360

Absolutely brilliant. Still.

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.

In a change from the normal format, I’m going to offer some PRO TIPS for Just Cause 2.

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.

Bah. My pet theory was that the bizarre accents seen in the demo of Just Cause 2 were because the makers of the game didn’t want it to be set anywhere geographically specific, so had used different styles of architecture and weird voices to try and make sure things were set in some fuzzy fantasy dictatorship.

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.

A huge funsplosion of a demo, it lasts a little over half an hour and I managed to find time to play it four times last night. It’s that good.

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.