into the vehicle will now cause some more chaos around Rico!

Talking about Chaos: If you want, Chaos is the type of currency to unlock the main story missions as well as missions for the three local gangs you can (or more like HAVE to, refer to the "dislike" for that) work for. Destroying objects of "Baby" Panay's army will earn you chaos, JC2 simply calls it "sabotages". At over 300 locations all over Panau, of which some are military bases, can be "controlled" by executing all sabotages and finding upgrade boxes. These upgrade boxes will boost Rico's stats for weapons, vehicles and his armor. Once you enter a location, the mini map will indicate the completion of this area in percentage. If you manage to destroy all army objects and find all the upgrade boxes, you will gain a 100% completion rate.

Let's wrap up the positive aspects of the game: - stunning visuals - some serious and cool action - great grappling hook as your main tool throughout the game - if you like that type of game, it will keep you busy for 20-30 hours

The Bad
JC2 is not a perfect game or instant classic but I will keep it installed on my 360's HDD for a while. I love playing around in Panau. However, there is a downsite - depending on the kind of games you like they might be devastating or negligible: - dumb storyline and character drawing - as a shooter it is just average - some missions are repetitive - is there any background music at all? - checkpoint system throughout the story missions can be quite frustrating at times - will take some time to collect a 1000 Gamerscore

The Bottom Line
You will certainly have fun with JC2 if you had fun with its predecessor and games like Mercenaries (2). Don't expect a decent storyline or character details but a great game to roam around and bring some serious chaos to a beautiful and stunning open-world scenario.

It will keep you busy for some time if you like this kind and style of game. Going for all the 360 achievements will certainly keep you busy for at least 20 hours. Doing so might get a bit repetitive in terms of story/mission design. However, flying around in a jet just 10 meters above the ground to fire a couple of rockets into the next military base and watch it blow never gets old. And finally, the grappling hook adds a lot of fun and some variety about how you make your way through Panau.