We got a chance to play the demo of Just Cause 2 ahead of release today and now that the code is all but complete, we’re impressed with what Eidos has crafted. While it’s true that the non-linear gameplay, massive island third party adventure game genre is becoming surprisingly crowded of late, Just Cause 2 promises to stand out purely by taking high octane action to the next absurd level.
Where as the first game in the series was set in a South American/Caribbean island, this time around the South East Asian setting of the fictional Panau is a bit more broad: instead of acres and acres of repetitive jungle foliage, you get a massive island with countless smaller islands around it, with different climate zones: the mission we tried first saw us landing high up in the mountains and taking out an entire military base solo in a bid to retrieve some sensitive memory sticks (Which have GPS tags, but no encryption – go figure), but we also got a chance to play through jungle and desert areas too.
The graphics throughout are first class: while your character, Rico Rodriguez, a CIA agent on the hunt for his mentor turned renegade, isn’t incredibly lifelike, the draw distance of the world (400 square miles of territory with 268 settlements dotted across it) is stunning, surpassing even Assassin’s Creed 2. From a mountain on one side of a month, you can see the buildings dotted on a far away island, and it’s no illusion, as anywhere you see in the game you can get too.
As with the first game, base jumping and parachuting plays an important part in gameplay: you can trigger your ‘chute on a vehicle or when moving at speed to get airborne. But Just Cause 2 puts much more emphasis on the grappling hook than the first outing. You’ve got it on all the time and it has a dedicated button, so there’s no need to re-equip all the time, and as well propelling you across the island at speed, it makes for some interesting mechanics when fighting.
As well as grabbing an enemy soldier with the hook to throw, you can use it to hold people down near a grenade, string them up and shoot them, hurl them off buildings or even slam them together. One mission early on in the game sees you going head to head with a demolitions expert hurling remote mines at you, and the easiest way to dispatch him is to yank him on to his own C4 and let him enjoy his just desserts. You can use the same tactic on vehicles too, flipping them off high bridges or watching them roll and burst into flames in quite the most realistic game explosions we’ve seen.
Just Cause 2 release date revealed
Just Cause 2 doesn’t appear perfect by any means: the hollow dialogue has Eidos rather than Rockstar Games written all over it, while the music appears to have been lifted entirely from Metal Gear Solid. We also spotted a dreaded quick time event which simply sees you hammering B to toss a pilot out of his helicopter to his death. Dead soldiers also fade into nothing, which is a pity as we can imagine plenty of uses for them involving the grappling hook in a shootout.
But the controls and camera are fluid, and the pure silliness of the stunts and mechanics (Where do these unlimited parachutes and ropes come from?) and the sheer scale of the game have us hooked. Just Cause 2′s lead game designer, Peter Johansson told us there were around 65 core gameplay missions, not including the optional CIA missions opened up by creation chaos on the island, blowing up government buildings and toppling statues of the president, Baby Panay, a comically squat man you later team up with rebels to take on. Johansson also confirmed to us that there were plans for further downloadable content too, but wouldn’t be drawn on what those might be.
We had a chance to play Just Cause 2 on both Xbox 360 and PC. For once, we actually came away more impressed with the PC version: as good as the graphics look on the Xbox 360, seeing it hooked up to a 3D projector (Just Cause 2 on PC supports NVIDIA 3D Vision) is absolutely sensational. The game look clear and sharp and seeing the ground rush towards you in three dimensions is as good an argument for 3D gaming as we’ve ever seen. Make no mistake, if you’ve got the kit, this is the way to play it.
Just Cause 2 is out on the 26th on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, and you can download the time limited demo from Thursday.
Out 26 March | £39.99 | Just Cause 2
