By John Walker on July 21st, 2011 at 1:23 pm.
I’ve been replaying Just Cause 2 in my spare time of late. I remember my absolutely loving it, and then finding the ludicrous fun was spoiled by the difficulty ramping up far too far, and the game getting in the way of itself. So thinking it would be fun to muck around with it some more, this time I set things to Casual and began blowing everything up. I also figure that by this point there’s bound to be a trainer out there that can prevent the heat levels from going over 3. But I’m not here to write you an article yet. Not yet. For now I just want to share some of the snaps I’ve taken on my island holiday. Because sometimes it’s important to just look at pretty pictures of a two year old game in which the character is ignoring things going on in the background.
This is what’s great about owning your own website. Especially when all your colleagues are away. No one can stop you posting this at lunch time. Click on the images to see them full size, if you feel the need.
Rico: IGNORE!
21/07/2011 at 13:26 McDan says:
The amount of times explosions have been happening behind you and you haven’t looked makes you the coolest man in existence John. This games is so great.
21/07/2011 at 13:51 Arvind says:
While Rico is definitely not looking at the explosions, I would like an assurance from John that he wasn’t looking at the screen when these screens were taken.
21/07/2011 at 13:53 McDan says:
Good point, his coolness is now null and void unless he can provide pictures of him not looking at the screen whilst taking these screenshots.
21/07/2011 at 16:03 Starky says:
I think we can all agree Rico is cool, John is not. In fact John is probably a little bit sweaty from watching all those ‘splosions.
21/07/2011 at 16:56 Stochastic says:
Obligatory Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqz5dbs5zmo
21/07/2011 at 13:26 Out Reach says:
‘splodes!
21/07/2011 at 13:26 westyfield says:
Looks like Rico’s put his life of violence… behind him.
YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
21/07/2011 at 13:36 Richard Beer says:
I think you win an Internet. Or possibly dinner for two with David Caruso.
21/07/2011 at 16:10 Starky says:
I hope you put on or took off sunglasses during that pause before the punchline.
(4th post lucky?)
21/07/2011 at 19:40 Strangineer says:
oh ye lols
21/07/2011 at 13:27 mpk says:
They all look like they’ve been taken from the trailers for ’80s action movies. The only thing missing is a pair of mirror shades.
I’m with you on the difficulty thing – I’d missed getting this first time around as my graphics card wasn’t up to it, then grabbed it on the summer sale. It’s insane fun that gets rather quickly spoiled as soon as you attract the attention of the rozzers.
21/07/2011 at 13:33 Fwiffo says:
Amusingly, there’s a mod to give Rico mirror shades.
21/07/2011 at 19:50 Barnaby says:
I decided to replay it on hardcore mode and try to complete all the villages and settlements. It was going great until I bought the parachute thruster DLC in the Steam summer sale, just to find out it disappears if you die, restart a mission, or restart the game. It costs $50,000 to buy a new one each time…
So I pretty much just ragequit… forever.
21/07/2011 at 20:37 The Dark One says:
You can fix it in the config file to always give you the thrusters when you respawn. You still need to have purchased the DLC, but it makes things much more fun. You can also adjust how long you can use the thrusters before they overheat, but left that setting at its default.
21/07/2011 at 23:11 Scandalon says:
Real-life application – when bowling with friends, wait until you have a shot that just feels “right”, turn around when the ball is about 2/3 of the way down the lane and just walk slowly back to the seat.
21/07/2011 at 13:27 oceanclub says:
I never found the heat levels too, er, hot. You can simply make a temporary getaway – even easier if you have the rocket parachute Great fun – I completed the game (on around 50%) and occasionally still dip back into it.
P.
21/07/2011 at 13:28 mrwonko says:
inb4 Cool guys don’t look at explosions.
21/07/2011 at 13:30 Harlander says:
Damn you, sirrah!
(Although you weren’t really in before it, as McDan’s first comment referenced the work. Fie upon you both, frankly!)
21/07/2011 at 16:51 Urthman says:
Well I’ll link to it if everyone else is too cool:
Cool Guys Don’t Look At Explosions
http://youtu.be/Sqz5dbs5zmo
21/07/2011 at 13:29 Eraysor says:
Think I might dip back into this with the difficulty on casual.
21/07/2011 at 13:36 DSDan says:
Yes, yes, yes. I started playing with the difficulty on Normal and was like, meh. Then I followed someone’s advice and restarted on Casual and there was a “click” in the fun centers of my mind and the game became awesome ridiculousness. They should put a label on the box “PLAY ON CASUAL!”
21/07/2011 at 13:30 Tretiak says:
I believed it was going to be a great, fun game. But I don’t know, I miss… something. I found Red Faction Guerrilla or Saints Row more silly fun.
21/07/2011 at 13:30 zergrush says:
There is a dirturbing lack of explosions on pictures 1, 2, 4 and 6, Mr. Walker.
21/07/2011 at 13:33 Temple says:
Am I the only one seeing a baby phoenix being born in picture 5′s ‘splosion though?
21/07/2011 at 13:39 Tams80 says:
Can’t unsee.
Sort of looks like a seahorse. Therefore; can’t unsea.
21/07/2011 at 15:06 westyfield says:
A phoenix? A seahorse? Is that the fiery blob above and to the right of the crosshair? I guess the piece of debris kind of looks like an eye…
21/07/2011 at 16:20 sg1969 says:
Looks kinda like a chocobo to me
21/07/2011 at 13:30 Wisq says:
“Settlement Completed”
Yeah, I’d say having your settlement completely blown to bits kinda puts an end to the whole “settling” thing.
Definitely the sort of game you should play on Casual from the start. And with lots of crazy cheats. I used some combination of BoloPatch (infinite strength grapples and/or multiple grapple lines + explosion immunity), my own home-brewed cheat (infinite _stored_ ammo, still have to reload — I hate when the only infinite-ammo cheat is “never stop firing”), plus mods to add tons of vehicles and guns to the Black Market, get rid of the stupid Black Market intros, and give myself a 1km+ grapple distance.
21/07/2011 at 18:19 sinister agent says:
I thought that too! That’s one of my favourite things about Just Cause 2 – it’s so completely silly that it doesn’t even try to seriously justify demolishing every single part of a nation’s infrastructure, no doubt crippling its economy for decades to come. You JUST BLOW STUFF UP WOOO CHAOS MEANS VICTORY!
And everyone loves you for it. It’s so wonderfully silly.
21/07/2011 at 13:30 xeon06 says:
What happened to “Augmentation Bad? Deus Ex: HR Trailer”? I saw it pop up on my feeds but now the link (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RockPaperShotgun/~3/qu95F-JYWC8/) is broken
21/07/2011 at 13:33 John Walker says:
It was a leak, and Square Enix asked if we’d be kind enough to hold off on it until 7.30pm. It’ll be back then.
21/07/2011 at 14:04 grobitbox says:
Do you always comply with stuff like that?
21/07/2011 at 14:28 Ross Angus says:
They have to comply: otherwise Square Enix turns off the augmented pun centre of the hive mind.
21/07/2011 at 14:56 Fierce says:
That’s 7:30pm in the UK’s timezone right?
So approximately 4 1/2 hours from the timestamp on this post?
21/07/2011 at 16:12 Starky says:
I’d imagine they can choose to comply or not as they see fit, but why piss off a company and maybe get put on their press black list for the sake of a few hours?
21/07/2011 at 13:31 _Jackalope_ says:
I have destroyed a petrol station and now there is a man flying through the air, AND I DON’T CARE!
21/07/2011 at 13:31 airtekh says:
Just Cause 2 is two years old? I thought it was a 2010 game?
21/07/2011 at 13:33 John Walker says:
You’re still living in 2011?!
21/07/2011 at 13:35 Temple says:
2011 is so last year I had to come back in my time machine to say it.
21/07/2011 at 13:40 airtekh says:
Bloody time travellers.
They don’t even have the courtesy to bring back a copy of Half Life 3 when they return.
21/07/2011 at 13:51 Temple says:
Sorry I’m only ten years ahead…
*waits for grown men to cry*
21/07/2011 at 14:47 Hodge says:
Sob.
21/07/2011 at 14:55 Fierce says:
Oops, wrong thread reply.
21/07/2011 at 13:35 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
Huh?
Oh, sorry, i didn’t see what you did there, I was ignoring in a different direction.
It’s not really two years old is it? more like one and a few months maybe. It still looks and feels great, and i have been returning to it a lot.
21/07/2011 at 13:39 Moni says:
“Try to transport fuel now, you pipeline jerks” is still one of the greatest lines of dialogue in a game ever.
21/07/2011 at 14:16 ArtVandelay says:
“It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.”
21/07/2011 at 17:19 Pointless Puppies says:
“Why go over when you can go under?”
22/07/2011 at 12:24 tenseiga says:
Oh look, its the imperial pensioners army!
21/07/2011 at 13:39 doubledope says:
As I have no spare money to go on holiday this year I instead cleared my pockets and bought this on Steam Sale. 5 Euros for unlimited holiday fun. No sunburns, no pickpockets or cheap sunglasses being shoved down your throat and just one hell of a time in a beautiful environment. Love it.
Btw, I saw this great site with mods for JC2. http://www.justcause2mods.com/
Didn’t try any of them out though, as I first want to progress far in the game vanilla.
Ow, and don’t clear the military airports or no more jets will spawn.
21/07/2011 at 13:41 Flameberge says:
Just Cause 2 remains are remarkably pretty game, considering the relatively modest system requirements. They really did make a pretty incredible engine for this.
21/07/2011 at 13:42 gulag says:
Picked this up during the Steam sales too. Enjoying all the things that are enjoyable, but my gosh, some of the cars are simply undrivable.
Is it a policy of the dicatorship to produce only cars that horribly understeer and grease every major road? Takes forever to get anywhere without trashing half a dozen cars.
21/07/2011 at 13:52 Coins says:
I think you’re missing the point of cars in this game.
21/07/2011 at 14:06 Salt says:
The car physics when driving are very odd, although I’ve found it feels a fair bit better using a controller. But I insist on using the mouse to aim for awe inspiring grappling, so there’s a lot of picking up and putting down input devices. The game handles it admirably, swapping over on-screen prompts and not getting messed up by joystick “wobble noise” from the pad.
I really enjoy Just Cause 2. Need to find some working trainers and mods for more absurdity.
21/07/2011 at 14:25 Koozer says:
Vehicles are primarily designed to be driven off escarpments at high speed. Preferably with some roll.
21/07/2011 at 15:50 Berzee says:
“Takes forever to get anywhere without trashing half a dozen cars.”
and in the
21/07/2011 at 13:43 paco says:
Crazy, seems like a lot of people around the internets have been replaying JC2. I have been the past week, and theres a pretty robust thread on SA for the game going on too. Its a great game, I don’t think the difficulty ramps up too high, you just need to set the zoom in button to your middle mouse button and break out a fully upgraded assault rifle for OH GOD HEADSHOTS HEADSHOTS EVERYWHERE fun.
21/07/2011 at 13:47 Arvind says:
Does anyone know of a working trainer for this? The BoloPatch no longer works because of an invisi-update to the game that Steam had the audacity to apply without my permission.
21/07/2011 at 17:22 somedude says:
If you track down a copy of the original pre-patch Just Cause 2 main .exe file and overwrite the one in your current directory, the game should still work fine and the BOLO patch will also work again.
21/07/2011 at 17:59 PiratePuncher says:
This bolo patch has the old .exe with it. Just back up your old .exe, replace it with this and you should be ready to go. http://www.justcause2mods.com/mods/other/Modding-Tools/BOLOPatch-FIX-2011/
21/07/2011 at 21:23 Arvind says:
Thanks! You lot are amazing :D
22/07/2011 at 00:12 field_studies says:
This is great–thanks. I’d been looking for a fix for a few days now.
However, having turned it on for the first time w/ unlimited ammo, my first military base blitz seemed awfully difficult. I died four times before clearing it. My best guess: my unlimited ammo cheat affected the baddies too.
Or, more specifically (since I suspect they already have unlimited ammo), the aspect of that cheat that also negates the pause of reloading was also conferred to the enemy, particularly noticeable I think in the incredible fireworks of shotgun spray in my general direction?
Anyone else notice this? I love the idea of not running around with empty guns all the time, but this cheat on the whole appears at first blush to have made the game more difficult, not less.
21/07/2011 at 13:47 Mr Ak says:
Why, John? WHY?!?
21/07/2011 at 13:47 Colthor says:
Number six is one of the greatest screenshots ever.
21/07/2011 at 13:48 Zorganist says:
I like the flying man in number six.
I was never quite able to work out what accent everyone was supposed to have on that island. The natives couldn’t quite decide whether they were Indian or Taiwanese.
21/07/2011 at 15:14 oceanclub says:
Oh, it’s a really hodgepodge – all the place names are in Bahasa Malaysia/Indonesia. I get my wife to translate – they tend to have prosaic names like “Rock Village” and “Stone Hill”.
P.
21/07/2011 at 16:38 Jhoosier says:
Having spent the last few summers in Malaysia and the surrounding areas, it was a bit off-putting. I wasn’t sure to be amused or sad. I think eventually I decided my Malay friends would find it fun too and stopped caring.
21/07/2011 at 13:49 nayon says:
HARD SURFACE
21/07/2011 at 14:08 westyfield says:
HARD SURFACE.
21/07/2011 at 15:22 Ian says:
HARD SURFACE.
(Beat me to it.)
21/07/2011 at 13:50 AbyssUK says:
I love this game… more comical mods required… co-op multiplayer would have made this game jump into the top ten greatest games ever made.. but alas it wasn’t to be
21/07/2011 at 13:51 SeanybabeS says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqz5dbs5zmo&feature=related
Cool Guys don’t look at explosions.
21/07/2011 at 13:52 Dubbill says:
I loved JC2. I loved it even more when I installed the Superman mod: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AyxCc47LJw
21/07/2011 at 13:53 Freud says:
Playing this a few months ago showed me one of the biggest advantages of picking up games on sale. A quick google search revealed that the game was more enjoyable on casual difficulty and with a mod that limits heat. And judging by the amount of uninhibited fun I had it was probably true. This game wasn’t made for hiding and waiting for enemies to lose interest.
21/07/2011 at 14:23 Milky1985 says:
I’m playing the game on either normal or hard, i tend to hide from teh enemies by hijacking any flying stuff they send towards me, shooting down anything else that flys and running away :p
Once they lose interest i returnteh flying vechicle to the base…. from a high height… while the engine is cur off and i’m parachuting above it :D
21/07/2011 at 13:55 skyturnedred says:
I would play the shit out of this game, but sadly, I’m still using Windows XP, and therefore aren’t allowed to enjoy this magnificent looking game.
22/07/2011 at 14:31 Tulse says:
Me too :(
21/07/2011 at 14:05 Bioptic says:
The superman mod is excellent, but something that should only be done when you feel you’ve squeezed out every last bit of enjoyment from the game. Much like the invincible frictionless supercar than can drive on water.
I played on Casual using:
1) extended grapple
2) everything costs 10% of the normal price to buy (which makes the DLC weapons viable)
3) you can buy anything from the black market – from explosive barrels to jumbo jets
It weirdly doesn’t break the game at all – just faciliates fun and cuts down on frustration. And means that it’s completely viable to attempt a rolling start with a micro-jet off the slanted roof of a skyscraper, or just plunge over the edge of a vast mountain chasm with your superbike, firing wildly into the air until you explode violently against a rock wall. And survive, flopping absurdly down the cliff like puppet made of meat and rubber.
21/07/2011 at 14:07 wyrmsine says:
This makes me sad the game won’t run on XP at all. It looks like tremendous good fun.
21/07/2011 at 14:50 PoulWrist says:
Time to upgrade to a proper OS :p the game IS tremendously good fun.
21/07/2011 at 14:09 ChainsawCharlie says:
Yes! Just Cause 2 is still awesome.
21/07/2011 at 14:20 PeteC says:
Strangely enough I just started playing this for the first time a couple of hours ago (despite having bought it and all the DLC in Steam’s Xmas sale). Still getting a feel for it but quite good fun so far.
Some of the mods mentioned sound great though. I’ll have to check some of these out.
21/07/2011 at 14:20 Tei says:
Just Cause 2 is a “Looks at me, looks at me mom, no hands” game. It does a lot of cool things.. wen you are not looking at it. I have the game, a new computer, and I prefer to watch videos of the really cool stuff that other people do with the game. Wen I play it, is a very boring and slow trek over the forest.
21/07/2011 at 14:27 Milky1985 says:
I’ll be perfectly honest, if your walking in the game to get somewhere your doing it wrong.
Use the grapple to pull yourself towards a nearby tree and deploy the parachut, you will shoot into the air, then use the grabble again to sort of swing yourself, grab a car, helicopter etc
basically you should only be on the floor running somewhere if your trying to get away from somethign thats flying (so you can hide in trees), or are busy blwoing somethign up!
21/07/2011 at 14:23 Coins says:
Really, all I want to do in this game is look at the pretty landscape. I love it. It has the best deserts of any game I’ve ever played.
21/07/2011 at 14:50 Jesse L says:
If that’s your favorite part, you might want to try theHunter, which apparently also uses the Avalanche engine. Except that game’s a slow-paced hunting sim, so they’ve packed all that processing power into realistic lighting, weather, and animal movement and sounds. You need to see the way the world around you dims when a cloud goes over the sun. It’s gorgeous. And free!
21/07/2011 at 14:37 Zazibar says:
I think this video is pretty relevant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtFAw9KXSRU
21/07/2011 at 14:39 sinelnic says:
Number twelve is trying so hard to ignore. MUST…NOT…GRINNNNN…
21/07/2011 at 14:44 Luk 333 says:
So you are the one that’s destroying my economy in Tropico. El Presidente is a forgiving soul, but not with vile foreigners like yourself!
21/07/2011 at 14:49 PoulWrist says:
You do know that by destroying the proper buildings, you can make it a lot easier to escape the baddies? At least heat level 5 is quite easy to escape from once you’ve destroyed the majority of communication towers and killed a lot of colonels.
21/07/2011 at 14:54 Boarnoah says:
I wish this game would work on my crappy Nvidia 7100 =(
21/07/2011 at 15:08 shoptroll says:
When did Michael Bay start posting here? Man, they’re just letting everyone in now.
21/07/2011 at 15:19 Vinraith says:
It’s a very pretty, very massive, but very empty sandbox. It’s a shame there’s no actual game in there worth playing. Running around blowing stuff up, for me, was fun for a couple of hours and then got very dull.
It’s actually kind of strange, in that I sincerely can’t figure out why Mercenaries was so much fun for me and this was so not.
21/07/2011 at 15:52 Tei says:
In Just Cause 2 the shotting is hilarious bad, the bullets seems to do a lot of push-back force, and very litte damage, the damage anymations are not very good. Most weapons are spray and have a small number of bullets. The interface is weird because is designed for the control pad. And so on. Bad combat.
21/07/2011 at 16:00 Vinraith says:
@Tei
Good points, the combat felt very unsatisfying and the controls always felt awkward, like I was fighting them to do what I wanted (and I tried playing with mouse/keyboard, with a pad, and even switching between the two). Also, the constant ammo shortages were irritating, though in a game with better combat that might have been a fun challenge instead of an irritation.
21/07/2011 at 15:22 markcocjin says:
What really happens to cool guys with explosions behind them.
http://screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Hurt-Locker-explosion-still-570×320.jpg
21/07/2011 at 15:23 SMiD says:
Sweet eye titties; this game is proper bonkers. JC2 you have won my heart. Picked it up in the Steam sale and let it simmer in my library while I played other, lesser, titles.
And every game should have the ability to grapple people to ummm… well damn near anything I wish.
21/07/2011 at 15:34 Ateius says:
Bought it dirt-cheap some time ago, only actually started playing it recently following a system upgrade and installation of Win7. Playing on Casual due to Internet Advice. Immediately fell in love. Everything is so pleasingly bonkers, especially the main story missions – every time I think they can’t possibly be more ridiculous, they are!
21/07/2011 at 15:41 utzel says:
The game managed to get even better after I installed the Rambo outfit: http://www.abload.de/img/justcause2screen001avye.jpg
22/07/2011 at 10:12 Davie says:
Eeeeeeew.
21/07/2011 at 16:09 Starky says:
(deleted)
21/07/2011 at 16:23 MajorTomG says:
One of my favourite single player games of the last few years. Love it.
21/07/2011 at 16:38 db1331 says:
It’s a fun game for sure, but has anyone found a fix for the horrible mouse controls? It was so bad I started playing with a controller, which turned out to be great for everything but aiming, so I went back to the mouse again.
21/07/2011 at 20:47 Thants says:
What was horrible about the mouse controls? They seemed fine to me.
21/07/2011 at 19:35 JohnnyK says:
If anyone doesn’t have it yet, it’s on sale at GMG: http://www.greenmangaming.com/games/action/just-cause-2/
21/07/2011 at 20:49 Thants says:
I don’t know how they crammed in such a massive world with zero loading times. Even on my older computer. Just Cause 2 makes every other game look badly optimized.
21/07/2011 at 23:09 Scandalon says:
No (hardly any) indoors.
22/07/2011 at 08:58 Stranglove says:
Incredibly low draw distances. It’s a pain when you’re trying to land a plane and the runway doesn’t appear until you’re within 200 metres of it.
22/07/2011 at 10:46 Tei says:
I have two theories:
1) Using features on the hardware. If you want to be fast, do thing on the GPU. Don’t do anything on the CPU.
2) Some procedural calculation LOD.
1+2 = probably the maps are very simple, …all these details are procedural random noise added on the GPU.
The makers of the engine do deserve a medal or something. Is one of the most (if not the most) impresive Open World engines.
21/07/2011 at 23:09 whydidyoumakemeregister says:
I prefer the controller for third person games. It’s more fun pulling a trigger and feeling the controller vibrate than it is to just click a mouse button.
22/07/2011 at 06:19 Alan Alda says:
Best new tag ever, more please.
22/07/2011 at 08:51 v_ware says:
Slow news week…
22/07/2011 at 09:57 Davie says:
I just got a new graphics card, and can play this again. SO HAPPY. It’s like action film cocaine, not that that makes any sense at all.
23/07/2011 at 00:45 Fudge says:
I liked this game for the carnage and the stupidity of the whole thing, it was genuinely fun, but the story was garbage, and most of the missions were pretty average at best, with WILDY drifting difficulty levels.
There was this one mission, where you had to defend a radar dish from about 5 helicopters, with about 6 rockets, when it takes 2 or 3 to drop a helicopter, and I never managed to complete it.
Plus the stronghold missions were unbelievably dull, almost exactly the same thing every single time.
23/07/2011 at 06:05 matrices says:
Three other things to know about this game:
1. Looks even more ridiculously awesome in 3D. (No really, it does.)
2. Disco pimp blimp. I’ll let you figure out the rest.
3. The ridiculous accent everyone poked fun at as horrible voice acting? It’s actually the English accent as spoken in Indonesia or wherever the hell it’s supposed to be.