As well-read students of gameology will know, and any who’ve asked me for my wisdom will have heard, the two main prongs of good gaming are grappling hooks and double-jumps. Once both those two are in place, you’ve essentially made a perfect game. It’s quite simple. Now, Just Cause 2 doesn’t have double-jumping, but according to this graph I’m imagining it turns out that this factor can be replaced with infinite parachutes, so long as the grappling hook can double as a tether. It’s a complex graph. Evidence for why I’m hopping from one leg to the other in anticipation for this one can be found in my E3 impressions, and indeed in the new trailer, below.
There’s only one way they can screw this up: not let you do the stuff the game says it will let you do. I wish this were as ridiculous a thing to say as it looks. But somehow almost every game that promises such amazing freedom to muck about releases itself with so many restrictions and conditions that you feel straight-jacketed. If Just Cause 2 can really be this enormous playground packed with the potential to tether everything to everything else, then make it explode, it will truly be one of the finest game toys ever made.
Don’t worry – the first half of the trailer is a bit poop, but then it gets going, and by the Jumbo Jet you’ll be checking for a release date. (It’s February next year.)
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Haha, that looks like SO much fun. I liked the original, but ended up wishing there was more to do in the sandbox than just cause (oh dear) random destruction.
May have to pre-order this one.
Want want want.
Want.
There was a genuine LOL of joy the moment I saw the troop being hauled off, tethered to a jumbo jet. This looks like great, silly fun, something video games can do very well. I’m begining to think you could probably complete the game using the hook alone. Good stuff!
Looks a little like Garry’s Mod meets Hollywood-ian South America. Not sure that’s a bad thing though.
Yawn. How fantastically-fucking stupid.
Your insightful comment “blows the lid” off my unwarranted excitement. Your blase crudity has reopened my eyes to the truth…thank you sir!
It’s weird, because if you remove joyless drone Squiffy’s “yawn” from his tiresome comment and add an exclamation mark, it becomes completely appopriate:
“How fantastically-fucking stupid!”
Sorry, I’ll be sure to ring ahead next time I have an opinion.
lol, Jesus… nobody fucks… with da’ Jesus.
That was a bit harsh, wasn’t it John?
This is your site so you can run it as you wish of course. But one of the reasons this is one of my favourite sites is the generally positive spirit. A bit surprised, is all.
You need to get out more, Lars.
I can add no more than
Hur hur hur YAAAAY!
Early opinion: this may end up being Scribblenauts-esque in a way, in that you have to be creative to have long term fun with this game. Set your own challenges – like Metal Circus said, try to destroy the next installation without firing a gun, etc. The designers give you the toys, and it’s partly up to you to make full use of them. Also maybe a good game to play a lot, but in short stretches. Whether that’s true or not – hotly anticipated by me!
That was very much the case with the first one. I loved it, but you needed to make an effort to do as much as possible in an OTT manner.
Strange, the Scribbenauts comparison could go further in that if you constantly use the helicoptor+rope combo you drain all the fun out of the game. I just hope they include a mountable robosaurus in Just Cause 2.
Well shit.
While the original didn’t appeal to me, this looks set to be so bad it’s good. Really, really good. (Or bad, depending on how you look at it.)
I’m just excited about all the massive base-jumping they promise will be in this game.
Would be sweat to be able to grapple yourself to a small plane then deploy your parachute in such a way as to create additonal drag for the plane, making it crash (At which point you actaully just let go with the grapling hook and allow it to crash and burn while you land near the wreckage with your parachute intent on kicking in the skull of any survivors.)
Well, John, does your criteria mean that the Ratchet & Clank Games are perfect?
I’d think they are pretty close, especially because they factor in tornado-launchers and black-hole-guns (among others), not to forget that you can level your weapons, and that your weapons have individual skill-trees.
I haven’t played one since the PS2 aaaaaaaages ago. It was fabbo.
No PS2 game is from ages ago. Stop making me feel old, Walker. :)
This got me wondering how many perfect games there are. I can think of two, Metroid Prime and Teeworlds, any others?
As I sayd two minutes before:
Ratchet & Clank. But mhhh… Metroid…
They should finally make a new 2D Metroid for the DS.
There will be people who hate this game, and complain that all they did was walk forward, shoot a couple of dudes, walk, shoot, repeat ad infinitum.
These are also the people who complained that Bioshock had no variety beacuse they just grinded through the entire game using their wrench. These are sad, sad people born without imagination or a sense of adventure.
Me? I’ll be counting this as just a further chapter in the adventures of Space Asshole, come back to earth to ruin everyones day.
I dunno man, I loved Bioshock, but this just doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Bioshock’s setting and style gave it some depth (or at least the appearance of depth) but everything about that trailer seemed totally bland.
For a game that (as I understand it) sacrifices plot and realism in the name of bare-faced transparent fun, static shooting and the same 3 second grappling-hook animation seem to constitute the majority of the gameplay.
Obviously, this is all useless trailer-speculation, but for the minute, I’m not convinced.
Oh man, you just made every sandbox game with screwing people over potential thrice as awesome for me. As I’m knocking a guy off a bridge in GTA or grappling a man off his bike in Just Cause 2, I’ll have an inner monologue of The Adventures of Space Asshole.
Looks like enjoyable silly fun but the guy playing the main character does have an incredibly annoying accent!
great concept, very poor implementation….so much clipping going on.
basically…same issues as the first game
Looks like fun especially roping your enemies on to stuff, right at the end when the guy gets attached to the propane tank(?) HAHAHA.
“great concept, very poor implementation….so much clipping going on.
basically…same issues as the first game”
Played the first game on the original xbox and this has got to be better than that, I remember when you used to fly or drive in a straight line really fast the screen would slowly spin round all the scenery would blend in to each other and it looked like you were driving in to a portal, good times.
Looks pretty good, but once again the shooting looks tedious and unenjoyable.
Sadly it was impossible to avoid combat in the first one, I only can hope that’s not true again.
The solution is to make combat fun and engaging, rather than making it possible to avoid combat. You know, as it’s basically a game about killing guys.
Man alive, that looks like a giggle.
Ooh – there’s a desert. I do like a good desert. Even if game developers nearly always insist in making it consist of narrow canyons. (For a really good desert: See Gothic 3)
ahaha, the helicopter scene is BRILLIANT
I have mixed feelings about this. The sandbox aspect sounds really fun in theory and I have a good blast for 5 or 10 minutes, but after that I start wondering why I paid so much money for something and wishing there was a compelling story to go along with it.
Like Walker says in the post, if you really can do all the crazy things the trailer says you can, it could be good. But if you wind up doing the same thing over and over, it’ll get boring.
Hmm. I’m decidedly conflicted.
And that is a bad thing because…?
Can anyone point to some freaky 3D game/engine/trailer that doesn’t do any clipping? It would be nice to have something appropriate to show people when they complain that it occurs.
How many tethered goons does it take to make a jumbo too heavy to fly? No, seriously, I want to cause that plane to stall. Why? Just Cause.
I really hope that you can hijack the Jumbo-jet. I was always disappointed with GTA’s representation of them, (I know they had good reasons, but still). Also, would it be wrong to tether a Jeep to it, climb inside and go for a ride?
It looks good, but if only you could *talk* to the enemy helicopters.
The Mercenaries 2 trailer made it look fantastic and that game was a pile of Swedish balls. I`m worried the same might happen to Just Cause 2.
M2 was great. Demolishing bridges with fuel-air explosives while wearing a chicken suit? Yes please.
Space Asshole, coming to a tropical island near you.
But! Can you tether aircraft to sharks? Hm?
What’s with all the whining, John just made a lighthearted (and fitting) joke for god sake!
I was just playing Batman Arkham Asylum today and wishing that it would allow you to grapplehook in midair.
Takes 75% of the joy of a grappling hook out of a game if you have to land before you can fire the next one off.
This game seems to exist almost utterly to fill that urge.
So. Much. Win.
I wonder if you can rebind the keys in this one? It’s the only reason I never played the first game. No rebindable keys, no sale. Not everyone uses WASD.
I’m just curious about that misplaced hyphen. Whaaaaaaa?