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Generally favorable reviews - based on 33 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 436 Ratings

  • Summary: Developed by Avalanche Studios, Just Cause 2 finds Rico Rodriguez returning in an epic open-world adventure set in the diverse tropical playground of Panau in South East Asia, where the aim is to cause chaos and destruction in a way that only Rico knows how! His mission is to destabilize the island and free it from the tyranny of the evil dictator, Baby Panay. Players tackle missions and objectives in any way they want while exploring the highly-detailed and beautiful island by land, sea or air, performing an insane range of new daredevil stunts and mastering the use of the all new grappling hook and Rico's trademark parachute. [Eidos Interactive] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 33
  2. Negative: 0 out of 33
  1. Just Cause 2 sets a new standard in the sandbox genre, and will be difficult to top due to its incredible graphics, expansive world, and extremely fun gameplay.
  2. It might get repetitive and a bit boring over time, but in general its simply a blast to drive, run and grapple'n'parachute across Panau, simply in order to cause mayhem and chaos.
  3. Crazy stunts, a huge and gorgeous gameworld, and a playful attitude make Just Cause 2 a lot of fun.
  4. Just Cause 2 can hardly be called an average game. It's a good one undermined by a selection of mediocre elements, and it's all the more frustrating this time around because Avalanche shows us glimpses of just how much fun two weeks on holiday with Rico should be. [Apr 2010, p.96]

See all 33 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 87 out of 109
  2. Negative: 6 out of 109
  1. 10
    Possibly the greatest stress-relieving game ever made. Driving around the island in a Marten Storm is the most fun I've ever experienced in a video game, next to driving around the island in a Cougar 600. The game doesn't support multiplayer, but watching/taking turns with a friend is extremely entertaining. The campaign is bad. But that doesn't matter. Expand
  2. I picked up this game on a sale impulse buy. I had seen my friends play about half an hour of it and was not impressed, a lot of the stuff you could do looked over the top and stupid. But after playing I found guilty pleasure in the over-the-top parachuting, ass kicking, and grappling. The environment was something I did enjoy quite a lot, the beautiful graphics combined with the setting, think Cuba combined with North Korea was very pleasing. The vehicle driving is implemented very nicely as well. If you don't mind stunts that are totally unrealistic, a mediocre story (Most cinematic are skippable though) and a massive free roam expanse filled with explosions, gunfire and god knows what else, this is the game for you. Expand
  3. If Ubisoft ever make an assassin's creed game with a grappling hook, civilisation as we know it will be over. People will lock themselves in their houses and refuse to leave because the combination of close-quarters contextual combat with the ability to pin enemies to the environment and turn them into viscera-filled pinatas will be like cartharsis on a stick to anyone who loves to play sandbox games.

    Funny way to start off a review about Just Cause 2, but I feel that this is the major misstep that the game makes. As a sandbox game it follows in the footsteps of GTA, the trigger-happy titan among sandboxes. Just cause 2 does everything I've seen done in the GTA franchise and it does it smoothly and cleanly. But as a sandbox game trying to do something different it should've cast a wider net in looking for inspiration. Because while it is a sandbox, it is NOT a GTA game. The grappling hook changes all the rules, but I don't think the folks at Avalanche really cottoned onto that because the hook feels underused, and under-developed. Some more combo/contextual moves coupled with the ability to upgrade it and streamlining of certain manoeuvres (like dragging enemies behind your car, or holding a grappled enemy so you can fling them OFF of things etc.) would elevate this game beyond simply being a 'more interesting GTA clone' to something truly exceptional.

    That is not to say that Just Cause 2 is not fun. It is, and more fun than the last GTA game I played in fact (San Andreas for those of you keeping score). The vehicles while nowhere close to real-world accurate in terms of handling are massive fun to drive, skipper, and fly. The slingshot mechanic which turns your parachute into a paraglider is a stroke of brilliance, and the gunplay, while not stellar still manages to perform better than other sandbox titles. I just find myself wishing that the developers hadn't stopped on the threshold of greatness.
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  4. This game gets boring after a few minutes. If this game defines anything, it's repetition. Most cutscenes are repeated, the dialogues are generic and voiced badly, the story can't be named a story. The grapling hook is an interesting feature, but it stays the only interesting thing about this game. The driving physics are bad, the vehicles are slow, the map is enormous but with so few details, that you just take a jet, and fly up to 5 minutes in a straight line with afterburner on, just to get to a point 6 km away. Technically the game looks fine, but not great at all. Repetition is the main motive, trees, rocks, streets, landscapes get repeated so often, that the large map is of no use. Anyone can blow up a map using ctrl+v. Blood looks strange, explosions lack a real bang but the lighting of sunsets is quite nice. But gta4 looked better.
    Driving by car is annoying, all 30 sec the police starts shooting. They are not very difficult to fight back, but still it gets repetitive a lot. Just like Just Cause 1, the game is a nice feature, but fails to fulfill the rest of qualities a good game needs. The upgrade system does not make a big difference, there are very few different guns and all the good stuff is available from the beginning so you have seen all the game has to offer in the first hour of gameplay. After that, nothing new happens. Really, nothing. Some parts are ridiculously difficult, but just because 3 helicopters and a lot of soldiers fire directly at you after reloading. The controls are ok, the helicopter controls are really good, the only thing I'd like to see in another game. Countless counters track you during the game, but nothing interesting happens when accumulate 500 or 600 headshots, more than 100 stunt points and so on. And it is so easy to progress these stats, that you start to ignore them. In hindsight I wonder why i played this thing for over 15 hrs. I think I wanted to know if the end is as lame as the rest of the game, maybe I had some hope that the game surprises me with a good ending. But no. Not at all. So buy this game only if you have alzheimers and don't realize when things get repeated every 2 minutes or if you really want to waste time.
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See all 109 User Reviews