(The reason I’m only updating the blog now with weekend gaming is that Monday was a Bank Holiday and yesterday I went to London and ended up standing on a street singing – on camera, mind you – for the BBC. But that’s another, rather shameful story.)

Very long it was, too. (The story mission, not the singing.) Had to rescue someone from a drug den, then there was a motorcycle chase, more fighting, a helicopter ride and then I completely destroyed an ancient temple complex. All the killing I can handle with ease, but destroying buildings of great historical worth? That made me feel a bit ill.

Apart from that, though, it was just the usual messing about and making things blow up. BOOM and suchlike.

Last night I was driving, saw the icon for a colonel pop up and drove into a base. Was soon being shot from all sides, clicked the trigger – nothing. All out of SMG ammo. A few bullets left in my pistol. A mere twenty bullets in my assault rifle. Ran through the base using my last ammo, firing almost randomly. Ran round a corner, almost hit my face on a fire engine, jumped in, turned around, accelerated, turned the colonel into meaty chunks under my tyres, open my parachute, turned around, grappled on to a weaponless helicopter, started to fly away, got shot by a combat helicopter that had flown up behind me, leapt out of my burning chopper, grappled on to the one that had been shooting me, hijacked it, saw bullets slam into me, wheeled around, shot up another helicopter that had turned up, sent it crashing into the trees below, then flew away to safety trailing thick, black smoke.

All of which took a couple of minutes.

I love this game.

I also swam down to the bottom of the sea to collect a drug drop, found a strange, stormy island filled with bizarre towers and, well, generally just buggered about.

Even spending several minutes simply pushing the left stick forward to fly a helicopter fifteen kilometers wasn’t a paid, given that the scenery and the sunrise were so beautiful. (And I checked Twitter and played Words With Friends with my other hand.)

It’s a truly remarkable game in a lot of ways. It’s easy to overlook the scale and beauty of it, but they’re essential in making the game what it is. The rhythm of explosions, fast-paced getaways and then long, quiet rides through the air is a wonderful thing.

Aesthetically, I don’t think there’s much that comes close to it for me. I can see how people could be unmoved, but I still find it absolutely breathtaking on occasions.

And then you get to shoot people in the face, drive cars off cliffs, blow up fuel depots and generally cause huge amounts of wanton destruction.

It’s my type of game – huge, beautiful, open and with a mix of explosions and silence. Brilliant.

There’s an awful lot of game here.

When I’ve not just been randomly pissing about – which, to be honest, is most of the time – I’ve been doing faction missions and, when I can, unlocking new respawn locations. That’s probably the most important thing to do, really. It’s a huge map and if you die you can end up appearing miles from where you were.

It’s not just a big game, either – it’s a really bloody good one. I’m sure blowing up the same things with the same weapons should be getting dull, but it’s not. Whether it’s because it always happens slightly differently, or whether it’s just that I’m playing in quite short sessions days apart, I don’t know, but I’ve not even begun to get tired of it yet.

PRO TIP: Trying to escape from an entire army on a moped is not the best idea.

PRO TIP: When jumping from a really, really – no, like, really – high building, remember to open your parachute before you hit the ground.

PRO TIP: If you want to steal an awesome fighter jet from a military base while under heavy fire, don’t leave the truck you rode in on in the middle of the runway.

PRO TIP: Somewhat related, when trying to to follow a helicopter in a passenger jet, don’t just get in the plane and taxi straight into some trees.

PRO TIP: During a high speed speedboat chase, don’t look around to admire the view, hit an island, fly through the air and end up underwater and upside-down while your quarry speeds off unhindered.

PRO TIP: Most importantly, don’t try to get 100% in every settlement you come across or you’ll go insane.

Couldn’t.

There were no Roaches icons on my map that I could see. I spent minutes zoomed in, sweeping around, looking for a blue icon.

Nothing.

So then I remembered the paper map in the game box. That – hooray! – should be the location of the Roaches HQ. Spent a few minutes flying a helicopter over there. Found a big mansion with people standing around in an empty swimming pool (um…) but no mission.

Harumph.

Resorted to the Internet. Lots of people with the same problem – but then some help. I was told to go a little way down the coast and, indeed, there was a mission icon on my map down there. It’s just I hadn’t seen it, because it’s blue and the icon’s over the sea.

Sigh.

So I went down there and started the mission. Great game, but really. Didn’t anyone notice in testing that it was impossible to see the icon for that mission?

One of the first lines of dialogue in the opening cut scene, though, tells us that the game’s meant to be set in south east Asia. So bang goes that theory and any excuse there may have been for some of those voices.

However, voices aside, there’s really nothing to complain about so far. The demo did an excellent job of introducing things and the full game hasn’t disappointed me at all in the three and half hours I’ve played so far. There’s all the action and unexpected, laugh-out-loud explosive carnage that I could wish for. I’ve done some missions, but I keep getting distracted by the tempting army bases and airports scattered around.

I’m just glad that I’m not someone who feels the need to fully complete games. Getting one hundred percent completion on this would take a long, long time – and the weakest moments in the game are where you’re walking round an area trying to find the last destructible object you need to complete it.

How long it’ll last before it starts to get a bit a stale I don’t know, but I do know that it won’t be soon.

It’s still absolutely wonderful.

Every time I think I might be getting a little tired of it, I fire it up again and find myself running and flying around with a huge grin on my face.

Last night I had an excellent time in helicopters and now I’ve worked out how to use my parachute and grapple to fly across flat ground I’ve been enjoying just floating along.

If you haven’t yet, get a helicopter with rockets and blow stuff up. Oh, and grab a mounted gun and walk around with it. Huge amounts of carnage await you.

Utterly, absolutely fantastic. Shame the full game comes out when I’m in the US for three weeks. I’m tempted to buy the PS3 version while I’m over there, just so I can play it on my brother-in-laws PS3 while I’m on holiday.

That would be silly, though. Much better plan to order a copy to be waiting for me when I get home, to help with the post-holiday blues.

It gives a you a huge sandbox to play around in – though it’s a tiny area of the full game’s map – and all sorts of fun tools with which to cause as much destruction as possible. Everything seems designed to give you tools for entertainment, from the guns to the vehicles to the parachutes to the amazing grappling hook, which is to Just Cause as jumping is to Crackdown.

It’s that good.

This has gone from nowhere to “must buy” status and is the best example of what a demo should be in years.

But no more so than a lot of other games, so that can’t be the issue I have with it. There are just annoyances that highlight it – principally the way the merest hint of contact with another vehicle stops you dead.

No, it’s not rubbish, it’s still fun, but after an evening spent with Jean Claude or Dolph you sometimes want something meatier, you know?