On the upside, Just Cause 2 is a showcase for the power and the glory of new generation consoles unleashed by hands of a great game developer. The downside, sadly, is a perpetuation of stereotypes that only serves to illustrate just how far removed the hardcore gaming segment is from maturity if not mainstream sensibility. If only the great game developer sequestered a piece of its 20 million dollar budget to pay like, a half-way decent writer (they work for food), maybe even a great one (they work for food and wine). Baby steps, guys. Next, actors. They're called "actors" (they work for diet pills and wine) and you should hire them to provide voice "acting."

Anyway, you play as the primary in a Super Duper Secret Agency's Black Ops team with a penchant for parachutes. All of you are mean and motivated; a fearless, merciless band of tacticians whose foremost tactic seems to be kill anyone and everyone and their dog and their oil refinery in the most spectacular manner possible.

On that note, the possible manner are indeed spectacular.

Set on a Southeast Asian archipelago, it's an o'er-the-top, open-world "sandbox" game of the go-anywhere, do-anything variety. If you can see it, you can go there forthwith, no jumping-through-hoops level by level required (though there are a handful of basic "missions"). And man, you can see a lot, and the lot of it is beautiful, scenic, breathtaking... idyllic save for all the people trying to kill you.

As it happens, the place is riddled with destructive objectives and many, many tools of the trade littered about just waiting for you to pilfer them, upgrade or resupply and get on with the spectacular possibilities. You're talking guns and launchers - as you'd expect - plus trucks, jet fighters, boats, motorbikes and way too many gas cans at your disposal - and you can operate, hijack, roof-surf, pilot or at least repurpose just about any and all of it.

Just Cause 2 has this rather unique double-shtick equipment trick in that you'll always have on your person 1) an unlimited supply of rapid-deploy parachutes, and 2) a rapid-release grapple/grabber thingamajig with an unusually long and durable lead. This allows you to latch on to just about anything, not unlike Spider-Man's web or Batman's grappling hook along with all the quick ascents, lateral zips and Tarzan swings associated with such improbable aids.

Unlike Bats but quite a bit like Spidey, you can also tether two objects together, including people and vehicles, or yourself and exploding gas cans, which conveniently rocket upward and take you along for the ride with no fear of the return plummet to earth because you got a 'chute always at the ready (bad guys have no such return trip convenience). It opens up a world of both imaginative means of transportation and sadistic kills of thine enemies. Think drag behind car, tether to helicopter... hell, tether car to helicopter and hilarity ensues. As black humor goes, Just Cause 2 is just too cool.

Controlling all this rich and varied action is a handful at first - getting distracted by all the wondrously explosive scenery doesn't help - but once you wrap your head (and hands) around it, man, what a riot.

Unfortunately, as mentioned, the actual story and the characters that populate it are just ignorant, asinine and too grossly-stereotypical to behold. "That is the smell of fear, the Government of Panau's fear of blood and quivering anticipation." Who comes up with this stuff?

Too bad. Just Cause 2 could have been a flagship game for the new generation. Instead, it's just a case in point for the perception that games are wontedly uncultured, fit for a juvenile degenerate only. Or your inner juvenile degenerate, anyway.