There is nothing more satisfying than jumping into a game and having the freedom of doing pretty much anything you want. I am of course talking about the sandbox game, the game genre that gives you a sense of freedom and in most cases the unstoppable power to do/kill whoever or whatever you want.
Just Cause 2 is the latest addition to hit the sandbox genre with a pretty hefty punch. On march 26th we will be invited into the world of Rico Rodriguez once more. This time he has a score to settle with his old boss, Tom Sheldon and to overthrow the evil dictator of Panau island Baby Panay.
As we know already, we are looking at a sandbox game. To me the sandbox genre is getting to the stage where there is a constant flow of generic titles, only once in a blue moon some classic sandbox games come over the horizon that are just too damn hard to beat. So what will Just Cause 2 bring to the party? Well one of the things that has caught my eye is, what the developers call an adaptive difficulty system. Meaning as you play through the game the AI and the games general difficulty adapts to your skills. So as with any game when you start you are probably going to be pretty rubbish, but as you practise and learn skills the difficulty if the game will get slightly harder. This I think is a brilliant idea and concept. But as we all know concepts and ideas are great and all, but in practices sometimes they can fall flat on their face. So this will be an interesting element.
I watched a video a good while back on this game, and I was pretty impressed. The video showed our protagonist free-falling from the top of a waterfall, then parachuting down into a gun fight. After a flurry of bullets were fired Rico then started scaling buildings with his dual grapple hooks. The film then cut to him parachuting on top of a car while it was speeding down a highway and another gun fight took place. From that small video I could tell that this game was probably going to be quite intense and hold a lot of potential.
So, now you’re sort of a free-lance mercenary of sorts you gotta get your weapons and equipment from somewhere. Bring on the black-market! this will be your one stop shop for weapons and equipment. But thankfully you will be able to obtain weapons that enemies have dropped in the usual gaming fashion. As this is a sequel you will get a nice serving of new weapons, such as a laser guided rocket launcher, remote C4, one-handed grenade launcher and a detachable mounted mini gun. So there will be plenty of weapons at your disposal while you are overthrowing an evil dictatorship…awesome!
With all sandbox games you get a nice collection of vehicles for you to use. Just cause 2 is no exception, with addition such as a full on Boeing 747, you will have a lot of stuff to play with. Additionally road surfaces will change how the vehicles handle, so rough terrain will inevitably throw you off you motorcycle if your not careful. All we need to know now really is if weather will affect aircraft or any flying vehicles.
Not much else is known about this title, but I can assure you I will be able to iron out some of the creases when the Demo hits on March 4th, so keep your eyes peeled.
Garv.
