Quote Originally Posted by Monk View Post
Just Cause 2

It's always refreshing to see a sandbox game that knows what I like. Sure, games like GTA4 are amazing story devices that can really lay the groundwork for some good narrative. That is ignoring the fact, hwoever, that half the time when I pop in a sandbox, i'm going to be looking for ways to crush people's castles. In that sense, Just Cause 2 is a huge success because it knows exactly what it is, a spectacle. Any attempts to take the game serious for its story or narrative is simply impossible. The moment I did a sky-dive off a television tower I had rigged to blow up, hit my parachute to glided effortlessly down to the ground only to land ontop of a civilian car and surf my way down the high-way as the explosions kicked off... I knew why.

This wasn't an action game, it was an action movie (an 80s action movie to be exact!) - full of cliche, explosions, bad acting, stereotypes and one liners. It turned out to be an amazing ride but one I just couldn't stick with story-wise. When blowing crap up is the entire point of the game I simply got bored of the main story missions, why not just cut out the middle-man and cause chaos without a reason? The one huge downside (aside from you know, a terrible storry, bad voice acting and stereotypes!) is the game world. It's way too big. There's a fast travel system but I can't use it to visit new locations, and when my objective is over 18 km away.. that is a killer. Just Cause 2 really needs an in-game radio to help those long travel times between shoot-outs, otherwise, a fun (if a one trick) experience.
Good review, I've also been palying Just Cause 2 for a couple of weeks now. The comparison with GTA3(+) is a good one, I'd say it's like a mix of Farcry2 and GTA. It is the perfect way to spend 30 mins or so mindlessly blowing stuff up. I'm sure everyone else enjoyed the odd (frequent) rampage in GTA, resulting in the National guard and apaches being brought in to deal with your pyrotechnics. Well, in this game you can use your grapple to hang from the helicopter, shoot everyone on the ground with your sidearm (or MP5) and then hijack the helicopter itself.

The best bits of JC2 seem to me to be the product of a brainstorm on what people whould like to be able to do in GTA when it starts getting silly. The worst bits (plot, map size) are I think neccessarily sacrificed to allow the freedom and sillyness to happen. The only thing is, as in GTA, the rampages are not quite as satisfying or engaging as the plot missions, so that's why say 30 mins at a time for JC2. Its a damn good 30 mins though.

Otherwise, in terms of game swhich have been engaging me a bit more, I've been discovering Deus Ex (from the Steam sale) and also playing blood bowl, which is a lot of fun and very stategic. I'm skilling myself up for a league -ther eare a few running on the RPS forums...