It’s pretty easy to deploy a chute. Just grapple onto anything, pop the chute, gain some air and fire your jets I reckon. I’m not so enamored of the slingshot mode of travel that I’d like rockets any more personally. I’ll confess to using the grapple to get around a good deal when I’m in some particular location. In fact, it’s so convenient I’m not sure how I’ve managed to get around without one in real life for so long. Someone needs to get on this.
But outside the confines of a village or stronghold I prefer to use the vehicles. It’s just easier to manage them and I can stop, look around, and move along more precisely and (sometimes) swiftly. And it’s just got a better feel for a crusty old immersionist like myself. Whether its a riverboat easing through the scenic delta, a dirt bike bounding over the dunes or a helicopter weaving around cliff faces. There’s personality in the experience I generally wouldn’t trade.
As for suggestions, I really find I’m missing the useful generic gang members of Saint’s Row 2. These guys you wanted backing you up. They could inflict decent damage, they’d pick up better weapons if they came across them, you could heal them if they were down (by pouring a “fourty” on them) and they could be recruited off the street with a nod or the honk of a horn (also a mechanic available in Mercenaries for friendly faction troops).
As it is, it’s always nice to hear “The cavalry’s here!” when some guerrillas roll up during a firefight. But they rarely seem to do anything useful and they die fast. You can’t get them to follow you around. The best you can do is jump into or on a vehicle they’re driving and just see what happens next (usually a long drive interspersed with insanely fun rolling firefights - which might be my very favorite thing in the game).
So that’s one thing I’d do. Once I get a better feel for what, if anything, comes out of all the faction building in JC2 I’ll probably have some suggestions along those lines as well for a more interesting strategic layer and one that builds on the strong emergent gameplay element. I’m already glancing sidelong at M&B: Warband for inspiration.
I’d like an Iron Man suit, and the opposition to challenge it.
Yes, but they’re not an actual jetpack, and I am unreasonable.
Marcin
1684
Fair enough.
Agreed on the more interaction part. The structure is clearly in place, so I’m not sure why it’s not triggered more often and with more self-escalation. All I’ve ever seen at MOST is a piddly total of two guerrilla trucks.
I think the reason the guerrillas are never on the winning side of a fight is because the group that starts the fight won’t ever get reinforcements unless another random group of guerrillas happens to drive by. In contrast, the military will keep getting backup until all the guerrillas are dead.
It’s realistic, in a way, since you wouldn’t expect the revolutionaries to have endless reinforcements. But it’s thrown off by the fact that the guerrillas don’t really act like guerrillas. They don’t hit and run; they stop and engage.
JeffL
1686
Although I have noticed a number of times in the bigger cities in which I hear firing, get to where the fight has been going on, and see the guerrillas get on a truck and leave, with dead military in the streets (ripe for looting, BTW.)
My experience is that they show up and get into a shootout. It really doesn’t matter to me, as a gamer, who wins or what happens because it has no impact on my game (except that as a roleplayer by nature I’ll often get involved to support “my guys”). Maybe there’s some ammo on the ground or a vehicle, but not likely one I’ll use because any factional or military gear has a “Hey, shoot this guy!” flag attached to it. However, if surviving friendlies could be dragooned I’d have more of a mechanical motive to get involved.
What I’d like to see is the ability to recruit a small squad, have them get into a vehicle, ride around and provide some real fire support. Or at least stay alive long enough to help soak bullets.
That’s why the healing mechanic in Saints Row 2 added to the gameplay. Is it worth your time or the risk to save a downed thug before the timer runs out? Depending on the situation you’ll have a different answer. Is this guy a lieutenant or someone that’s picked up good weaponry? How much of a threat is the enemy right now? How’s my health? Is that car nearby going to explode? How many grunts are still alive and watching my back?
Sure, you could play the game just fine without them around or if SR2 treated them like JC2 cannon fodder on autopilot. However, part of the conceit of the game was the idea of building up your own gang and actually having that payoff in some way vests the player a bit in taking care of whatever mini-posse he’s managed to slap together. I’d even get a little sense of satisfaction if one or two survived for a while on any given run. The generic nature of them, though, kept me from getting overly worried about maintaining them. If I couldn’t keep them alive it wasn’t going to hold me back that much. There were also special “Homies” with different vehicles and weapons you could call up to run with you as well. If they died you couldn’t call them up for a couple of game days.
Given I’ve got all these guerrillas in JC2 who seem to worship the ground I walk on, or parasail over, I’m thinking I’d like to be able to slap a few together into a small squad. That little dynamic is one of the reasons Saint’s Row 2 really captured my imagination.
Yeah, adding that Saints Row 2 mechanic to Just Cause 2 would be a lot of fun. It certainly would add more variety of gameplay to wherever you go, and it would be optional since you don’t really need their help since you’re a walking destruction machine. But then, a lot of things in Just Cause 2 are optional. The whole game is built on that principle. They don’t shoehorn the player into playing it a certain way if they don’t want to. So this would fit right in.
JeffL
1689
Brian I agree with your points/opinions. We seem to have a common gaming design philosophy, whether it is in dynamic campaigns in flight sims or the desire for a true, living, dynamic RPG/sandbox gaming world.
It would indeed be sweet to see significant differences in how the rival factions behaved based on how we, the player, played the game. For example, you spend one game making sure that one faction is far more powerful than the others, perhaps even to the point that later in the game you are deciding to sabotage the other factions to ensure your chosen one wins out.
I have not played Saints Row 2 - sounds like it might be worth a try.
JeffL
1690
Brian I agree with your points/opinions. We seem to have a common gaming design philosophy, whether it is in dynamic campaigns in flight sims or the desire for a true, living, dynamic RPG/sandbox gaming world.
It would indeed be sweet to see significant differences in how the rival factions behaved based on how we, the player, played the game. For example, you spend one game making sure that one faction is far more powerful than the others, perhaps even to the point that later in the game you are deciding to sabotage the other factions to ensure your chosen one wins out.
I have not played Saints Row 2 - sounds like it might be worth a try.
It is. It’s plenty silly and over the top in many respects but playing it mostly straight I found a very immersive world to monkey around in. That said, thanks for the JC2 recommendation. It is really growing on me as I venture around to explore more of the world.
JeffL
1692
Honestly, Brian, I use my imagination to create more of a story in JC2 than I rely on the “actual” stories. I actually enjoy that more than some of the “chase this person and you have to catch them in this limited time period/distance” missions, which I usually have to repeat those quite a few times before learning the “trick.”
There’s plenty of free form goofing to be had in SR2. But the best part is that even the scripted missions are usually very loose. You don’t feel like a rat in some developer’s maze. Well, maybe a rat with a bazooka and no patience for puzzles.
Kalle
1694
For the limo mission, the trick is to land on the roof and stay there. Let the driver be, he’s unwittingly driving you safely down the mountain while you’re free to shoot any passing soldiers without a worry. Once you’ve done all the twists and turns feel free to get in and start driving yourself.
I had this Reaper mission yesterday to destroy 4 airplanes at a military airport. I had 100%'ed the base before so I didn’t have any resistance. I blew up 3 of the 4 when I finally got the idea to try and fly one. I didn’t think it would go, but it let me get in and start to fly it. However, I couldn’t get around one of the planes I blew up, crashed, and had to bail. Then it blew up and the mission was over. So, my question is, can I fly those planes elsewhere? I never saw them before but they look like fun.
Delta
1696
Yes, you can. One can be found at the airstrip above the Reaper base in the north center east - ish place.
All right, total newb question but this is starting to mess up the game a little for me. I’m still pretty early in the game but it took me forever to finally learn to shoot less and always use turrets or other found weaponry whenever possible. However, I’m still always low on ammo. I was running around the map trying to locate respawning ammo depots for this reason (if such a thing can be said to exist) but now I’m pretty sure I was doing it wrong. Seems to be a game design feature that I should just get used to but are there any little tricks I should know about, aside from conservation? If it matters, I prefer the assault rifle.
Otherwise, wonderful game so far.
edit: I love the unexpected situations this game gets you into from time to time. For instance, just a second ago I found myself swimming in a vast body of water all alone, when I hijacked and stole a military boat (YP -1057 Phoenix). Instead of heading right for my goal I took a detour to a tiny, unoccupied island out of pure curiosity. I beached the boat, ran around to make sure the island was empty, and when I got back I found that I really had beached the boat. Stranded by cavalier parking. Here, by the grace of God, am I. The great part is, I knew right away what had to be done, and then I spotted a nearby fishing boat that looked big enough to tow the Phoenix. Which reminded me, in addition to wanting binoculars, I wish there were fishing.
Upgrade your weapons via the black market. I have the pistol at level 5 and it has like 250 ammo now. Total game-changer. I want to do the same with the assault rifle but maxing out the grenade upgrades is too tempting (nothing like laying down grenades like candy from a float (™ someone in the Crackdown thread)).
Hey! Combining your post and mine: grenade fishing! Heck, why not shark hunting with harpoons? Then you could harpoon a big enough shark with the grappling hook and get towed behind it with your paraglider…
I agree that this game is all about what you make of it. I hadn’t played in a month, so I decided to get rid of the game (I am definitely not a collector). I decided to play through the last few story missions, since I know I had enough Chaos to unlock them all. At least the final, final battle was so over the top that it fit in with the rest of the game. Then I realized that I hadn’t unlocked all the strongholds, so I played through a few of those missions. They were a lot more fun when I was able to call in an upgraded tank to blow the hell out of everything in my path.
This is the type of game I would like to just have on my hard drive to come back to from time to time. Hopefully, Sony will start selling more full games on PSN, and Just Cause 2 will show up at some point, and I’ll buy it again. I noticed that the Xbox just got Red Faction: Guerilla on demand, so I guess there’s hope.
JeffL
1700
I was in the same boat as you (no pun intended!) when I started. Always out of ammo, so avoiding battles while I looked for more ammo.
Here’s the trick - you need to look at the enemy as your source of ammo. So you need to learn how to use your grapple to quickly get you out of trouble. Find some enemy vehicle, for example, going down the road as you are on the side of the road. Grapple the vehicle/driver as it goes past, quickly take out the driver, grab his weapon/ammo and get out of there quickly. Find ways as you are starting to hit and run quickly, grabbing whatever weapons and ammo you can until you get to the point where you are comfortable taking out lots of military units, at which point the ammo will be plenty for the taking.
