Written by: PlayDevil.com Staff

 

 

 

Last Friday, as some of you may have seen, we were given an exclusive opportunity to play about with "Just Cause 2" and have a chat with the producers of the game to ask them any questions.

 

First of all we were treated to some story missions in a live demo. The first thing you can note is just how much better graphically the game is. Rico himself has changed, and looks a bit more like a hero figure now, but for me, the game world is so much more impressive. There also seemed to be far less pop-in than was found in the previous game, as well as way more going on on the screen at any one time.

 

The missions which I saw were much more cinematic than those found in the first game, and really played to the original’s strengths more- big explosions, ridiculous stunts, and a Michael Bay film feel to the whole thing.

 

Everything is more frantic, but the increased abilities of the parachute and the grapple add so much more to the game. You can now tether objects, which is fantastic, as the devs tethered jeeps to bridges, and I watched in amazement as they reached the end of the wire before cartwheeling off the side of a bridge and exploding!

 

Chat with the producers:

 

We then talked to Magners & Peter- two producers from Avalanche studios, makers of the game:

Firstly, they told us about the new AI built for the game. It’s not purely scripted anymore, and enemies will react differently each time you play a mission, or depending on how you approach missions.

 

The world reacts to the ‘chaos’ you cause in the game world- there’s three factions on the islands you are fighting in, and depending on your actions, each one will either favour or dislike you more, and may even affect what missions are available at a time.

 

They also talked about the new vehicles- there’s 104 vehicles in total, each one has its own physics model, and new visual deformation model. The aim is for ‘Hollywood realistic’ physics, to make each car feel a bit like it might do in a movie, and how they have aimed to make the handling model much tighter than in the previous game.

 

Someone then asked about some of the crazy stuff you can get up to with the tether, and unfortunately there is no waterskiing with the grappling hook.

 

We then saw a newer PS3 build, where the exclusive Youtube feature was revealed.

The Ps3 version has video capture, which can auto-record the last 30 secs, or be set for Manual record up to 10 min.

 

You can also transfer your movies directly to youtube.

 

Then I got to actually play the game myself, and I was really impressed with all of the new improvements that Avalanche have implemented. The graphics were silky smooth already, with no screen tear or slowdown, whilst the controls, both in the air, and in vehicles have been much improved.

 

There’s more to do, and more to blow up, too, and so fans of open-world action games will no doubt love JC2 when it comes out in Q1 2010 (probably March).