Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 sends agent Rico Rodriguez to the fictional Southeast Asian island state of Panau to destabilize its regime, back three rival factions, and find his missing mentor. The story is exaggerated action pulp that never takes itself seriously, and mostly serves as an excuse for a massive open world made up of jungles, deserts, snowy mountains, cities, and military bases. Progress through the game is measured in chaos: the player destroys fuel tanks, satellite dishes, radar installations, and statues of the dictator, unlocking further missions and territory. It's a sandbox in the purest sense, where the main reward is the freedom to cause mayhem.

All of this is held together by a pair of tools that make Rico one of the most mobile characters in any game. An unlimited parachute can be opened at any time, and a grappling hook can pull the player toward anything, latch onto a plane in flight, or tie two objects together, letting you tether a soldier to a passing car or a helicopter to a tower. Combining the hook and the parachute creates fluid movement in which the player barely touches the ground, and on top of that, virtually every vehicle can be commandeered, from scooters and speedboats to airliners and fighter jets.

On PC the game was, at the time, among the best-looking things around, thanks especially to its enormous draw distance, letting you see half the island from a mountaintop, and to surprisingly good-looking water and vegetation. The world is one of the largest to appear in an action game up to that point, and it runs without any loading screens. Critics praised the freedom of movement and the explosive physics, while faulting repetitive tasks and a weak story. Today Just Cause 2 is still excellent as a playground; anyone looking for a story will be disappointed, but anyone looking for an hour of goofing around with a hook and a parachute gets exactly what they came for. The game also still lives on thanks to community mods, the most famous of which added full multiplayer to Panau for large numbers of players at once, turning the island into one giant collective playground full of explosions.