Just Cause 2 – Review – Xbox 360

By Corey Wallace (Writer - Co-Founder) on 27 March 2010 in Reviews, Xbox 360 with 143 Comments

Opening a xbox 360 game case this week and seeing a game made by the creators of the Final Fantasy series, that isn’t an RPG kind of made me wonder what this game really is like. Not playing the first game made me keep guessing. Then I noticed that there was hope, Square teamed with another big company, Eidos, to put it together.

Story: Rico Rodriguez, the hero of the first game goes to the island nation of Panau (of Survivor fame?)You are in an unstable territory as a mercenary and looking for one American, named Tom “the white tiger” Sheldon, an Agency op who disappeared with millions of Agency money. To find him you need to enlist the help of the local factions to get information, all the whole helping them gain more territory. This seems like the normal description for most in the genre, I.E. GTA, Crackdown, Far Cry, and Mercenaries 2.

Gameplay: Like most sandbox games, it is a third- person view. You have the choice to do story missions, side missions, or free roam looking for different collectables and locations. Each location will be given a percentage as you find the collectables and destroy things. If you destroy a faction’s item and they are near, they go after you. There is a wide variety of vehicles in the game ranging from helicopters and airplanes to APCs and civilian ones. All of which can be driven and hijacked. You are given a grappeling hook to reach high ledges, enemies, and aircraft. You can also car surf, move around the outside of the vehicle, and jump from one to another. You can carry up to 3 weapons and 2 types of explosives. With pistols and SMGs you can dual-wield. You also have access to the black market. Finding the collectibles and finishing missions give you parts, used like money, and money to buy and upgrade weapons, vehicles, and extractions (which are free) from the market. Weapons and the beacon to summon the market dealer are switched via the D-pad. As you progress through missions, you will see 5 bars in the lower right of the HUD that tells you how much farther to get a new mission or item. It goes pretty quick as you find collectibles etc. At the top left, the game keeps track of progress of collectibles, vehicles and locations. Every 5 collectible, you recieve an upgrade. The 5 collectibles that you can find are Health, Money, armor, weapons, and vehicle parts. Once you find one of each category, the upgrade unlocks.

Sound/Graphics: The scenery of Panau is quite breath-taking. It is centered around a huge mountain and contains quite a few islands that surround the main islands, as well as having snow and jungles. The factions of the islands have different accents. The Reapers have a Spanish type accent, whereas the Ular Boys have an Oriental. There are no famous actors that do the voice overs in the game. The graphics seem alright, but I have had a place where I bail out of a vehicle and have actually gotten stuck in the sitting position and the only way to get out was to die, but that has only happened once so far.

Overall: To put it into gaming terms, the game is just a regular Sandbox game. If there was a game out there that would closely resemble what this one is, I would have to say that it is close to being Mercenaries 2 without the different airstrikes. If you liked games like GTA, Crackdown, Mercenaries 2, Saints Row, and the like I would recommend this game.

Pros