We tend to stop writing about games when you start playing them. We cover the announcement, we write previews and reviews, but by the time you unwrap a new game we've moved on. Still Playing is our bid to address that. Every Monday and Friday, staff and contributors go into detail on the games they've been playing in their spare time. Here, staff writer Ben Maxwell explains why, despite its many flaws, he's still playing Just Cause 2.
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Leap from the cockpit of your stolen jet, after flying it to the limits of the skybox that hangs over Just Cause 2’s fictional island nation of Panau, and, more than two years since its release, Avalanche’s engine will still make you catch your breath. As virtual vistas go, Panau is remarkable: a patchwork of urban, tropical, desert and snow-capped landscapes that, even taken in isolation, confidently rival other more recent open-world offerings.
And up here, with nothing but the roar of the wind in your ears, there is welcome solace from the brittle plot focused on inter-faction squabbling and the histrionic character performances that insistently drive you on to that next destination on the map. I’ll admit now that Just Cause 2’s terrible story and staccato mission pacing leaves me cold, but despite this, Avalanche’s sandbox keeps pulling me back in.
For a start, badly acted encouragement isn’t necessary: the pull to explore Panau’s myriad settlements, military installations and more curious corners - Mile High Club, an airborne nightclub hosted on an airship, for instance - is more than strong enough as landmarks glimmer provocatively in the distance through the heat haze.
And it’s when you ignore Avalanche’s overbearing hand-holding that Just Cause 2 really comes to life. Attempting to shift political influence by undermining a corrupt government’s control over its constituents certainly sounds like the rich backdrop to an intriguing game, but in practice, it boils down to locating and blowing up anything painted with red stripes or a white star, and proves a simplistic and repetitive mechanic. Avalanche sidesteps the issue by providing you with a toybox quite unlike any other game’s, though, along with a playground in which to use its contents that offers an uncommonly high potential for chain-reaction chaos. Just Cause 2 is a microcosm of mischief.
At the most basic level, the combination of your grappling hook and unending supply of (apparently very tightly folded) parachutes provides a rapid way to traverse the network of islands, and efficiently shrinks the often vast distance between you and the nearest vehicle.
Gain full mastery of the controls, however, then go looking for a fight, and Just Cause 2 invites surprising comparisons with brawlers such as Devil May Cry and Bayonetta. Like Capcom and Sega’s classics, playing well means your feet rarely touch the ground as you abandon inefficient footwork and the constraints of gravity, flinging yourself from target to target, messily commandeering an attack chopper before leaping from its burning hulk seconds later onto the front of a moving 4x4, dispatching its occupants and launching into the air again as you open your chute, toss a couple of grenades at a water tower for good measure and drift over a cliff out of range of your flustered victims, crowing victoriously as you go.
There’s little of the intricacy or finesse that DMC and Bayonetta’s more refined systems allow, but peer through the unkempt pyrotechnics that go hand-in-hand with your arrival at any given location, and you’ll find genuine potential for showboating. For such an otherwise shallow game, Just Cause 2 has remarkable depth at its core - which is where it counts most.
And Just Cause 2’s greatest moments come from its willingness to let you experiment with its various components. That grappling hook may provide a rapid and convenient way to traverse the expansive landscape and dodge bullets, but hook one end to an aggressor, and the other to a pressurised canister before shooting the valve clean off, and you’ve made yourself a rocket-powered bad guy. Surreptitiously park your garbage truck behind a waiting airliner, install a tow rope between the two vehicles and stand patiently on the cab roof, and pretty soon you’ll be pushing the art of barnstorming to new heights. Succeed in landing a helicopter on a moving tuk-tuk and the oblivious AI driver’s lack of congratulations will be offset by your own sense of pride. Or, if that all sounds like hard work, just jump from somewhere really high and take in the view.
Everything about the game is designed to encourage you to experiment, from its interlinked systems to the black market, a mobile store available whenever you’re not on a mission that provides you with weaponry, items and vehicles. Crucially, Avalanche never keeps its toys out of easy reach, and though the available range broadens along with your level, it increases as you cause chaos, not as you progress through the story.
The result is a rare sense of empowerment as such normal concerns as thousand foot drops, enemy ordnance and severe topography become trifling matters in the face of your character’s sheer dexterity. In fact, it’s this generous offer of power that defines the overwhelming scale of Just Cause 2’s world - most game worlds would fall too easily to protagonist Rico Rodriguez’s abilities. Panau goads you into attempting ever more audacious stunts and attacks, and allows enough breathing room to ensure that you rarely butt up against any limitations.
While it by no means avoids the usual design pitfalls, Just Cause 2 offers that rare thing in a world of story-driven epics - pure play. Other open-world games seed their environments with distractions and opportunities for improvisation, but few can match Just Cause 2’s delirious freedom of expression. It’s rough around the edges, sure, but somehow its mess of apparently disparate elements cohere into a enjoyably raucous, and satisfyingly balanced, whole. For a game I don’t particularly like, it’s remarkably enjoyable.