I've cited Just Cause 2 as one of my absolute favorite dumb fun sandbox games, great for when you just want to bang around, blow stuff up, and have silly, wacky fun. It's more serious than Saints Row, more open and free for destruction than GTA, and graphically one of the more beautiful games out there. Sure, the voice acting may be legendarily bad, and the plot is a thin veneer that just gives a half-assed reason to blow shit up, but that's all insignificant. I own Just Cause 2 on PC, PS3, and XBox 360, and have hundreds of hours clocked in between the three.
And yet, I'd never played the original. When the first Just Cause went on sale on Steam this week for $1.75, I figured it was high time I explored this series' roots. This isn't a review by any stretch, just a slightly baffling comparison, as I sit here and wonder how something so awesome came out of something so...not awesome.
