Just Cause 2: Grappling With Game Design
Hands-on with a full build of the game.
Australia, February 19, 2010 - Just Cause 2 takes place in a big world. A very big world. The sort of world that takes what feels like forever to traverse in any significant way. And that's if you're in a jet plane. Don't even think about trying to go from one side to the other in anything slower. Where are we talking about? The fictional Southeast Asian nation of Panau, an enormous archipelago that spans everything from tropical jungles to snow-covered mountains and arid badlands.
But is this size a good thing? And can developer Avalanche rectify the complaints from the original – that the majority of gameplay was simply too samey – on a stage as sprawling as this?
The jury, unfortunately, is still out. We've spent a fair bit of time with a full build of Just Cause 2, and have come away with a sneaking suspicion that the gameplay still isn't varied enough, and that once again, this is destined to be a game with fantastic movement mechanics and a massive sandbox world, but repetitive gameplay.
So what's the skinny this time around? What is Rico 'Bending' Rodriguez up to? Initially, he lands on Panau to track down Tom Sheldon, who you may recall was Rico's mentor from the first game, but before long it's clear that there's a whole lot more going on behind the scenes than the CIA first suspected. Time to shoot some people, then.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/107/1070485/just-cause-2-20100218101443565.jpg)
Even this screenshot doesn't do the size of the world justice.
To uncover the truth, you'll align yourself with any or all of the three rival factions operating across the island chains. If you do dirty work for them, they'll get information for you. Simple. Each of the factions is ostensibly working to overthrow the new – and despotic – President and seize control of Panau. Each has its own political agenda, but for the moment Rico's CIA handlers seem pretty happy for him to help whoever he wants, as long as he's fomenting unrest.
So how does this change the gameplay? Well, in the original game, villages and towns were 'liberated' and drug cartels destroyed by essentially going in guns blazing and shooting anything that moved. A huge number of the non-story missions were basically the same thing, and – as you can imagine – it didn't stay fresh for long. Just Cause 2, on the other hand, retains a similar kind of mechanic, but expands it out into a much broader role in the game.
Just Cause 2, you see, is all about Chaos. The more chaos you sow, the more Chaos points you earn, and the more Chaos points you earn, the more stuff – Agency and Faction missions, Strongholds and black market gear - you unlock. Now, Chaos can be unleashed in a number of ways, such as by completing missions, but the most basic way is by destroying government property.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/107/1070485/just-cause-2-20100218101445159.jpg)
Panau seems to have some kind of Magic Pudding for attack choppers. No sooner does one get blown up, than another one appears!
Every village and military compound in the game has government structures, from water towers and generators to communication equipment, statues of the new president and gas tanks. This gives the game more of a freeform feel – you can take out any government property you come across at any time, but it still amounts to much the same thing – blowing stuff up and killing any opposition.
Now, you'd think that swanning into poor village communities and blowing up their water towers would be a pretty bad way to get the people on your side and wanting to overthrow the government, but there's little doubt it would create chaos, so we'll let that piece of logic slide. It makes even less sense, however, when you're earning Chaos points by blowing up said structures within a faction's own stronghold.
But then, this game – once again – really is about the mechanics, with the side missions taking a creative back seat. Take the factions as an example. There are three on the islands: the Ular Boys (who want to kick all "foreign devils" out of Panau and want no Western influence… why they'll still hire Rico we have no idea), the Reapers (a revolutionary army looking to "break the shackles of oppression") and the Roaches (another hard-ass crew that will do what it takes to achieve their goals).
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/107/1070485/just-cause-2-20100218101444565.jpg)
Not content with merely surfing vehicles, Rico can now move to several other positions. All the better to shoot you in the face from, my dear.
Now, you'd think Avalanche would make an effort to really differentiate between them, but they might as well just be clones of one another for all the practical difference it makes. You're still taking on somewhat generic missions and you're still blowing up anything owned by the government. As if to really drive home how little difference the faction makes to the gameplay, the first mission for each after you sign on requires you to capture a stronghold for the faction, and is basically the same thing three times in a row.
In each one you get choppered in and dropped off with a squad of faction members. You shoot anything that moves until you get to the gates of the compound, which are shut. Your squad mates tell you you're the only one that can open them so you grapple inside and open the gates. You shoot everything that moves before reaching a terminal that one of the faction members has to hack to gain control of the facility. There's a mounted gun right next to it, which you man and use to defeat a couple of waves of enemy soldiers, one or two armoured vehicles, then a helicopter with the compound's commander inside. Mission accomplished. Three. Times.
Now, this is clearly just the formula for the stronghold missions (as the game progresses you take more strongholds), but why would we want to do the same exact thing every time? And this, more than anything, illustrates why bigger isn't necessarily better. Big is fine - if you can keep us entertained.
We're hoping the final game will have a wide array of things to keep us interested. Right now we've unlocked a number of missions for each of the three factions, a few racing/checkpoint challenges and, of course, every one of the 368 locations to discover in the world has Chaos to be sown, but for all that quantity, there's not a great deal of compelling gameplay in terms of mission design. Even the main story missions have been the usual 'go here, destroy this', 'find some dude, protect/escort him, get info' affairs.
Thankfully, while the mission variety may not have evolved to the degree we'd have liked, the movement mechanics really have been taken up a notch from the original. In the first game grappling and parasailing were cool inclusions, but didn't quite go far enough. Yes, you could grapple cars and reel yourself in and onto the roof before parasailing off. Yes, you could grapple up to helicopters and ride on the wings of planes. That was all cool, but at a fundamental level players were limited in how they could use the grapple – you couldn't grapple buildings or the environment.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/107/1070485/just-cause-2-20100218101444081.jpg)
Plane sailing. (RDRR.)
All that has changed in the sequel. The new mechanics are fantastic, giving the player a huge array of new tricks thanks to the ability to grapple absolutely anything that's within range, and to use the grapple in quite versatile ways. At a basic level you can use it to quickly pull yourself to a vehicle, to yank an enemy soldier off a sniper tower, or to quickly scale a building. Getting a little more creative, you can actually use the grapple gun to tether two things together. Being pursued by an enemy vehicle across a bridge? Shoot the vehicle then the side of the bridge and you'll tether the two together, resulting in the vehicle being yanked back, up and off the edge. You can also do things like tethering an enemy to a gas canister before shooting the canister and watching it pull him around.
Exploring the game's Asshole Physics is all well and good, but the reality is that it's actually simpler to just shoot out the tyres in the first example and shoot the guard in the head in the second. Where the grapple mechanics really come into their own, for us, is in getting around. If you're coming under heavy fire and need to make a quick getaway and there are no vehicles about, you can simply grapple the ground or a nearby building, then activate your parasail as you reel yourself in. Not only does this get you airborne and moving fast almost instantly, but you can then continue to pull yourself along with it. Simply by grappling the ground ahead you can propel Rico forward, remaining close to the ground and moving quite quickly. You can use this technique to quickly move about enemy installations and even to climb mountains.
![[IMG]](http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/107/1070485/just-cause-2-20100218101445831.jpg)
It may ultimately be a long-winded way to kill a guy, but points for style.
It's great fun and reminds us a lot of the web-slinging in the better Spider-Man games – it brings a real sense of freedom and empowerment, and encourages experimentation. It leaves the player with some cool moves up his sleeve, such as deftly ghosting a car from above as it moves along a road, before targeting it and then reeling in to commandeer it. Or getting away from a pursuing attack helicopter by parasailing through the jungle, remaining below the canopy the whole time.
In the end, though, will this be enough? Well, that remains to be seen. Despite our reservations, there's a lot to like about Just Cause 2. As you progress you'll unlock more and more weapons and vehicles. And like the original, these can be bought and airlifted in to almost any location. They're all upgradable too, which is a nice touch, with vehicle and weapon parts crates to be found all over the world. Collecting these may not have the addictive quality of Crackdown's Agility Orbs, but they're certainly another reason to see all that Panau has to offer. And as your firepower ramps up, so too should the gameplay.
Just Cause 2 is certainly one of the largest and most freeform games around, and while we're not yet convinced about the long-term gameplay merits of the missions and of creating Chaos, we did have a lot of fun with it, and we are looking forward to playing more. And if nothing else, the grapple/parasail combo really is a stroke of genius.
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