This game can be summed up in five words: but it's just so pretty.
Sent to Panau to dethrone the President; although "president" really means, dictator who is not friendly to the USA. The story is fairly engaging, nothing you would feel it nessicary to complete more than once unless you are out trophy hunting. But we go back to the five words that sum up the whole game, but it's just so pretty.
This game has one of the most beautiful settings I've seen in any game. Charactor models aren't great. But it's just so pretty. The world includes a vast desert, a huge mountain area, hundreds of beautiful beaches that make you wish you live in Miami, and a river basin area full of many tributaries. All of these environments are a joy to look at, and while driving a boat, if you look up at the mountains it's truly breathtaking. About half-way through the game a friend asked me something that almost ruined my opinion of the game. He said, "Where in the South Pacific are there mountains?" I actually said to him, "But it's just so pretty."
Game-play is fairly generic, but the grappling hook and parachutes provide an interesting way to trek across this massive world that literally takes half an hour to fly from one corner of the world to the other in the fastest plane on the game. Dual-wielding sub-machine guns are just as effective as any one handed weapon and that's a good thing because ammo is not always easy to come by.
The Black Market is an interesting way to travel the huge island with the ability to drop vehicals or a straight extraction to any location you have previously been to. You can also purchise weapons from the black market but I mostly bought vehicals because they allow you to explore the massive world while getting to your destination. The problem with the black market is all the items are dropped from a helicopter and its very obvious sometimes. I would have the chopper drop a small airplane on the road in front of me, and instead it would land off in the ditch next to the road. This becomes very frustrating because a small airplane costs $30,000, and while money is not always tight or hard to come by, if you have to buy a second plane because the first one lands in a ditch and cant be moved it's very annoying.
Overall this game is very close to being one of the top games in the action adventure genre. If the story were just a little more in-depth and immersive then I would easily suggest Just Cause 2 over a game like Grand Theft Auto 4. But when you're going to devote roughly 30 hours to complete the story these minor annoyances grate on your nerves. I give it an 8 out of 10 because anooyances aside, it's just so pretty.