Just Cause 2 Catch-All

I'm still having a ton of fun with this. Mostly sightseeing and building chaos, with a little questing to open up new areas.

I've only found a couple places that have weapon crates to restock ammo, and quite a few health packs, so with some planning I can stay alive and loaded for bear most of the time. I'm preferring shooting everything with the attack choppers, though.

So far I'm finding the enemy opposition to be just about right. It is usually tough enough that there is some tension, and I've died plenty of times just not being careful enough, but not so much that it has been frustrating. One base I was leveling, enemy reinforcements came down by parachute, which was a nice touch. Played a bunch this weekend and I've still explored only a fraction of this huge area. I think this game is gonna last me a long time.

Snagged from GAF, both are some amazing videos. Love the game so far! (Even if it can be a little janky in some areas, the scope is so damn massive)

The Ballet
Slow Motion

Apologies if old.

My new favorite activity, stunt jumping on top of NPC vehicles and grappling them to other cars, nearby troops, explosive barrels, etc. It is a ton of fun. Also, if I run across a faction vehicle I'll stunt jump onto it and piss off the military so I can initiate pursuits. It is so much fun shooting out tires on the military jeeps causing them to flip into the air or grappling two jeeps together....

So I bought the 360 version today and played for a few hours. The game is great. I hate the health system, like some other folks. And I'm constantly out of ammo. Why in the @#$ won't you start me with full ammo when I re-load a game? Is it that hard? I know I have a serious advantage with my grappling hook parachute of doom, but honestly. Re-stock my ammo when I come back from my lunch break and want to get back to the "chaos." It's the least you can do.

On normal, I'm sure the enemies don't respawn at bases. At worst they send in paratroopers, but they don't just appear, they're flown in on a chopper. If you lose your infamy before they hop out, they don't even bother. If you lost your infamy just as they hop out, they don't bother to put on parachutes! They literally just jump out and die.

Also, I think your base "wounded" health increases as you pick up packs of five armor pieces. Armor pieces are consistently "hidden" under road/road overpasses - one for each support column.

Montalban wrote:

So I bought the 360 version today and played for a few hours. The game is great. I hate the health system, like some other folks. And I'm constantly out of ammo. Why in the @#$ won't you start me with full ammo when I re-load a game? Is it that hard? I know I have a serious advantage with my grappling hook parachute of doom, but honestly. Re-stock my ammo when I come back from my lunch break and want to get back to the "chaos." It's the least you can do.

At most of the strongholds (usually where you have your final showdown with the helicopter) there are guns and ammo. Its not a perfect solution, but it is better than spending 50,000 just for a few clips of ammo.

Took a ride from the international airport into the unknown (off the map), after it flew over the highest mountain and passed the floating boobies.

I prefer not to think about why, but this made me laugh a lot:

It started, and I was thinking ok he's attaching her to the plane, yeah that's fun, but where's the funny?

And then the music started.

So, is anyone going to even attempt getting all 2700 pickups? I think I'm going to try to at least liberate all the settlements. This might be that game I keep going back to when I'm bored, so that will give me something to look forward to.

Edit:

Montalban wrote:

I prefer not to think about why, but this made me laugh a lot:

Love the ending.

20 hours in, 24% complete and I still haven't even tackled the second main story mission yet :O

Sinkwater wrote:

So, is anyone going to even attempt getting all 2700 pickups? I think I'm going to try to at least liberate all the settlements. This might be that game I keep going back to when I'm bored, so that will give me something to look forward to..

This is pretty much all I've been doing, liberating settlements. The oil rigs are my favorites - circling them while spraying them with hot death from an attack chopper is FUN.

also quite suprised that...

Spoiler:

The island top-left with the EMP tower of doom didn't turn out to be the setting for the main story finale. It looked like the sort of place you'd end up fighting the big bad and his doomsday weapon - instead you blow it up as part of some incidental side mission you get early in the game.

Probably a stupid question, but some months back I said that I wanted to play a game that played around with verticality. Basically I had been jumping out of planes in Saints Row 2 and just loved goofing around with that. However, it took so long to get back to the airport and the map was only so interesting, so I eventually started looking for a new game.

I know it's a strange criteria, but lately I've enjoyed just goofing around in sandbox games as long as the toys in the sandbox are sufficiently fun and there is cool stuff to look at, places to go and I can get there fast enough. So right now I'm playing The Saboteur. I'm kind of burned out on it and want to start climbing buildings or jumping out of planes again. I know the pedigree of this game, but I guess what I'm wondering is if it will meet my original criteria. Can I get to all those cool places (mountain tops, etc.) fairly fast and is it fun to do?

@DSGamer: oh yes, I am fairly sure this qualifies. Try the demo. In the full game, you actually have access very earlier to a little, personal jet. It will get you to the tops of mountains just fine.

I had the monster truck dropped in to a mountain base from the helicopter that is too small to carry it, piloted by the gravel-voiced kid toucher, and I took the truck down a hill on the road, and jumped the thing off the side of the mountain. As I flipped around waiting to hit the parachute button, the tires kept me bouncing down to the bottom of the mountain. I think 4 bounces got me into the river down below. At that point, I was still in the driver's seat, floating in the river, wheels spinning, and alive.

Yesterday I took a chopper to the top of the highest peak, and there was a skull on top of it. So they even through in skull collecting! This game is going to take me even longer than the original Just Cause to complete everything!

The health bar is a little crazy. On the upside though, when low on health, I often seemed to be able to take a lot of fire without dying. To get out of situations where I was pinned down and on critical health I developed a technique where I'd grapple a building, zip towards it, open the chute at the last second, clear the roof and close the shoot. I'd usually land on the far side of the building with no enemies nearby and plenty of time to recover and take stock.

In a helicoptor, if you strafed sideways (a very slow process admittedly) the anti-air missiles don't hit you... most of the time. It gives you a chance to send your own rockets onto the general area where the batteries are. Also, if you take out just a couple of batteries on foot before starting on a base in earnest it makes it easier later when you are grabbing a helicopter. You'll only have to dodge one or two rockets at a time rather than three or four.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

On normal, I'm sure the enemies don't respawn at bases. At worst they send in paratroopers, but they don't just appear, they're flown in on a chopper. If you lose your infamy before they hop out, they don't even bother. If you lost your infamy just as they hop out, they don't bother to put on parachutes! They literally just jump out and die.

They were counting on catching you for that big promotion. That's the only way they could have made ends meet. Take that away from them and they have nothing left to live for.

MaxShrek wrote:

I had the monster truck dropped in to a mountain base from the helicopter that is too small to carry it,

I've found the vehicle delivery to be really unreliable. I ordered up one of those minijets once and they dropped it pinned against a lamp post. They can't go in reverse, so I had to attach it to a truck and tow it out. That worked fine, till I jumped out of the truck and cut the cable. When I turned around, the jet was gone.

Here's a hint, Just Cause 2. If you're going to charge me that kind of scratch for an item, make damn sure I'm done with it before you tidy up?

DSGamer wrote:

Can I get to all those cool places (mountain tops, etc.) fairly fast and is it fun to do?

To give you an idea, there's an achievement for doing a base jump of 1000 meters, and another one for standing at the tallest mountain peak in the game.

LobsterMobster wrote:
MaxShrek wrote:

I had the monster truck dropped in to a mountain base from the helicopter that is too small to carry it,

I've found the vehicle delivery to be really unreliable. I ordered up one of those minijets once and they dropped it pinned against a lamp post. They can't go in reverse, so I had to attach it to a truck and tow it out. That worked fine, till I jumped out of the truck and cut the cable. When I turned around, the jet was gone.

Here's a hint, Just Cause 2. If you're going to charge me that kind of scratch for an item, make damn sure I'm done with it before you tidy up?

I can't stand that stupid "sloth-demon" guy and his lame Johnny Cash impression.

As far as vehicle ordering goes, I made the idiotic mistake of buying a motorcycle while on an island. Tried to get it back to the mainland, but it (of course) turned out to be a very expensive 3 minutes of game time (glub glub...).

LobsterMobster wrote:

That worked fine, till I jumped out of the truck and cut the cable. When I turned around, the jet was gone.

Here's a hint, Just Cause 2. If you're going to charge me that kind of scratch for an item, make damn sure I'm done with it before you tidy up?

This part of the game reminds me of the last-generation GTAs. They give you all these neat toys, but the price (in terms of the memory requirements) is that if you turn your back on them, they disappear.

CptGlanton wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

That worked fine, till I jumped out of the truck and cut the cable. When I turned around, the jet was gone.

Here's a hint, Just Cause 2. If you're going to charge me that kind of scratch for an item, make damn sure I'm done with it before you tidy up?

This part of the game reminds me of the last-generation GTAs. They give you all these neat toys, but the price (in terms of the memory requirements) is that if you turn your back on them, they disappear.

It's not so craptastic as it was in those games. It's just a bit fickle. Mostly, they'll stick around, depending on how far you travel from it. But, sadly, there be some exceptions.

SommerMatt wrote:

I can't stand that stupid "sloth-demon" guy and his lame Johnny Cash impression.

I couldn't stand it either, but thankfully you don't have to listen to him for the whole game.

Anyone happen to know what happened to my "blue guys?" I went to the Ular Boys (yellow) and Bolo Santosi and da ree-pahs (red) but then when I went to look for the "urban" group I didn't see any mission indicators on my map.

Aries wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:

I can't stand that stupid "sloth-demon" guy and his lame Johnny Cash impression.

I couldn't stand it either, but thankfully you don't have to listen to him for the whole game.

Yeah, he gets sick of his impression too.

SommerMatt wrote:

As far as vehicle ordering goes, I made the idiotic mistake of buying a motorcycle while on an island. Tried to get it back to the mainland, but it (of course) turned out to be a very expensive 3 minutes of game time (glub glub...).

You should have grappled it to a boat.

SommerMatt wrote:

As far as vehicle ordering goes, I made the idiotic mistake of buying a motorcycle while on an island. Tried to get it back to the mainland, but it (of course) turned out to be a very expensive 3 minutes of game time (glub glub...).

I bought a 100,000 tank while on a tiny island just to take out one commander

I was feeling lazy.

stevenmack wrote:

I bought a 100,000 tank while on a tiny island just to take out one commander

I was feeling lazy.

I wonder if you could drag THAT to shore with a boat.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Anyone happen to know what happened to my "blue guys?" I went to the Ular Boys (yellow) and Bolo Santosi and da ree-pahs (red) but then when I went to look for the "urban" group I didn't see any mission indicators on my map.

That happened to me too. I don't know what I did to get it back or If i just missed it for awhile but eventually the first blue missions showed back up.

Money is so plentiful in the game that it isn't really an issue when you lose a vehicle. I've got somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4 million at the moment and rarely have need to spend any of it.

If you're playing on PC, check this out: http://mod.gib.me/justcause2/retail/

Read the mods.txt file in there for a description of each file. The "Black Market stuff only costs 10% of the normal price" is the only one I'm using so far, but it makes equipment a lot more reasonable.

You know, I'm still having lots of fun with this game, but a disturbing number of missions consist of "escort hacker doofus to doohickey & then hold the line for 30 seconds."