A massive improvement on the first game in pretty much everyway imaginable. Not without its problems but Just Cause 2 is a way more enjoyable experience than the clunky mess that its predecessor was.
The story is as simple as can be, Rico is once again thrown into a politically volatile country and has to kill its dictator. This time it is the island of Panau. I much prefer Rico in this game than the first, he doesn't only speak in one liners and has a smidge more personality to him. For some reason the entire voice cast was switched so the three returning characters all have new voice actors which is also the case for every game going forward, not sure if there is any specific reason. The main story itself is only 7 missions long but the game is padded out with required side content which I will go on to talk about in a bit.
The gameplay is an absolute blast. It improves so much on the first game through stuff like the grapple hook actually working, making health an actual concern instead of Rico being a bullet sponge and all around better controls. Don't get me wrong there is still a lot of jank, the flying controls are very hard to get used to and the camera doesn't always help and instead of the driving being more like gliding, I found it to feel really stiff. Best way to describe it is if I was trying to make a turn, the car wouldn't turn till the last moment and I would normally go flying off the road. Dont get me started on trying to use planes. Trying to take off on a plane was so weirdly frustrating as if you even breathe on the joystick the plane goes full tilt into the nearest wall. Sometimes it would just hit off something on the road and go flying backwards. It was like trying to ride a scooter on an ice rink. Despite all that they really nailed down series staples like the grapple mechanic and the gun combat. All in all it feels like a less polished version of Just Cause 3 which is to be expected.
Visually its a massive upgrade, thankfully they decided to ditch the uncanny valley cutscenes for more fitting character designs and cutscenes you would see on Xbox 360 games. Nothing really to note score wise.
My biggest complaint with this game is the chaos feature. Which I believe does become a staple going forward so it will be a bit of a reoccurring issue. Basically the main story is 7 missions long, to combat this in order to unlock the next story mission you have to run around doing missions all be it fun missions for the three biggest gang leaders in Panau. Now these missions were fun, none felt stale or repetitive and most where short enough to not drag on. My problem is with the fact that there are only so many of them. While waiting to unlock the last missions I had no faction missions left to do so I had to just fly around blowing up stuff in order to get enough chaos points to unlock more missions. Which again, was really fun but its something that did put me off a bit.
To put it simply, Just Cause 2 is really really fun. You get to fly around blowing stuff up and actually able to have an enjoyable experience in this game as it fixes what was terrible about the first one. Despite the lack of substance in the main story, I had a blast with this game. Im looking forward to replaying Just Cause 3 next to see if its as good as I remember. Solid recommendation.
The story is as simple as can be, Rico is once again thrown into a politically volatile country and has to kill its dictator. This time it is the island of Panau. I much prefer Rico in this game than the first, he doesn't only speak in one liners and has a smidge more personality to him. For some reason the entire voice cast was switched so the three returning characters all have new voice actors which is also the case for every game going forward, not sure if there is any specific reason. The main story itself is only 7 missions long but the game is padded out with required side content which I will go on to talk about in a bit.
The gameplay is an absolute blast. It improves so much on the first game through stuff like the grapple hook actually working, making health an actual concern instead of Rico being a bullet sponge and all around better controls. Don't get me wrong there is still a lot of jank, the flying controls are very hard to get used to and the camera doesn't always help and instead of the driving being more like gliding, I found it to feel really stiff. Best way to describe it is if I was trying to make a turn, the car wouldn't turn till the last moment and I would normally go flying off the road. Dont get me started on trying to use planes. Trying to take off on a plane was so weirdly frustrating as if you even breathe on the joystick the plane goes full tilt into the nearest wall. Sometimes it would just hit off something on the road and go flying backwards. It was like trying to ride a scooter on an ice rink. Despite all that they really nailed down series staples like the grapple mechanic and the gun combat. All in all it feels like a less polished version of Just Cause 3 which is to be expected.
Visually its a massive upgrade, thankfully they decided to ditch the uncanny valley cutscenes for more fitting character designs and cutscenes you would see on Xbox 360 games. Nothing really to note score wise.
My biggest complaint with this game is the chaos feature. Which I believe does become a staple going forward so it will be a bit of a reoccurring issue. Basically the main story is 7 missions long, to combat this in order to unlock the next story mission you have to run around doing missions all be it fun missions for the three biggest gang leaders in Panau. Now these missions were fun, none felt stale or repetitive and most where short enough to not drag on. My problem is with the fact that there are only so many of them. While waiting to unlock the last missions I had no faction missions left to do so I had to just fly around blowing up stuff in order to get enough chaos points to unlock more missions. Which again, was really fun but its something that did put me off a bit.
To put it simply, Just Cause 2 is really really fun. You get to fly around blowing stuff up and actually able to have an enjoyable experience in this game as it fixes what was terrible about the first one. Despite the lack of substance in the main story, I had a blast with this game. Im looking forward to replaying Just Cause 3 next to see if its as good as I remember. Solid recommendation.