Just Cause 2

Something that baffled me for some time - and which, ultimately, I remembered had also baffled me in the free demo last year - was the controller lag. Even though my hardware should be more than enough to kick the shit out of this game, not even medium settings were low enough to make the driving controls real-time. It's not (just) a matter of incredibly poor performance, but of the game reacting terribly to it -- when GTA4 lags, I can still coordinate my input to the on-screen action. Just Cause 2 just keeps running right along without me.

So it's extra-disappointing that, even addressing the lag by turning my settings all the way down, the controls just plain suck. There's no aim/zoom control, getting two objects grappled is a chore, clambering around on vehicles never works the way I expect, and the running speed barely seems faster than walking. Not to mention, the default button mappings are routinely the opposite of what I would expect from any other open-world game.

I'd be really upset if the control issues ruined an otherwise fun-to-play game, but the content simply isn't here. GTA4 is filled with traffic and pedestrians, and has excellently-scripted missions; Red Faction: Guerrilla has emergent AI-on-AI behavior, and madcap destruction; The Saboteur has robust stealth mechanics and lets you blow up some Nazis. Just Cause 2 does none of these things!, or at least, doesn't do any of them as well as other games do. What I've seen of Panau so far is visually pretty, but not interactively interesting at all. And though I'd like to try and see more of it, the ham-fisted story missions and linear path for unlocking items are completely blocking my way.

There are no cheats, and even the extra DLC I bought is locked by story progress, or is prohibitively expensive in in-game money. So I'd have to grind through tedious intro missions, tolerating awful shooting controls and continually roll-diving out of enemy fire, just to get to the parts that might be fun. And I won't.

I absolutely don't understand this.

Progress: Gave Up -- Broke some dude out of a tower casino