just-cause-2 posts

While plans for a Kane and Lynch movie are apparently in a holding pattern, another Square Enix game franchise is moving forward with its Hollywood film plans. Variety reports that the film adaptation of the Just Cause open world action game series has found itself a screenwriter.

Michael Ross, who has credits like the "tourists meet up with bad people" movie Turistas, will be handling the script writing duties on the Just Cause movie adaptation. Adrian Askarieh, who produced the Hitman movie and is also a producer of the Kane and Lynch film, is also a producer for the Just Cause movie. He is teaming up with L+E Pictures to shop the project to the various Hollywood studios. Will this be the movie that breaks the "crappy video game movie adaptation" curse? Stay tuned.

Last March, developer Avalanche Studios and publisher Square Enix released the open world action game sequel Just Cause 2. Since then the game has racked up a ton of game time from its various players. How many? According to a just released (and very tall) info page, players have given up a total of 26,118,470 hours since it shipped to stores. Over 15,500 players have put in over 50 hours each in the game and one player has logged in a total of 1,100 hours in the fictional island nation.

There's lots more info and player stats to be found in the document including how a player dies in the game (as you can see above, Just Cause 2 players bite it in explosions more than anything else). You can check out the stats for yourself in our gallery (and yes you will have to scroll down just a bit to see it all).

The latest game publisher to reveal its financial numbers for the last quarter is Square Enix. The Japan-based company revealed late last week that it had secured a profit of 1.8 billion yen for the quarter that ended on June 30. That's compared to a loss of 1.7 billion yen for the same period a year ago.

Square Enix said the better financial results were due in part to solid sales of games such as Just Cause 2 in the US and Europe. The company has a number of games coming out for the PC in the next several months including Kane and Lynch 2 (out next week), the MMO title Final Fantasy XIV, and the RPG titles Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dungeon Siege III (both due out in 2011).

A 50 percent weekend sale was the likely reason why Avalanche Software's open world action game sequel Just Cause 2 found itself on top of this week's top 10 list on the Steam PC game download service. The game sent the Resurgence Map pack for Modern Warfare 2 off the top of the list (as rated by revenue) where it had been in place for the past few weeks.

Team17's turn-based strategy game Worms Reloaded charged up to the number two spot on its first week on the Steam list as gamers pre-ordered the title ahead of its August 26 release date. The full top 10 list is below

1. Just Cause 2 - Avalanche Software/Square Enix
2. Worms Reloaded - Team17
3. Modern Warfare 2 Resurgence Map Pack - Infinity Ward/Activision
4. Battlefield Bad Company 2 - Digital Illusions/EA
5. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 - Infinity Ward/Activision
6. Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve
7. Counter-Strike Source - Valve
8. APB (All Points Bulletin) - Realtime Worlds/EA
9. Team Fortress 2 - Valve
10. Sim City 4 Deluxe - Electronic Arts

The PC version of the open world action game Just Cause 2 remains one of the few PC games out there that cannot be played natively in Windows XP (although you can play the OnLive streaming version). Now Steam is giving folks a chance to get the full game at a much lower price this weekend.

From now until the end of the weekend you can purchase and download the Avalanche Studios-developed open world action game for just $24.99. That's a 50 percent price cut from its normal price. In addition all seven paid DLC additions to the game are on sale for 50 percent off as well, making them just 49 cents to download.

Happy Independence Day, everyone. Hope a lot of you are grilling in the yard, watching some marathons on TV (there's a Doctor Who one on BBC America right now) and getting ready to watch some fireworks tonight. Today is also the last day of Steam's big PC game summer sale where hundreds of their titles have have their prices cut so if you want to save some money on that game you have had your eye on this is the last time (for a while anyway) to grab it at less than full price.

This is also the last day for several games to get a bigger one-day price cut. You can check out that list below (which has quite a few games that were the subject of previous one day cuts) which will shut down, along with all the other sales, at 1 pm Eastern time on Monday:

Thief: Deadly Shadows - $2.99
Trine - $4
Grand Theft Auto IV - $4.99
Killing Floor - $4.99
Red Faction Guerrilla - $5
World of Goo - $5
Civilization IV Complete Edition (four games) - $9.99
Left 4 Dead 2 - $10.19
Borderlands - $10.19
Tales of Monkey Island Complete Pack (all five episodes - $11.89
ArmA II - $19.99
Mass Effect 2 - $23.99
Just Cause 2 - $24.99
Battlefield Bad Company 2 - $33.49

We are getting near the end of the big Steam summer sale but the PC game download site still has some big one day discounts to share with all of us. From classic titles to more recent releases there should be something in this list to make you happy. Again the sale ends at 1 pm Eastern time on Sunday.

• Freedom Force Pack (Freedom Force + Freedom Force Versus The Third Reich) - $1.87
• Portal - $1.99
• World of Goo - $5
• Devil May Cry 4 - $7.50
• Mount & Blade - $10.20
• Sam and Max The Devil's Playhouse (All five chapters including the two that haven't been released yet) - $17.47
• Just Cause 2 - $24.99
• Metro 2033 - $24.99
• Battlefield Bad Company 2 - $33.49

The recent open world action game Just Cause 2 just got a little more fun to play today. Developer Avalanche Studios has just announced that the team is adding a new and free vehicle in the game as an update via Steam. The Tut Tut Boom Boom (the one on the right) turns the fairly useless transport into a slightly less-than-useless vehicle with a massive cannon along with improved handling and speed.

In addition to the Tut Tut Boom Boom free download, all of the pre-order promotional in-game items for Just Cause 2 (two weapons and two vehicles) are now accessible to anyone in the game as paid downloads (The Chaos parachute is the lone exception).

Developer Avalanche Studios is best known in the game industry for its Just Cause series of blow-em-up open world action game. The series is a solid sales success and there's even talk of a movie version. So what will Avalanche Studio's next game be like?

Surprisingly it sounds like it will be a little more conventional. Computer and Video Games chatted with the studio's head man Christofer Sundberg who said, " ... we have made a move towards the more controlled experience to better convey a strong storyline." Not only that but the game will be a licensed title this time instead of an original work. Sundberg states, " ... we wanted to try a license, but there's only been a few that we've felt was 100 per cent right for the studio. This one is perfect!" We hope so.

Debates over how, or even if, DRM set-ups should be put in PC games have been raging for a long time now. This week the CEO of the developer Just Cause 2 has put in his two cents, saying that "ridiculous DRM solutions" actually harm PC gamers more than the pirates that the DRM is trying to thwart.

Chatting with Computer and Video Games, Avalanche Studios boss Cristofer Sundberg is quoted as saying, " ... piracy has scared the market to start implementing ridiculous DRM solutions that only limits the consumers that actually PAY for their games, not stopping the pirates." He also feels that PC games that also show up on other platforms should be designed specifically for the platform and not just be a simple port, saying, "If we constantly keep on delivering console ports and not games design (sic) for the PC player, the PC market will suffer from bad sales, piracy and bad DRM solutions." Indeed the PC port of Just Cause 2 is a DirectX 10 exclusive with a number of graphical features that are only on the PC version.

Gallery: Just Cause 2