Just Cause 2

What a wonderful world

Some things are just meant to be climbed on top of. Like the backs of sofas, for example, or your dad's groin when you're a small child. But the thing that's most impossible not to climb in all the known world is the humble mountain. I'm not a religious man, but if it does turn out there's some sort of divine creator, you can be certain the sole intention he had for mountains was for them to be climbed the hell up.

There are a lot of things you can do in Just Cause 2. You can blast through its central story missions, or help liberate areas of the Panau Islands from dictatorial control. You can take a scenic drive around the 400 square kilometres of land, or go for a swim beneath the crystal ocean surrounding them. But there was no doubt in my mind as to what I was going to do the very second the game's linear opening half-hour was through. I was going to climb to the top of Panau's tallest peak, and start as I meant to go on: from a great height.

If Just Cause 2 has one clear advantage over its open-world brethren, it's in the sheer vertical scale. Little more than a couple of hours in you'll have piloted a pair of helicopters, and a little exploration is likely to have led to the discovery of a range of airborne vehicles. Soar skywards in a jet, and within minutes you'll be well above the clouds, gazing down at the specks of buildings, or across at the stunning views of this most extraordinary of videogame worlds.

It's an enormous game, vast and beautiful, almost completely unparallelled in size and variety. Spread across a series of small islands, Just Cause 2 blends the full spectrum of South East Asian nature and culture into something that feels as real as anywhere you'll have visited in the digital realm. Snow-topped mountainous regions melt into thick jungle; sea meets beach meets skyscraping city centre. From the air, it is a truly breathtaking sight. This is of the prettiest games in the world.

At the top of the mountain, however, I was disappointed. Its peak looked smaller from the ground, and now that I'd reached it and found it to be at least several hundred metres across, the views weren't so marvellous. It also meant I'd have to reassess my plan to base-jump back to sea level. None of the drops I could find were even approaching steep enough.

I'd got to the top by way of the grappling hook, Just Cause 2's most wonderful inclusion. Returning from the original game but now constantly equipped, the hook latches onto almost anything within range with the quick tap of a button. That means any building, any rock face and any tree is instantly climbable. It also means any unfortunate person on the other end of it comes flying through the air in your direction, and that any two things you attach together go hurtling towards each other at an ungentlemanly speed.

This, predictably, opens up a new dimension to combat. A standard third-person affair, Just Cause 2's action ranges from ludicrously fun to barely competent. As with many of the GTA-alikes, it's at its best when wave upon wave of enemies show up at once, and you're forced into wild creativity to keep yourself on the right side of dead. Sometimes it's brilliant, and the grappling hook creates some of the most memorable combat scenarios yet seen in gaming. Don't like the look of that heavily armed official? Fine - tether him to that there motorcycle and drive into the sunset, his poor, mangling corpse kicking up dust behind you.

But it's often flimsy, too. Guns lack any real punch, and the AI is bordering on plain awful at times, foes generally standing still with a pistol while you launch a hail of machinegun bullets at their stupid faces. In its penchant for explosive destruction, Just Cause 2 positions itself next to the likes of Red Faction: Guerrilla, but completely lacks that game's kinetic energy. It doesn't help that, since we've been treated to Guerrilla's glorious rubble physics, the lack of conviction with which towers topple and huts shatter feels like a blast from the past - albeit a very pretty one.

Indeed, the main game is rather lacking in conviction across the board, relying on repetitive and unimaginative missions and a story so grossly uninspired and completely nonsensical it'd be better off not existing at all (in short: man liberates idyllic but oppressed nation by exploding most of it). This is also a game hampered by laughable dialogue, much of it voiced in the worst possible way. Play through the main game alone, and you'd be forgiven for judging it as a just-about-passable shooter with a neat gimmick and serious quality control issues.

But that's not really the point. Play more and you begin to have the most wonderful experiences. You'll take a scenic drive to chance upon a pair of poverty stricken natives, held up at gunpoint by the local militia at the side of the road. Steal their motorbike and find yourself powering down the wrong side of a motorway, slaloming between oncoming traffic, the screen suddenly obscured by dust as you realise you've ended up in the middle of a desert you didn't even know existed. Hop off and wander across the sand, and take a look around at the ancient ruins that sporadically peek their heads above the parched red ground.

This is a game so huge, so beautiful and carefully crafted, that it's easy to get hopelessly lost in it for hours on end, without even thinking about completing missions. Those missions might be poor, but ultimately, there's always chaos to create, always mountains to climb...

Ah yes: the mountain. With no obvious route back down, it's a good job there was a freshly unexploded military facility nearby.

It went bang. Quickly, the military were on my case, racing out of their barracks, packing assault rifles and grenades. One man hopped in a tank, so I quickly grappled over there and took his place. From there it was easy, the tank's cannon doing most of the hard work. That's when the enemy helicopter turned up, and that's when I hooked myself onto its underside, clambered my way up, punched its pilot in the face, and gracefully flew away. You can guess what I did next. It's a good job you've an infinite number of parachutes to play with.

You're effectively getting two games for the price of one with Just Cause 2. The first is a creative but flaky action game with a criminally stupid story. But the second is a budget-priced holiday to the most remarkable and culturally diverse nations in the world, one where hilarious cartoon violence is just a part of everyday life. The number below reflects the latter, as it's absolutely the game you'll spend most of your time playing.

85%

By Lewis Denby