Just Cause 2

A sandbox of chaos, creativity, and unfiltered fun.

Just Cause 2 is a masterclass in open-world mayhem. It doesn’t ask you to take it seriously—in fact, it practically dares you not to. From the moment you step foot on the massive island of Panau, the game hands you a grappling hook, a parachute, and a world begging to be turned upside down.

The strength of Just Cause 2 lies in how it embraces the absurd. The world is enormous, not just in size but in the sheer number of ways you can interact with it. Whether you're hijacking a fighter jet mid-air, tethering enemies to speeding vehicles, or using your grapple-parachute combo to fling yourself across the countryside, every encounter becomes an opportunity for improvisation.

Combat and traversal are tightly linked, giving the game a flow that few open-world titles replicate. You're never limited to the road or the ground, and the movement system makes getting from point A to B genuinely enjoyable. Once you master the rhythm of grappling and gliding, the island becomes your personal playground.

The mission structure might not be the most complex, but that's not what Just Cause 2 is aiming for. The joy comes from how you complete objectives—not the objectives themselves. Blow up a radar station with a stolen tank? Sure. Launch a motorcycle off a cliff into a fuel depot? Even better. The game constantly rewards creativity, and the destructible environments make every mission feel like an explosive set piece waiting to happen.

Visually, the game still holds up remarkably well. The tropical landscapes are vibrant and diverse, from snow-capped peaks to sun-soaked beaches, and the scale of the map remains impressive. The soundtrack and voice acting lean into the campy tone, making the entire experience feel like a high-budget B-action movie—and it’s all the better for it.

For completionists, there's no shortage of content. Between collectibles, side missions, faction tasks, and the simple thrill of wreaking havoc in a variety of vehicles, the hours fly by. And with mods and a passionate fanbase, Just Cause 2 has continued to offer value far beyond its initial release.

In short, Just Cause 2 is the definition of a game that knows exactly what it wants to be: fast, ridiculous, and endlessly entertaining. If you're looking for a break from serious narratives and grounded mechanics, this game offers pure, unfiltered freedom on a cinematic scale.

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If you enjoy playing games set in beautiful tropical Malay Archipelago dotted with tropical rainforests and beaches, traditional villages and wooden houses on stilts, then Just Cause 2 is the game is for you. Playing it makes me feel like a retired veteran running covert missions in a lush, exotic land.

Love seeing Mexican spiderman shout ¡Viva la revolución! whilst tethering a cow to a jet. Poetry.

The best grappling hook physics till date. Hella fun to play, with great combat and vehicle mechanics.

Just Cause 2 is a great open-world game. The gameplay is solid, and the variety of vehicles, land vehicles, planes, boats, helicopters, adds a lot of fun and freedom. Traveling using the grappling hook is especially enjoyable and makes getting around feel unique.

However, the game does have its flaws. Ammo runs out quickly, and traveling by car is frustrating because the map is so huge. I wish the map were smaller to make driving more worthwhile. On top of that, grinding Faction Mission or Stronghold Takeover just to earn enough Chaos to progress the story can get a bit tedious. But overall, it's a good game that's worth playing.

Overall, I am really glad I gave this game another shot and I do recommend it; however, I do not think I would play it again.

This was my entry point in the just cause series, and it was great. Being able to use the grappling hook to extend a parachute glide, drive all sorts of vehicles, and it even has multiplayer? it's a nice game with tons of destruction and fun

I liked it.Period.

PS:- I have nothing to write everyone already wrote it about this game(including memes).

I played this game after JC3 and 4 and just finished my 100% (99.98%) run. There are definitely some glitches and developer oversights that were improved in JC3, but this game was still the most fun I've had in a while. I like Panau much better than Solis and even slightly prefer it over Medici. Not having a locator for collectibles and destructibles was very annoying at times, especially in Panau City, but the overall gameplay loop is exactly what makes Just Cause so much fun.

Pro tip for getting this game to work on modern systems:
go into options of the game, and set decals to "off"

Before i did that the game often crashed on me after 30 min of gameplay. But after this it became alot more stable!
so stable that i could even complete all story missions of this super fun action game.

this game is great - the amount of chaos you can do as Rico is a pinjata of enemies blowing up, overtaking enemy helicopters and planes - along with all the things you can destroy if you want to.

And the game features one of the largest open world maps made in any game.

I had not have this much fun since old school GTA 1-2.

This game is the best sandbox shooter and blow up game ever made. JC3 and 4 don't hold a candle.

Great over the top open world game. The weapons, vehicles and missions are varied. You can make your own plan on how to tackle the missions. Also has some good CIA banana republic humor. How all this fun fits in just 5 GB is mind boggling. An example for modern games.

I experienced some glitches and freezes while playing with the new generation graphics cards. Other than that, the game is great—the story is engaging, but the side missions feel a bit repetitive.

I went back to this game because it was a childhood game and boy does it suck no depth to missions ,first few hours were fun because of the hook but the game got boring quick
I dont know how child me 100%ed this game tbh

In my opinion, the best entry in the franchise. The diverse environment and scale of the map was unmatched when it was released and beats out 3 & 4 in both areas. The easter eggs and mysteries, from the "Lost" island to the Mile High Club, leave so much to discover and explore.
The progression system is crafted in such a way that any destruction earns you Chaos points which is used to unlock everything in the game. This outright encourages players to mess around and play in the game's sandbox as doing so will still progress you further - compared to other open world games where any time spent not doing explicit missions feels wasted.
The grappling hook & parachute lead to all sorts of fun interactions that you'll discover, and you'll spend hours experimenting - like what happens when I shoot a gas canister and grapple onto it? You can go and find out.
This area is where the sequels do manage to surpass their predecessor with the addition of the wingsuit, which is easily the best post-JC2 addition to the franchise. However, much of the function of the wingsuit is served by the parachute instead. You'll quickly get used to parachute in place of the wingsuit if you're coming from one of the newer games, and won't miss it at all if this is your first entry in the franchise.
The unofficial, but developer-approved, multiplayer mod is one of the best multiplayer sandbox experiences there is and will lead to hours of creativity and laughter with your friends.
Being such an old game, it will run on almost anything, which is a major plus to all the kids out there who only have a cheap laptop to play games on.
This game often goes on sale for only a couple of dollars, but it's well worth the full price they're charging. One of the best deals in gaming and one of the most underrated games of all time.
I would love to see a remaster of this game someday - completely unchanged for the most part - simply with modern graphics (that said, the graphics still hold up very well for such an old game), the addition of the wingsuit & grapple mechanics of the sequels (multiple grapple hooks, fine control over retraction), and improved vehicle handling.
10/10

What a Good game, still better in 2025, but sometimes the game crash (I don't know how to fix it)

Super fun game but its so prone to crashing and random glitches that really ruin the experience

Game's story is like Iran's current situation, we need a Rico for Iran lol. btw this games is 10/10.

This game looks fantastic for being 15 years old! Just picked up a 1070 GTX and this runs smooth as silk.

A huge leap forward from the first game. In everything but the story.

So let me get into the bad first. The story is horrendous, but thankfully extremely short. The main storyline spans over only 7 short missions and they are rather easy and short. The characters are as shallow as the first game but definitely less obnoxious than before. While the story of the first game actively hindered my enjoyment of the game as a whole, the story here is very non-intrusive. You see the story, laugh at its absolute absurdity and move on fucking shit up. It is extremely badly written and I enjoyed every part of it. I won't even bother going into the characters as there is no point.

The gameplay is where it shines like a shining star. A perfect example of why a game must have gameplay first. The traversing mechanics are extremely smooth with the hook and parachute and that actually ends up being a faster mode of transport in most cases. The shooting is fun, and the grappling hook makes the combat that more delectable. Using the grappling hook in combat situations is just a good dose of dopamine. You don't need to do it, like you don't need to do fancy combo moves in the Arkham games - but god damn it is so fun knocking heads , dragging enemies behind cars, taking them for an unexpected swing on a helicopter...and the related achievements actually lead you to discovering these neat little tricks. The chaos system is extremely simple but makes for a very indulgent time. Top notch.

The exploration never bored me through the gameplay. it is closely related tot he chaos system and feels very rewarding to check off settlements from the map. The collectibles are plenty, but finding them didn't feel tedious. Save for resource items, there are three faction collectibles...out of which, only the skulls felt a bit tedious because of them being potentially located on top of extremely steep hills. The vehicle controls are hard to get into, but I found myself driving cars very often once I got the hang of them. But I did feel a learning curve while starting out - an eventually rewarding one for me. The aircrafts and boats are fine, but the helicopters are extremely bad to control. It might just be me but even after 81 hours of gameplay, I did not warm up to them. Some of the racing challenges were actually a bit difficult - most of the freefall challenges and two of the aircraft challenges did break my brain for quite a while. But overall it was a very fun experience.

A side note - I don't know how, but Panau has a lot of very scenic sights - something I didn't expect since unlike some games like Far Cry 4, the scenery isn't a driving factor here. It is no Kyrat obviously, but some scenes actually had me screenshotting.

Overall, I give this a 8/10, higher than a lot of 'better' games, but I had too much fun with it

unironically, no other open-world has ever topped this game. it's just that good

Very entertaining game, with a lot of complex mechanics that just make the game feel good!

Great game about driving and making things blow up good

A good open world game that feels repetitive and grindy. (7/10)

A fun open world game similar to GTA, but on steroids. Really great on Steam Deck! Like it was designed for Deck. No setup (everything on max), runs perfectly. Locked 60 FPS even in demanding situations.

Despite the year of release the game looks great. Especially at different times of the day, sunrise etc.

Good destruction. Perfect for mindlessly turning off your head.

The only setting I made is setting launch options: "/filmgrain=0 /fovfactor=1.4"

/filmgrain is for removing noise in cut scenes
/fovfactor in the range of 1.0 to 2.0, to set the FOV. 1.0 is the default and I found it too low

Good game for it's time but I really can't recommend this due to the insane amount of crashes and the several bugs I've experienced when playing, would highly recommend Just Cause 3 over this

old not very fun and bad controls but everything you would expect from the time period so its actually pretty good so far though only the story is enjoyable not the free play too much at least they improved upon that with 3

Unplayable with newer gen GPU's and drivers

Still a great game in 2025. Only annoying things are aimbot NPCs and the lack of save game checkpoints - tearing up a base during a mission for 20 minutes and then you have to do everything again if you die.

It is fun (except if you're going for 100%), the controls are a bit dated compared to JC3 and lacks quite a bit of QoL. The map is very good tho, def better than 3's as it has a lot more content; variety of missions, collectibles and locations. But it can get pretty repetitive after a while.

Still recommend playing if you enjoyed the third game, but it'll be a little bit hard to adapt to the clunky movement.

a cool game to relax yourself and to kill time, and it’s low-spec friendly, at least it runs well on my potato PC😎

devs finally fixed it :) thank you, works again on windows 11

Great game, A bit repetitive and monotonous from time to time but still thoroughly enjoyable. Feels like an interactive 80s shoot em up action movie. Also in comparison to it's predecessor it is the better game.

this game was the game that came before the game that is my favorite game of all the games, but the one after that game isn't as good as the game that is my favorite game of all games because it wasn't made with as much "game"

This is a Steam Deck review!

This is a perfect game for Steam Deck. It's the kind of game you play when you don't really want to play anything, but you want to pass some time.

The story is short and not very good, missions are repetitive and not very diverse, All boil down to "kill everyone and then press a button", or "kill the target". The game map is very large, with hundreds of things to find, villages, cities, collectables, that will either improve your equipment, your health, or give you money. There is a lot of time challenges with use of any and all vehicles available in the game. You can fight the military, you can destroy their bases, you can drive tanks, attack helicopters, military jet fighters. You can even pilot an airliner if you want to. And then there is sky diving, parachute and grappling hook! You can grapple to any vehicle, throw out its driver/pilot and take control over it. And I mean ANY vehicle. You wanna hijack a jet plane that is already in the air? As long as you can grapple it with your hook, you can do that! Absolute casual, arcade-style gameplay, way better than any GTA, modern or otherwise. I can't recommend Just Cause 2 enough for Steam Deck. Hell, even for PC.


The game runs great on Deck at 60fps with some occasional dips depending on environment. Keep your settings at high and very high with AA at 2x, otherwise the game will significantly lose its image quality. You won't gain all that much performance, while making your game look significantly less appealing. And it is a good looking game, it just doesn't scale down very well.

the controlls are terrible and half the time i hook to the walls he just jumps off and start skydiving.

If you love open-world games that prioritize chaos and creativity over deep storytelling, Just Cause 2 is a must-play. The freedom it offers in traversal, destruction, and stunts is still unmatched in many modern games. While the story and mission variety could be better, the sheer fun of blowing things up in the most ridiculous ways makes up for it.
A thrilling, over-the-top action playground.

as a seasoned gamer this game is pissing me so off. it just feels like shit and nothing makes sense. i just cant figure it out or get into it

conmadre el juego pero los pinches carros andan mas resbalosos que mi ex

Best Graphic On The Justcause2 and Everplay the Game.

Great game, still looks great even 15 years later and completion was good. Fun even in its repetitiveness.

Just remember to disable decals so it doesn't crash (too much), and bokeh filter if you play windowed.

This game has a lot of content in it which surprised me since I have bought it with a very low price!
This game is more similar to Saint Row franchise games rather than the GTA franchise games, due to its comedic tune. Although it wants to say I'm serious but It can not succeed in it! Don't believe me? imagine you are riding a nuke missile and trying to deactivate it manually!

The best entry in the series. I would do horrible things for a 1:1 remake of this game.

This is an absolute classic. One of my favourite games on the PS3. However, all this game does is crash on Steam!

nice game. I stop on a car and blew the tires of another car that was chasing me and it just flipped like rohit shetty movie..

This being the second time ive played it, the first being about 5 6yrs ago it took me a hour or two to get back into the now dated controls and clear up some confusions on how to do things but then i got into the groove and have just spent 11 hrs blowing stuff up. Absolutely brilliant game and this thing will run on a potato these days. I thoroughly enjoy this game and recommend anyone who likes blowing stuff up to play it.

Good game but it struggles to run on modern hardware without just crashing constantly.

Amazing game, real fun and lots of explosions,.
However the steam version apparently wont run properly anymore.
It says i don't have enough memory to run the application even tough i have enough memory to store the entire game in RAM...
So i won't recommend buying it.

I recommend this game for anyone looking for a fun open world action Shooter.

The story is good but the game shines with its grappling and chaos mechanics. It truly stands out. The game is still worth playing today and works good with some tweaks on the Steam deck.

This is Far Cry 4 if Far Cry 4 was a fun game to play.