Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The first rule of the Just Cause 2 Multiplayer beta tests is you talk openly and honestly about them, and leave no detail out. So I thought I’d let you all know that this weekend the mod team plan on running a beta test this very weekend. It’s a remarkable mod that packs players from all over the world into Panau. Remember the chaos you caused as Rico in the single-player? Imagine that multiplied by a thousand players. You’re either grinning or flinching right now, so you’ll already know if it is for you. Whoops! It turns out the second rule is no lazy Fight Club references. Bugger!
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Happily, “MP,” in this case, does in fact stand for multiplayer – not, say, “marching penguins” or “mandible pianos.” Nor is it a mangling of the frankly quite spellable word “map.” At any rate, I’m devastated to find that we haven’t posted about Just Cause 2‘s still-in-development multiplayer mod, so I’m fixing that. Specifically, its beta will be temporarily grappling/parachuting/plane-surfing into your life this weekend. I’ve placed a video below to whet your appetite – though honestly, if the words “Just Cause 2 with hundreds of other people” don’t do it for you, you’re probably… a lost cause. [Puts on sunglasses. Camera pulls back to reveal I've been languidly parachuting away from a gigantic explosion the entire time.]

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VG247 has word that Avalanche are (reportedly) working on Just Cause 3. Which is both pleasing and disappointing at the same time. Pleasing because, hey, the last Standing Not Looking At Explosions Simulator was pretty ace, and disappointing because I had sort of hoped that the awesome Avalanche team might try and do something else open-worldy, rather than revisiting the island-busting stunt-murderer.

This is extraordinary – a cartographic depiction of player deaths in Just Cause 2, creating a beauteous terrain map composed only of light-points. Each point represents one of 11 million fatalities caused by impact with terrain or objects. It’s a god’s-eye view of gaming.
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Road/River/Desert/Mountain Trip! After spending seventeen hours with Just Cause 2 completing the single player and doing everything and anything stupid enough to enter my skull, I’d discovered about a third of all the settlements in the game, and had only found one or two interesting locations that aren’t on the map. Obviously, this had to be rectified. The best way to do this is a tour of the Island State, allowing my curiosity free reign to take my anywhere that looked even remotely interesting. It took Jim eight hours to drive around the world of Fuel, a world more than ten times the size of Just Cause 2, so I didn’t think this would take me less than an hour. But how long? And what was out there?

I had a few rules first, of course. I couldn’t use any airborne vehicles, as that would completely defeat the point. Similarly, I wouldn’t be using any Agency drops, meaning that if I got stranded in the middle of a desert (or on top of a mountain) without a vehicle, I’d only be able to use my grapple and good old jogging power. Basically, once I was dropped at my starting location, that was it for outside help.

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Apologies that this is a few days late. The review code we received had a big old crazy bug in it, completely fixed in the released version. But never mind, because finally you can find out Wot I Think about Just Cause 2 – a game that I’ve been unquestionably looking forward to thanks to one of the best trailer campaigns we’ve seen. But can it live up to that hype? Will it have heeded my constant plea: “please don’t let the game get in the way of the fun”?

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Fine, fine, let’s talk about a game that requires a graphics card for the first time today. RPS: bridging the hardware generation gap. Walker’s currently busy pirouetting around Just Cause 2′s lavish island for an upcoming Wot I Think (we had some technical problems with the review code, I believe, hence the short delay), but as the entirety of Twitter seems to be talking about what they’re up to in it, let’s showcase some of The Crazy right now. You can do better, obviously. And you should show us.
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That gag never gets old. Alternatively, it’s always been unbearably ancient, which is just how I like ‘em. Wait, that sounds wrong.

Anyway: 1.3Gb of Just Cause 2 demo is now available on Steam. Haven’t tried it yet, as it’s only just arrived, but go forth and ascertain whether Walker’s incessant frothing about the trailers has been justified or not. Also, grapple stuff to other stuff. “It’s easily one of the biggest freeroaming demos of all time,” says a man in a suit. He knows the score. Oh yes, and remember you can’t play this if you run Windows XP, as apparently having the gall to play videogames on a perfectly capable operating system from 2001 is akin to being a single-celled organism.

I know I should probably resist, but I can’t help myself. I have to keep passing on these Just Cause 2 videos. They’ve been amazing in their campaign, and they’ve hit a real high with the Anatomy Of A Stunt series. So below is the latest, and one from last week that I had resisted posting since the previous lot had gone up the day before. The latest isn’t so great, but for the final caption punchline. The other is one hell of a tease. The game’s out later this month, and I know I’m chasing my own tail in anticipation. As I say every time: so long as the game doesn’t get in the way of the fun these trailers have shown, it’s going to be a playground of madness. So long as the game doesn’t get in the way. Because I love you I’ve included GameTrailers’ interview about this very subject as well. Which is well worth watching.

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As a sad coda to the happy-party we all had about the Just Cause 2 trailers a few hours back, word’s out that the unhinged free-roamer won’t work on Windows XP. It’s a DirectX10-only game, so even if you have a relatively recently 3D card you’ll need Vista or Windows 7 if you want to fire grappling hooks at planes. Probably, anyway – there’ve been several DirectX-10-on-XP projects, and though I confess I’ve not followed them closely, I’d be surprised if no-one comes up with a way to make this work. Anyone know where that stuff’s at now? Incidentally, before anyone takes the “get with the times, granddad” line and suggests most people have Vista or 7 now, take another look at January’s Steam PC survey. At 42.15%, Windows XP is still by far the most common operating system. That’s a crazy amount of potential customers to leave in the cold. I’d have more sympathy if it was specifically a PC game, but the 360/PS3 versions that will surely be the lead foot for JC2 won’t be DX10, so it seems odd that this should be. If it’s super-pretty and genuinely DX10ed to the hilt it’s good news, potentially, for those of us who are fully upgraded, but it’s an odd decision nonetheless.

Full system specs below – do you have the right hardware hats but the wrong OS trousers?
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