Just Cause 2

by Square Enix

Product Features

• Multi-point vehicle movement: Every vehicle has multiple points inside and out to move between in real-time, not cut scenes, jumping between multiple positions on a single vehicle or to other vehicles¿ with over 100 vehicles
• Air, land, water and underwater: Just Cause 2 delivers action everywhere from 500 feet above to 50 feet below through jungles, snowy mountainside, deserts, cities and more, with over 600 square miles to explore and destroy.
• Nearly endless and open-ended game-play: From deep missions to small jobs, to free exploration, players follow the route they want when they want.
• Grapple nearly everything within 200 feet, including enemies. Progressive destruction - vehicles, building, enemies, and landscape. Pull off amazing stunts with Rico's re-designed parachute.
• Weapons galore: Single and dual handed weapons, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, explosives, and vehicle mounted weapons.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0013RATNM
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches ; 3.5 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: March 23, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #333 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: Xbox 360

From the Manufacturer

On the island nation of Panau, rival gangs wage war in the streets while the ruthless dictator Baby Panay exercises a system of oppression and corruption against his own people. Somewhere on the island, your friend and mentor Tom Sheldon has disappeared with top-secret intel and millions in Agency cash. As Rico Rodriguez, the Agency's most dangerous weapon, you must infiltrate the island and locate Sheldon, setting off a violent chain of events that will set Panau ablaze.

Basejump and attack from above View larger.

Use your signature grapple to travel or to tether enemies and objects View larger.

You are an instrument of chaos View larger.

Harness Just Cause 2's unique parachute and grapple combination to create your own unbelievable, high-speed aerial stunts. Whether free falling from thousands of feet, hijacking enemy fighter jets in midair or blasting through security checkpoints on the ground, use your imagination to create maximum chaos. With hundreds of weapons, vehicles, missions and Rico's trademark parachute and grapple, experience vertical freedom unparalleled in the third-person action genre.

• Take to the air like no other game. Experience total aerial freedom with the unique parachute and dual grapple.
• Freefall, BASE jump, vehicle surf, parasail, skydive, grapple, slingshot, leap between vehicles, hang from helicopters, scale buildings. The impossible is within your grasp.
• Your best tool is now a weapon. Fire two shots with the grapple hook and attach unwilling enemies to high-speed vehicles, hang them upside down from buildings, tether objects in mid air. The possibilities are as vast as your imagination.
• Explore the island paradise; from sprawling cities, secluded beaches and towering mountain peaks – more than 400 square miles of your own personal playground.
• Hundreds of objectives can be completed in any way or order that you choose. When it's time for a break from Agency business, kick back and enjoy all the attractions that Panau has to offer.
• Catch air on a high-speed dirt bike, race across the sea in a power boat, or fire a spread of rockets from an attack chopper – more than 100 land, sea and air vehicles are yours for the taking.

Product Description

Just Cause 2 is a stunning technological leap from the original - Designed with 2nd generation software technology for a true high definition gaming experience. New level of action gameplay in open environments - Only Just Cause 2 delivers action in the air, on the land, and under the water, plus multi-point, real-time vehicle movement and grapple-action that allows players to grab nearly anything within 200 feet. Three times as many missions as the original - All-new abilities and stunts. The best open-world action on the market!.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great game for the busy gamer., March 25, 2010

By 

J. Maronde (Olive Branch, MS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Just Cause 2 (Video Game)

If you love gaming, work all the time, don't have time for games needing hours of investment then this is the game for you!

I watched a video of a developer playing the game quite a while back and had forgotten about Just Cause 2 until the demo was released on Xbox Live for Gold members. All those memories of amazement while watching that video came flooding back into my head. The game is just plain fun from the moment you put the disc in. Only have 30 minutes to spare? Put the disc in your Xbox and you can roam free around the entire 35 square mile world and pretty much do whatever you want to whomever you want instantly. No time for completing a mission? No problem! Go grapple onto a chopper, shoot the gunner,throw the pilot out and steal that joker! Perform your own Shock and Awe campaign for those precious 30 minutes of gaming you have.

The game is totally unrealistic but I do not want to play "Real Life Simulator" as I do that everyday. The controls of the game can be a bit tricky at first but you will get the hang of it; especially if you do some tweaking to the X and Y sensitivity settings in the options menu. The camera however can be a bit frustrating at times. The camera will sometimes recenter itself when you do not want it to and there is no way to turn auto centering on/off. The camera only has these issues when you get really, realy close to a building/cliff or while controlling a vehicle. I have trained myself not to touch the right stick while controlling a vehicle and that has helped a lot. If you read the manual it tells you that while using your parachute to steer with the left stick and only make minor corrections with the right stick. That information should be in the game because it is very important to getting very skilled at parasailing. The minor camera and control issues are why I took off one star from the overall game rating.

If you have any doubts about this game then I highly recommend checking out the demo on Xbox Live if you are a Gold member. If the demo does not sell you on the game then do not buy it. For those of you with a PC that has a decent graphics card you may want to purchase the PC version of this game instead, since the Xbox version does not offer any multiplayer features. The controls would probably be much better with a computer.

-Striker777

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Biggest Sandbox Yet, May 23, 2010

By 

Paul Mosier - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Just Cause 2 (Video Game)

Sandbox games have really advanced in the past few years, especially since the clones of GTA were released. Just Cause 2 is what I'd call the latest incarnation of the sandbox game. It is based on a fictional island nation in Southeast Asia, where you are looking for a rogue agent. Your task is to get in with the local revolutionaries and understand the big picture in Panau.

Main Points

Positive
-Insanely large, multi-faceted open world
-Many different vehicles; planes, tanks, helicoptors, bikes, cars etc
-Graphics are generally good and very believable
-Pretty large weapons cache
-Grappling hook and parachute makes the game feel like a 007 movie
-Black market feature allows you to purchase vehicles and weapons anywhere on the island

Negative
-Game is difficult even on casual
-Ammo goes quickly, leaving you on a constant hunt for bullets (and health)
-Main storyline is really short, probably 7-8 hours
-Many sidequests and challenges are cookie-cutter and can get repetitive
-Vehicles are far from realistic i.e. cars don't handle well, planes are slow

Map - 9 of 10
The size of the playable area of Just Cause 2 is mind-bendingly large. It is claimed to be 400 square miles according to the scale. And I'm inclined to believe it. The map is so diverse, expansive and realistic. There are numerous airports, military bases, settlements, skyscrapers and cityscapes to name a few. In fact, there are 368 distinct locations to explore on Panau. Topography is impressive as well, including hundreds of miles of coastline, mountains, deserts, rivers, jungles and even a Zeppelin which has a night club underneath. My only real qualm with the map is that it is so big that even with planes it will take you a good 10 minutes to traverse the full map. This makes use of a car almost pointless.

Gameplay 7 of 10
As an agent for some secret US security team you are basically the best at what you do, which is apparently cause havoc. You're equipped with two very important items: a grappling hook and an infinite number of parachutes attached to your back. Any number of things can be achieved with the parachute/grappling hook combo. You can shoot far away from yourself and pull out the parachute launching yourself into the air. You can scale a mountain with only the hook. You can attach the hook to enemies pulling them towards you. It allows for a very creative gaming experience. This is what separates Just Cause 2 from other similar sandbox games. In fact it makes me think of a James Bond movie every time I jump out of a plane.

It's clear, however that the developers fully intended for you to do A LOT of piddling around the country, because there are only seven main storyline missions. The number of sidequests with the local guerrillas is probably around 100. These take maybe 10-15 minutes each. The problem with the sidequests is there are so many that they start to run together and can get really repetitive. If you really want to explore in depth (and get the achivements), you'll go to each settlement and cause chaos. This includes destroying any number of government installations such as fuel tanks, SAM sites, statues, radars, generators - you get the picture. A bunch of achievements are associated with "finishing" a settlement. This means getting all the parts located in the settlement and destroying everything necessary.

My biggest problem with the game is definitely the difficulty of the game, which is considerable in my opinion. There are four levels of difficulty and I'm on the lowest one - casual. On most shooter games, the lowest level of difficulty means that I'll never die. And I've been killed at least a dozen times by enemies. You'll be swarmed constantly. That's not the ridiculous part either. I've been killed that many times with the fifth level of armor equipped. It appears that even though I've leveled my armor, that it really doesn't provide any extra protection. The same thing seems to happen with the guns. Leveling them up is so marginal, that you'll have to take the weapon to the max level to notice the difference. What really bothers me is this: you have four levels of heat or your wanted level. The number of guys that attack you isn't based your heat level. You'll face basically the same amount of enemies on level 1 as on level 4. The only real difference on the higher levels is that they'll pursue you more.

Vehicles 7 of 10
This part of the game definitely needed more work. Though there are 104 different vehicles including planes (some armed), tanks, helicopters and cars. Many of them have control problems. Sports cars are touchy to the point of being almost impossible to drive at high speeds. And the weight of the vehicles is far from realistic as even hitting a small bump could send your vehicle hurling end over end. That being said, there is a great variance of the types of vehicles you can drive and what can be done to them. One of the more impressive parts of the game was the ability to upgrade vehicles and weapons via the Black Market. As you go through the game you'll find vehicle parts and weapon parts which can be used to increase speed, handling, acceleration etc. But only the vehicles on the Black Market list can be upgraded, which is less than 20 total.

Along with that, the air vehicles are astonishingly slow. I figured out that the fastest plane on the game will only do about 250 mph. You might say it's fine for a game, but until you see the size of the map, you won't understand.

Graphics 7 of 10
Visuals on the people in Just Cause 2 are average, probably at best. But the rest of the map is gorgeous. Textures are very detailed and have the brilliance of a plethora of colors. Water in particular has a reflective quality I've only seen in a few other games. In fact, the ocean floor is littered with rocks, seaweed and reefs. The most amazing part about the graphics is that there are no loading times while you're just walking around the island. Animation is very smooth and for the most part realistic.

Conclusion
Just Cause 2 takes the size of a sandbox to levels never before reached. It is a fun mess around game where you could drop hours just exploring or just do a couple of missions and quit. The sheer size of the map is something that anyone who's into sandbox games should see. So here's the gist of it: very good weapons cache, ability to upgrade vehicles and weapons, grappling hook and parachute make the game quite unique, tons of stuff to do and beautiful scenery as well. Unfortunately, the sidequests can get repetitive and the difficulty will definitely turn more casual gamers away. Also, most of the non-flying vehicles seem almost superfluous because of the size of the map. So it's not a perfect game by any means, but has probably a good 50-70 hours of playtime which not a whole lot of games can say they have.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More of the same, only twice as good., March 23, 2010

By 

QuickSilverSeven (USA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Just Cause 2 (Video Game)

Take Just Cause 1 and improve almost everything and you have Just Cause 2. From great visuals of deserts, snow mountains, jungles, beaches, oceans and towering skyscraper cities, this game looks great.
The controls are improved for vehicles too. And they sound crisp and realistic (great sound from the weapons, explosions, overall sounds too). Only thing I miss is the ability to zoom into a first person view. There's only a distant 3rd person view, which takes away a lot of the impact of "Being right there with the vehicle". It's more like "Watching a toy vehicle from a birds eye view". This is most evident when flying a helicopter or plane. Too far away to really feel like you're flying it. More like a Remote Control toy.

And the grappling hook/parachute combination as you've probably read is a huge reason to buy this game. You can be out in the middle of a flat desert (think Red Dead Redemption's vast drylands), and within two quick moves, be up in the air. How? Aim the grappling hook at a point ahead on the ground, tap the hook button, slingshot automatically towards that point and quickly press the parachute. You can continue this flight without ever touching the ground by using the momentum from grappling the ground from the sky. Great stuff and more effective than most vehicles for escaping enemies.
On foot, the gunplay is solid, with a welcome return of the over the shoulder camera for some great "right in the game" action.

The missions are mostly fun and varied, but learning how to use the new control features on the first mission took some trial and error. After the first hour of missions, you're free to explore everything. And most of the time, as long as you don't shoot in public, no one will attack you. No more constant helicopters flying over every 2 minutes either thankfully.

There's not many interiors, but climbing a skyscraper "Bionic Commando" style is plenty of fun, and jumping off the top with a running leap, even better. For skydiving, few games deliver an experience like Just Cause 1 and 2. Just wish there were a few stunts thrown in, like a cannon ball, fast spins, and more.

If you're an explorer, this game delivers one of the largest worlds ever made for an on foot/vehicle game. Think Test Drive Unlimited and Fuel in terms of size, much like Just Cause 1. And plenty of nice variation, though the small villages are a bit dull with not many interiors. Not much to complain about, with plenty of options to adjust (unfortunately, almost everything but control mapping). It does feel like an improved version of the first game, but that's also a good thing. It's a sequel after all.

So with such a giant world (with a nice day/night cycle and weather), what is there to do? walk, run, sprint, jump, duck, roll, grapple, parachute, skydive, fire weapons, drive, fly aircraft, cause havoc, explore, side missions, story missions and plenty more. Overall, Just Cause 2 may deliver more of the same, but twice as good. If you're a fan of the first and want another world to explore with Rico, this game delivers like few others. Excellent and recommend to exploration/action fans.

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