Just Cause 2

[ThaGenecyst]

Avalanche Studios has started talking about the sequel to its third-person open island title Just Cause (PC, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360), which will be arriving on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

"You'll begin the game with nothing but your Cuban heels and a winning smile," explained lead designer Peter Johansson. "We wanted to make better use of our huge game world, enhance the stunts, improve the combat and reward exploration more."

Word of the PlayStation 3 version comes from CVG's coverage of magazine PSW's preview, while the existence of the Xbox 360 edition was confirmed by NeoGAF's ever-reliable snoopers, who noted a similar preview in France's Official Xbox Magazine.


http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50573




A PC version is also possible, though it has not been officially announced.

[ThaGenecyst]

Re: Just Cause 2

[luv_mist]

Re: Just Cause 2

It looks pretty solid. Of course, I didn't really like the movement of the first game's demo. I think I'll try and give it another try eventually. Graphics do look quite appealing.

[Flawless]

Re: Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 First Look

All these additions would likely be meaningless for some without major work on the game's mission structure, however. To that end, Avalanche has reduced the amount of dead space on its new island and dropped the original's myriad uninspired side-missions, opting for a new 'Chaos'-based system. Creating chaos causes the island's many factions to grow in strength, meaning it's possible to storm government strongholds with help from powerful allied factions. With a stronghold secured, an area of influence grows around it, opening up new opportunities, information and prospective employees.

How you create chaos is entirely up to you and you can either work with factions or on your own. Just Cause 2 features over 1,000 different smaller activities to complement larger missions, all designed to create increased unrest. You might want to steal military transportation, assassinate military official or even destroy significant strategic installations – the choice is yours. It's even possible to undertake these smaller activities while you're working toward completely larger story goals.

Just Cause 2 Q&A

IGN: What improvements can we expect in terms of combat and AI this time around? Can you give specific examples of how this will work in the game?

Peter Johansson: The AI has been completely rewritten for Just Cause 2. It now uses a sophisticated planning system that enables enemies to do all sorts of new tricks. For example, enemies will use the environment more tactically, taking cover behind objects, adapting dynamically to the objects around them. They will use team communication and call for reinforcements, such as parachute units and attack choppers, plus they'll stand guard around important objects and installations, returning to guard posts if you run away. Additionally, enemies in vehicles can now lean out from vehicles to shoot at you during car chases, plus if you stay still out in the open enemies' shots will quickly get more accurate, thus depleting your health faster. As a result combat it's much more advanced this time around, forcing you to keep moving, evade and actively use cover.

Another cool feature of our planning AI is that we can tell any NPC to go to any point in the world and define a preference to use a specific vehicle type. They'll then go off and find their own way there, even if they start on the other side of the world. This opens up some really interesting opportunities for missions.

The Hybrid Locking System is new too and helps you to quickly aim at enemies while leaving you in full control of the crosshair, so you're rewarded for skillful manual aiming. It also enables you to pinpoint specific limbs so you can get that perfect headshot or force an enemy to the ground by shooting their kneecaps.

Just Cause 2 also has an Adaptive Difficulty System now. As the game is so non-linear, difficulty gradually scales depending on what you've done before in the game. For example, a mission that takes place later in the game, after you've created a lot of chaos, will always be more difficult because the government gets more desperate and heightens security at installations.

IGN: What improvements can we expect in terms of visuals this time around?

Peter Johansson: The Avalanche Engine 2.0 is no longer held back by having to be compatible with last generation hardware. There are improvements all over – higher resolution textures, more detailed characters and vehicles, a new animation system and so on. Moving seamlessly between these different environments, without any delay for loading, is quite a unique feeling.

[ThaGenecyst]

Re: Just Cause 2

Rico Rodriguez is back in Just Cause 2, and he's brought his parachute along for the ride.
By Luke Anderson, GameSpot UK
Posted Feb 6, 2008 3:06 am PT

Just Cause created a massive, island-based gameworld and threw in parachute-based action to a mixed reaction from critics. The ability to travel with your parachute was supplemented by stealing vehicles GTA-style, as well as some visceral third-person action.

Confident that the gaming public is ready for another dose of unadulterated carnage, publisher Eidos has announced Just Cause 2, which promises more of the same mayhem as the first instalment, but with gameplay improvements and enhanced skills. We recently sat down with Eidos and were shown some video footage and screenshots of the upcoming game, which appears to be shaping up nicely.

Just Cause 2 will feature more of the improbable fun that featured in the first game, this time with a Pacific taste.

Rico Rodriguez, the protagonist from Just Cause, is back. He's survived death-defying adventures in the Caribbean, lived to tell the tale and is heading off to another island. But it's not San Esperito; it's a smaller, more "jam-packed" island, according to Eidos. The fictitious island of Panau, with its blend of Pacific, Thai, and various other Asian flavours, will offer plenty of distractions for those who just want to explore.

In Just Cause 2, Rico has been pulled out of early retirement and is hot on the tail of a former boss who has seen fit to take a wad of stolen cash to the island of Panau--the exact location of which is about as certain as the one in Lost. Panau will feature a range of climates and terrain, including high-rise cities complete with skyscrapers just asking to be climbed, thick jungle foliage, snow-laden mountains, and sun-drenched beaches, all complete with their own dynamic climates. In the video footage we saw, the draw distance looked impressive, as did the detailed close-up scenery.

Along the way, Rico will come up against Baby Panay, a tyrannical yet short-statured dictator. Think the Kim Jong-Il from Team America and you're probably on the right track.

Want to grapple onto a pilotless helicopter? Who's gonna stop you?

Eidos says the developers have worked on making the gameplay in Just Cause 2 more challenging and rewarding than the first game, with changes such as increased enemy artificial intelligence; your enemies use cover to their advantage this time around, and can also shoot while in vehicles.

Additional improvements, such as more numerous and complex missions, are some of the things Swedish developer Avalanche Studios is working on to make JC2 a more balanced, refined beast than its predecessor.

Rico's parachute physics will be more realistic, and his swimming controls have been improved to reflect his on-land controls, according to Eidos. More improvements will be seen in the environmental effects, including climate changes such as storms, blizzards, and knee-deep snow in higher altitudes.

Although most gamers could finish Just Cause in five to six hours, the next instalment should have a longer lifespan in which Rico will have to complete side tasks before unlocking additional missions. Thankfully, he'll have his trusty (and upgraded) grappling hook on hand to grab onto objects, vehicles, people, and buildings if you need to traverse the world at speed.

You'll also be able to choose how to approach certain scenarios in the game. One example given was a mission in which you'll need to infiltrate an enemy compound nestled at the base of a large mountain. If you're feeling a particular case of bravado, you can attack it head-on by foot or car. You can also use your parachute to BASE jump off of the neighbouring mountain into the base, or even take a high-altitude approach, lobbing grenades from up above while floating around out of harm's way.

Some of the early graphics we've seen really do look promising, with some amazing draw distances.

Just Cause 2 has been confirmed for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, and is expected to be out in the second half of 2008.

[CS10029]

Re: Just Cause 2

Definately grabbing my attention with some of these screens and promises of better gameplay.

[jmood88]

Re: Just Cause 2

I wanted to play the first game but I never got around to it. I'm looking forward to this one.

[Flawless]

Re: Just Cause 2

IGN Preview

"A key element in the freedom that Just Cause 2 gives you is that there are no artificial barriers", explains lead designer Peter Johnasson. "You're free to go anywhere and you're free to try out any tactic in any given situation. Whatever tactic you choose, you can be sure that the only constant is action." Clearly, this sequel aims to offer respite from something we generally take for granted in other sandbox games: restrictions. Whether it's conveniently closed-off bridges or murderous cops who pop out of nowhere if you wander into the wrong region, we've become accustomed to such titles telling us what we can and can't do. This one, it seems, thinks different.

"That doesn't mean your chosen approach will prove successful in all situations," Johnasson continues. "Approaching a military base in a helicopter may not be the best idea if the base is heavily guarded by surface-to-air missiles. If you get shot down, maybe it's more effective to continue on foot rather than paying for a black market heavy drop." It all hints at the breathtaking scale of Just Cause 2. As with its precursor, it's all wide-open vistas and no loading pauses, but this goes even further - and not simply in terms of its GTA-rivalling list of cars (over 100), missions (over 50) and dual-wielded weaponry.

Approaching that aforementioned military base, for instance, might see you progress from lush forestry, over wide-open desert and finally up into ice-covered mountain tops. It's a David Attenborough series in 40 seconds. Throughout, the view distances are incredible: it's a huge and beautiful game world. As you get close to the base, you can either careen in close with your chopper, gracefully pirouette in with Rico's trademark parachute or do the Spider-Man thing with his almighty grappling hook. "Rico's move set enables you to do things that you can't do in any other game," reckons Johansson.

"The grappling hook can, for example, be used to quickly move around, pull enemies down from guard towers, suspend enemies under a bridge - or from a lamppost - or lift a car with a helicopter and use it as a wrecking ball. In combination with the parachute, the grappling hook enables you to do stunts you've never done before and you can experiment, finding your own tactics and play style. What happens if you tether two helicopters together, for instance, or try to pull down a presidential monument by dragging it behind a jeep?"

"Then we have the stunts, which we've taken several steps further and integrated them into pretty much everything you do. We've also improved combat and made it more challenging and tactical. At the heart of this are a completely new aiming system and AI that's been redone from scratch. Enemies now take cover behind objects in a dynamic environment, flank you, guard specific important areas or objects and they can also call for backup."

This new aiming system should hopefully reassure anyone who found JC1's simple auto-lock shooting a little deflating – you can target specific body parts for quicker, cleaner or more 'orrible kills. A headshot will take 'em out, but a knee-shot will cause all kinds of trouble, so there's plenty of scope to play to your more sadistic urges. There's a similar principle behind the cars – they're not much of a muchness, but rather specific tools for specific jobs. You wouldn't, after all, drive a sports car across a sandy desert, no matter how slick it looks, so find something with better traction.

New Screens

[DickDalewood]

Re: Just Cause 2

Graphics look fantastic.

[Flawless]

Re: Just Cause 2

Eurogamer Preview

At a recent developer playthrough, Avalanche was leaning heavily on the stats: Just Cause 2 features over 100 vehicles, ranging from cars through to jumbo jets, which you can use to explore any of 261 settlements, including one massive megacity, on an island that covers 1000 square kilometres. That's the same size as 252,840 football pitches, apparently - with the design team busy coming up with facts like that, it's not hard to see why they never got round to polishing the little details on the original game, like ensuring mission-critical garage-door checkpoints would always open as required. Equally, as anyone who's ever plodded through the surreal world of Boiling Point (another sandbox title that pitched itself on just how much space it covered) will tell you, big maps don't always mean big fun.

Happily, from what we've been shown, Just Cause 2 should have little trouble giving you something to do. Not only do detailed textures and stylish weather effects suggest this is shaping up to be a pretty game with a lot of visual variety (its island is carved into an implausibly varied ecosystem covering deserts, jungles, and frozen wastes), but it's centred on an environment populated by gun-crazed lunatics - a slapstick world in which you've been given a uniquely simple agenda.

Like the parachute, the grapple makes a welcome return, but it's been hilariously upgraded. At the simplest level, you can fire it at the ground in front of you, and use it to tug Rico into the air. Next, you'll discover it can be used to zip quickly between buildings or vehicles, entirely changing the pace at which the game moves, turning a traversal system that depends on running and driving into something that borders on teleportation.

That's just the start. Use the grapple in combat, and you can pull people down off ledges or out from cover, as well as trigger it whenever you need to make a fast getaway, but things really get exciting when you realise you can fire off both ends of the wire. That might not sound like a big deal, but it opens up an entire world of mischief. Suddenly you can attach enemies to cars, which then drive away. You can attach enemies to planes, which then take off. You can attach enemies to telegraph poles and leave them dangling, piñata-style. You can knock enemies out of moving vehicles and tether them to the back, where they whip about in the wind like an old plastic bag, while you stand on the bonnet and riddle them with bullets. Or, you can forget enemies entirely and attach cars to helicopters, in order to use them as wrecking balls, and yet another vista of comedic opportunity opens up.

If you need a bit more structure in-between the main story missions, you can always undertake work for the game's three factions. Either way, Panau's busy map is a riot of completion meters, side quests, unlockables and upgradeables, and you're encouraged to dip in and out: once you've discovered a location, you can fast-travel there or be immediately extracted, only to skydive in somewhere else for more nonsense.

And even when you get to the game's central campaign, you won't have left the world of chaos behind: missions give you a central objective, and then mix scripted checkpoints with a freedom of approach. As an example, we're shown a story mission with the simplest of agendas: rescue a sexy agent from a wintry stronghold. Given such a basic task, Rico's subsequent moves look less like the chess-like strategising of a master tactician, and more like a half-legible diary entry of a delusional schizophrenic on heavy medication. Rather than taking a bus into the mountains, Rico opts to grapple onto a passing van, jack it, and drive it over a flyover, before parachuting out the door to land in a nearby air base.

Touching down on a jet as it taxies towards the runway, he takes out a few stragglers with his handguns before - only once the jet's in the air - deciding to hop inside and pilot it over to the stronghold in question. And then, why land when you can crash? Parachuting down to a lofty rooftop, it's obviously time for a fight with ninjas - ninjas who can warp around in a puff of smoke, meaning Rico has to put aside the grapple and rely on his guns again. Then, naturally, Half Past Ninja means it's time for that atomic submarine to bust through the frozen lake behind Rico, and fire off a few homing missiles, while Rico's target is bundled on board. Luckily, by this point, there are Hummers streaking away across the ice, and Rico's grapple can just about reach one of them...

There, amidst ninjas and atomic submarines, surrounded by a gentle fall of snow and the insistent chug of military engines, is probably where we should leave Rico and his game for the time being. It's hard to know how any of this madness truly stacks up until the controller's in the hands of someone other than a designer, of course, when we'll hopefully find out whether or not Just Cause 2 spent longer in Quality Assurance than its predecessor did. And even then, the history of sandbox games is littered with games that were great fun for an hour, but then struggled to entertain over the long haul. What we've been shown so far, however, is unexpectedly thrilling, and even if it is ultimately beyond Avalanche's reach to bring all these promising pieces together to create a great game, given the sheer exuberance of what's already in place, at the very least, Just Cause 2 is going to be a brilliant demo.

[Flawless]

Re: Just Cause 2

Looking good.

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[Flawless]

Re: Just Cause 2

I'm hyped for this after watching this:

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[Klocker]

Re: Just Cause 2

if the missions have improved since JC1 and they say they have, this looks like a winner to me

grappling hook and parachute and completely rebuilt graphic engine, what more do you need?

[jmood88]

Re: Just Cause 2

Developer walkthrough
I love their graphics engine.

[Flawless]

Re: Just Cause 2

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