I think I'm more of a fan of the Just Cause engine than I am of the actual gameplay. IMO Avalanche is still about one game away from turning this franchise into something great. I'm having more fun just dicking around than doing any of the real missions because too often I'm finding them to be a pain in the ass. There's something just not right about the constant enemy respawning with the HEAT system and the relative shortage of ammo. I don't know how many times I've run out of ammo during missions.....really fucking sucks. Sure, you can always pick up weapon drops but even that can be cumbersome when you're getting shot at from a guy with a shotgun a half mile away - and he's hitting you. WTF is the deal with shotgun range anyway? And why is everyone on Panau a sharpshooter? It's just too frustrating sometimes. This game is in desperate need of a cover system.
And JC2 is the DK64 of openworld collectathons. Jesus Christ, this is videogame OCD on a disc. "You've collected 64 of 2046 weapon parts" or some nonsense like that, and that's just one of the items. Weapon parts, Vehicle parts, Armor upgrades, black boxes, drug packages, skulls, etc. Holy fucking crap. Anyone that bothers to get 100% in this one will probably have to be committed by the time it's all over with.
That being said, I still think Avalanche has one of the best environmental engines around. I noticed they pulled back with the clouds and rolling weather systems in this game compared to the first, but I guess I'll take that compromise if it helped with giving us all the visual variety. Too bad they can't make the character models just as impressive as the island itself.
Still a great game to fuck around with while listening to a podcast, your music, audiobook, or whatever though.