Explosives Test
When you first boot up Just Cause 2, you're ready for whatever the game throws at you. Let's face it, if you picked it up in the first place, you already know the story is trash. But you're really looking forward to blowing the snot out of everything you see.
What you don't know is that is all you are going to do. Need to free your comrade? Blow stuff up. Need to capture a base? Blow stuff up. Need to do, well, everything else? You get the picture. Also, you need to collect boxes full of stuff to complete each village/city/base.
Honestly, if you're just looking to have fun and maybe get stuff off your chest, this game is great. You don't fear death, because you just come back and do it again. This causes you to just run into bases guns blazing and try to kill everything in sight. the only downfall is that it will take forever to get back to where you were. I recommend getting a helicopter or plane with guns or missiles and just to flybys until everything that can be destroyed is.
But after you blow it all up, you're not done. Then you need to collect the weapons and vehicles boxes, which are a pain. Some villages stretch out farther than you realize, sitting hundreds of meters away while you run around the main collection of buildings for hours. And after you collect the boxes, you can only spend them on items you have already unlocked, and the starting items blow. In fact, it isn't until you've accumulated a crapton of chaos in the game that you unlock the weapons that you've probably been using all throughout. Then, you're not sure how an upgrade is going to change the stats of that particular weapon or vehicle.
Then, there's cheating. Sure, you can blow up that city when the mission tells you to, or you can blow it up beforehand and fly through the story. The bases don't reset, so if you really felt like it (and had the time) you could capture all locations first, and then just go from mission to mission and beat the game. But that would be boring.
The weapons all kind of suck, so vehicle combat should be your first option. But the grappling hook is awesome. You can use it on anything, and just watch the chaos ensue. I really enjoyed grappling a vehicle (especially planes) to the ground and just waiting until they find they can't go anywhere. The AI doesn't seem to realize it's been grappled, and so just tries over and over again.
As the Giantbomb staff has already said, this game is not all that enjoyable over extended periods of time, but it can be fun for hour or so stints. If you are a fan of running around and destroying things, this is a game to check out. but if you enjoy a good story and game play mechanics, look elsewhere.
