Just Cause 2

[Brannigan]

Turns out I only have two more agency missions, so it's actually not bad. It makes sense they would ramp up the requirements to unlock missions at the end of the game like that. And wow, I've done a lot of faction missions and a lot of military base destruction (about 30 hours played) but I don't know if I'll have the ambition, patience etc... to finish every last faction mission. Do you do that with most of this kind of open world games?

Almost never. Though I admit I did not do a single race; just the actual faction missions. With this game I guess the pure glee of being able to do ridiculous shit helped me get the missions done.

[miffy495]

I picked it up again last night for the first time in weeks. Game clock tells me I've put in 24 hours now. I have five faction missions left to do (3 reaper, 2 whatever-that-drug-cartel-is-called) and then the final Agency missions. Getting close to the end! Exciting!

[thl]

i'm finally getting tired of this. will probably concentrate on finishing up the missions now and tracking down the last 10 vehicles... overall i'm amazed it held my interest for this long. ridiculous fun!

[Garple]

I just realized that Rico swims with a handgun in his hand. This game is silly.

[Garple]

Finally finished: 37 hours of playtime, 24% completion. Slogging through to the end made me like the game a lot less but for the first 20 hours it was an incredible blast.

Also, I just noticed there's an achievement called "perfectionist" which you get for reaching 75% completion. I think that's hilarious that that's their standard for perfection; it's like they're acknowledging you'd have to be nuts to actually try for 100%.

[miffy495]

Damn Steam achievements are keeping me from finishing the game.

I do most of my playing at work, where there is no wifi. This means no internet. This means Steam is in offline mode. This means no Steam achievements. I'm finished every single faction mission. I'm ready to play through the endgame and see some credits (about 26 hours in). But if I do this in offline mode, I don't get my stupid Steam achievements. I figure since it's something I'm going to do anyway, I want to get the credit for it on Steam, so I can't do this at work. This also means that I need enough home time to play through the last mission of the game, which I won't be guaranteed for at least a week and a half. DAMN YOU, OFFLINE MODE!

[Irishjohn]

Finally finished: 37 hours of playtime, 24% completion. Slogging through to the end made me like the game a lot less but for the first 20 hours it was an incredible blast.

That 20 hours sounds like a lot of fun according to this thread. I think I have to finally get Just Cause 2.

[elmuerte]

Yes, I'm late to the party, but I had a bunch of other games to finish.

So far the game is much like JC1, which is awesome. Binding secondary fire and grenate to the same mouse 2 key is simply a stupid design error. I'm constantly dropping grenades when I want to zoom in... And wtf are is there no weapon stashes at the safe house. Do I really have to call in that black market guy to constantly buy ammo?

[miffy495]

Why are you zooming in? I spent the entire game with a sawed off shotgun in my right hand and an SMG in my left...

[Patters]

Why are you zooming in? I spent the entire game with a sawed off shotgun in my right hand and an SMG in my left...

SMG Revolver combo.

[elmuerte]

Why are you zooming in? I spent the entire game with a sawed off shotgun in my right hand and an SMG in my left...

because I usually go for the head shots, also... I played a lot of borderlands

[elmuerte]

tsk.. the game isn't fair.

When I hook up a passing care to the head of a statue they get pissed off on me, but I didn't break the statue.

Also, using the head of a statue as wreaking ball under a helicopter is fun

[Sajattack]

Not even the badass helicopter can fly monster trucks.

[Kolzig]

I'm getting a "Space Asshole" vibe from this game.

I tried out the demo finally yesterday from Steam and holy shit the main character in this game is the best portrayal of "Video Game Asshole" I've seen ever. Even more than the Space Asshole.

The game seems to be totally insane from what I experienced in the demo, it's just non stop insanity, but holy crap I can't stop blowing stuff up, flying with a gas canister up in the air and then air gliding the Video Game Asshole to his death.

Propably one of the best time waster sandbox games ever. It ain't a proper game with a story, it's just a hilarious destruction game.

This game would give IGN a million chances to make quotes.

What was the first game like, I never even knew there was something like that?

[elmuerte]

What was the first game like, I never even knew there was something like that?

Pretty much the same. But more tedious. Also, the world didn't open as fast as in this one.

[miffy495]

I played the demo for the first game and couldn't stand it. I played the demo for JC2, bought it immediately, and then put about 30 hours into the full game having a fantastic time. The biggest difference between the two (aside from 2 being much more polished) is that in the first game the grappling hook would only attach to vehicles. Given that the main strength of the sequel is grappling to anything and everything and using that to do crazy shit, it's a much worse game because of that restriction. Seriously, just get JC2. It's one of my favorite gaming experiences this year.

[Gabbo]

I tried out the demo finally yesterday from Steam and holy shit the main character in this game is the best portrayal of "Video Game Asshole" I've seen ever. Even more than the Space Asshole.

Doesn't he need to a be played straight to be the 'Space Asshole'? Neither the character or the game take things nearly as seriously as RF:G. He's more like Space Asshole's fun loving cousin

[Kolzig]

http://store.eidos.co.uk/pc-windows-download/Just-Cause-2.php

Just Cause 2 and some other Eidos/SquareEnix games are on sale this weekend it seems.

[Gabbo]

http://store.eidos.co.uk/pc-windows-download/Just-Cause-2.php

Just Cause 2 and some other Eidos/SquareEnix games are on sale this weekend it seems.

UK only however.

[dreamer41]

Well Currently I'm playing on this game. Game is awesome! Features and graphics are maximized.

[vimes]

Thread Revive!

What great, great game; it feels like - finally - someone understood GTA San Andreas' take on open environments and pushed it as far as possible: there are a lot of different mood, a good balance between urban and rural area as well as toys to play with everywhere.

What really took me by surprise is that the designers didn't simply throw the player in an AI nest hoping emergent gameplay would make the experience, fun.

In fact, the core of the game is a huge amount of non-emergent mechanics (driving cars, planes, helicopter, bikes, doing stunts on those, using the grappling hook, freefalling, fighting, planning attacks; etc) that have been expertly crafted and tweaked with lots of love.

By that, I mean that it would be hard to find faults in the cameras, controls and overall feeling of any of those... and seeing their amount and diversity, it's pretty amazing. And I appreciate that a lot.

What's best is that most of those fairly accessible elements have some kinds of trick to them (like the slingshot effect of hook+parachute over a hill) which means that you can get a definite edge out of them if you're willing to train a bit.

Beside that, the emergent part is still there, but it's fairly limited wen you think about it (patrols, civilians, air support) and the complexity of all those gameplay types is the truly responsible for putting the fun in the emergent system : you can deal with those events in a lot of different way; my current favorite is fleeing from air support with a skillfull mastery of the hook/parachute/hook loop.

Despite the overall craziness of the game, I believe it's been very tightly designed; with a very strong constraint : everything needs to go back to blowing shit up.

Even the very good economic system is built around that... it took me about 8 hours to be interested in the black market : after a few stronghold missions, I wanted to stop improvising and start doing recon, getting the proper tools, having a plan and see it through. Back then, I had a very nice stack of money and parts so I upgraded the explosives, bought the assault rifle and the plane.

I majestically completed a few missions until I realized I was pouring more money than what the game was giving me back; and I ended penniless, having to resort to harassment operations again ... but at that point, the AI had cranked up the difficulty and a level 3 threat meant fighting against three chopper at once; and when you're running out of pistol ammo; it gets the adrenaline rushing.

That really gave second boost of interest to the game, and I'm looking forward to having money again to make up for those dire times.

My only gripe is the scenario of the campaign and the overall tone of the writing - currently, I'm not in the mood for a fake B-rated movie and that's what Just Cause wants to deliver. I wish they just dropped the pretense and found a way to have those few milestone missions without having to put any story in it.

2 more things:

the game is now a cult classic in Singapore thanks to the hilariously horrible accent pulled by Bolo Santosi's voice actress, as well as the utterly wrong use of lah/loh/leh.

the north-west island is very atmospheric; if you haven't checked it out, you must.

[Orv]

Speaking of thread revivals, who here doesn't have JC2 on PC because they are a sap?

[Gwardinen]

Speaking of thread revivals, who here doesn't have JC2 on PC because they are a sap?

I don't, and I don't have the money to buy it either so that trailer was a very cruel tease for me.

[elmuerte]

JC2MP? count me in!

[TheLastBaron]

I have it