Just Cause was never a game I particularly enjoyed, it was too buggy, too ugly and surprisingly too boring. So I wasn't expecting much from it's inevitable sequel.
The game gets straight to the point on the first mission by dropping you into fully fledged rampage, with lots of big guns and gadgets at your disposal. Basically, all you do is blow stuff up, fuel tanks, broadcasting towers, generators etc.. Which doesn't sound great but honestly, it is one hell of a spectacle watching propane tanks flying into the sky carrying a soldier with it... then blowing up... then watching the man who is barely alive falling to his demise... then watching his blood and guts splatter all over the floor. It's amazing and it all happens in about 3 or so seconds, it's so fast paced and it flows so well with the rest of the gameplay you just walk through all the missions but the carnage never stops. The missions, to keep variety going, have loose objectives, but you barely notice them as the primary objective, you just want to blow stuff up on the way. The first mission for instance has you collect data files that have fallen from your helicopter. But they just so happened to fall into a big explosive fuel station. Great!
But the main missions, called agency missions, play a very small part to the game. Just Cause 2 is massive... Literally. It is a free roaming game, and the space you are able to roam in is mind bogglingly big! around 1000km2 which consists of countryside, jungles, snowy mountains, deserts and a city which by itself would qualify to be a game map it's that big. The islands all come together to form a country called "Panau" which is cluttered with towns, villages, airfields, Oil rigs, Military bases and so on, all of which you can takeover and keep as your strongholds in which you can store weapons and have your own sort of gang to stand guard or take with you on missions and taking over other facilities.
Having the amazing map with loads in it is one thing, but what's even better is that you can destroy it! Almost everything explodes in this game, and when you cause explosions, you cause chaos, and when you cause chaos, you earn err... Chaos points, which go towards new things like Agency Missions, Stronghold Missions, Faction Missions and best of all, Black Market Items. Now when you earn alot of chaos points in one go, you also earn alot of money. and money is spent on black market items. You can see the greatness of this system. The Black Market has just about everything, from measly parachutes to to heat seeking rocket launchers! All kinds of vehicles are available too, from boats, cars to Apache helicopters. All of the items you can buy on the black market are also upgradeable, which is made possible by collecting weapon and vehicle parts that you find all over Panau. Another neat feature of the Black Market is that you can have extractions from one part of the map to the other, and it's completely free! It really helps as it takes along time to drive around. My only complaint about the Black Market feature is that you can't keep your bought items, you have buy them each time you want them, you can't just store them in a garage like you could in GTA. It can prove quite expensive. Also you can only purchase one item at a time, so if you want multiple items at one time, you have to wait for the menu to load up and off. Gets annoying...
That isn't games only flaw, there are a few. First off, Loading times, seriously, I know the game is massive but waiting for the damn thing to load is sometimes frustrating, and it has to load quite alot. When your wanting The Black Market, When you die, when you start the game. Another thing is the controls, they work great in most areas of the game but sometimes they really let you down. For instance, I want to land my helicopter which I intend to get back in after, to descend in a helicopter you hold "L2". Which makes perfect sense. But "L2" is also used to drop grenades. You can see where this going. I land the helicopter get out drop a grenade next to my helicopter, my helicopter blows up that causes an explosion which causes chaos which means feds. are now after me and i have nothing to escape in! ...And I wasted a grenade! One last thing that bothers me is that the game is still very buggy, like the first Just Cause, only Just Cause 2 can be patched... I await that patch.
The game technically is amazing, the graphics are beautiful, as good as GTA IVs, i'm not joking. Except the vehicles look a bit cartoony' but it's ok. AI. is surprisingly quite intelligent, just a few mishaps occur when the enemy is driving, but it's quite funny to watch so it's all good... I love this game, i haven't yet became bored, just exhausted. A definite buy for anyone who loves adventure and/or action!