Comments on: A Typical 30 Minutes in Just Cause 2

By: Nick Robinson

Nick Robinson — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:34:01 +0000

Just Cause 2 was very nearly my favorite game of 2010. In a world where achievement hooks take some of the ‘umph’ out of repeat playthroughs, it’s one of those games that I feel a deep yearning to experience all over again JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT. That is the mark of an excellent product.

By: Darren Torpey

Darren Torpey — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:50:38 +0000

This sounds really great. I’ll definitely try to make this my next rental from GameFly.

Reminds me of the best parts of Mercenaries 2 and Prototype. In particular, the just-flying-around-blowing-up-bases reminds me of Mercs 2, and the helicopter-to-helicopter juggling reminds me of both games very much.

By: Darius Kazemi

Darius Kazemi — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:39:01 +0000

Oh, so I don’t even have to beat an opponent to pass the race? Nice! Will definitely try one out tonight.

By: Alexx Kay

Alexx Kay — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:29:55 +0000

It’s actually even more forgiving than that. Races typically start with about 30 seconds on the clock, and every checkpoint adds 10 seconds. If you’re driving well, you can get the clock well over a minute. There are only two conditions that fail the race – clock runs out, or death. You only need to be in a vehicle when actually going through a checkpoint, the game doesn’t care what happens between them.

By: Darius Kazemi

Darius Kazemi — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:25:10 +0000

Oh cool, I’ve been avoiding races because I usually hate them. I’ll have to give one a shot. The multiple vehicles thing sounds good too, I assume it’s a “you have 15 seconds to get back in a car before forfeiting the race” type thing?

By: Alexx Kay

Alexx Kay — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:22:24 +0000

I’ve put in about 24 hours so far, and (obviously) loving it!

I particularly like how they handle racing challenges. The higher challenge levels are NOT, as they are in many games, reached by requiring microscopic precision steering and perfect knowledge of the route. Instead, they make them challenging by having them do things like go through the middle of a military base en route, so you do a lot of the race while under enemy fire. Which makes me especially appreciate the sub-feature that you don’t need to be in any particular vehicle to complete the race. When your fancy sports car spins out or gets shot up too much, you can jump out and hijack the military jeep that’s chasing you, and often still have enough time to complete the race!

By: Drew Sikora

Drew Sikora — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:31:37 +0000

This is the first game in which I have not cared a rats ass for the story. In fact, once the game stopped forcing me to play missions (like, after the first two or three) I’ve simply gone and methodically started taking out every settlement on the map. Once I have no more shit to blow up, I will return to the storyline. I’m interested to see how that works out, since by the time I get to this head retrieval mission there shouldn’t be any statues left standing!!

By: Darius Kazemi

Darius Kazemi — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 20:39:18 +0000

The other cool thing to note is that the game lets you go anywhere in the world from the very start, and it doesn’t limit your access to any kind of vehicle or whatever. If you want to go into a military base and hijack a fighter plane in the first 10 minutes, assuming you’re good enough at the game, you can do it.

By: Darius Kazemi

Darius Kazemi — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 20:33:12 +0000

I agree with you in general, but Just Cause 2 gives you so much to do outside the mission structure that you can have a lot of fun just roaming. I’ve played for about 10 hours so far, 8 of those hours have been free roaming the countryside. The missions are actually very repetitive in structure but the gameplay in JC2 allows for so much creativity that when I get bored with one way of storming a stronghold (a common mission type) I’ll try something totally different, like seeing if I can make it through exclusively killing enemies with my grappling gun, or what happens if I crash a helicopter into the middle of the base before I go in. That sort of thing.

By: Carl Lange

Carl Lange — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:09:57 +0000

My problem with games like this, and games in general, is that they get repetitive. How long until the game runs out of missions for you to do and starts asking you to do the same things in different locations?