Just Cause 2: A Review

SPOILER ALERT: THERE WILL BE SOME SPOILAGE IN THIS ARTICLE

Hello there, welcome to my review of Just Cause 2. The first thing I have to say about this game is - big. What I mean by that is everything in this game is big. The game is pretty long: it took me 32 hours and the explosions, world and scale of it is just huge. The island nation that you destroy is about 30 kilometers long, real kilometers. Anyway, this game isn't very story-driven or deep, but I don't think it needs to be. I think that if you go into any hollywood action movie hoping for a story driven experience, than you'll be disappointed. But, if you go into it hoping for a fun, explosion filled experience, than you'll come out of it thinking "well that was fun." This game is no different. The story is about agent Rico Rodriguez going to the fictional island nation of Panau in Southeast Asia and overthrowing the evil dictator- Pandak "Baby" Panay, a ruler bent on sending nukes flying at different countries around the world. Yeah, it sounds pretty outrageous, but it's fun.
The game's main mechanic is the grappling hook and parachute combo. You'll find yourself swinging about Panau and jumping out of planes and helicopters. This game is also chalk full of explosions. In places where there shouldn't be an explosion, there is. This isn't necessarily negative because it looks really cool.
One of my major negatives though is the combat. It gets kind of boring after a few minutes and some of the missions drag it on a bit too long. Many of the missions are quite similar and the "stronghold takeover" missions are quite boring. Shoot through guys, open gate, kill machine gunner, defend technician, repeat. It's all worth it though for when you get to the really awesome missions like shooting a satellite mid launch, jumping from nuclear missile to missile while rerouting each one and destroying an oil rig with a fighter jet. I give this game over all an 8/10.