I spent the better part of last week bumming around on a friend's couch playing their games, eating their food and just generally being a nuisance. Just Cause 2 held a sacrosanct spot in the 360 as the latest Next Big Thing, but when company coalesced and controllers were issued we regularly returned to co-op classics like the Nazi Zombies mode in Call of Duty: World At War. Yet those brief sojourns into the illusory island paradise of Panau played an integral role in gathering a crowd for multiplayer jam sessions by attracting casual observers with a smorgasbord of startling visual sequences. The game is perverse, a straightforward solo experience that's only endearing when played with others. I've met many people (most of them artists) who demonstrate an unconscious desire to create, reaching for pen and paper or a well-worn guitar at the first sign of an ebbing conversation, filling the valleys between peaks of interest with impromptu chords and margin doodles. Just Cause 2 allows for similar entertainment, rescuing faltering small talk and filling uncomfortable silences with the savage beauty of a Steven Seagal movie.



"Holy shit, did you just lasso a helicopter?" Amazement shadowed by disbelief, and a caustic conversation about college graduates tapers off. All eyes are on the screen. "Do it again! Dude, can you jack that chopper in mid-air?!" Craziness confirmed, the challenges start coming. Prior conversations scrabble to regain traction, but every discussion inevitably derails after a spectacular stunt. "What, you didn't know how to ride the exploding gas tanks into the stratosphere? It's a scene straight out of Dr. Strangelove!"



I played a shit-ton of Just Cause 2 this week, but I couldn't tell you a damn thing about the plot, setting or characters involved. It took me three days (and sustained assault by a cadre of Japanese commando holdouts) just to realize the game was set in a fictional smattering of Southeast Asian islands, instead of the real-world South American archipelago I'd envisioned. What I CAN tell you is that if you strap protagonist Rico Suave (names changed to protect my ignorance) to a canister of highly flammable propellant, blast the release valve to smithereens and ride that ramshackle rocket straight into the stratosphere while screaming "MANATEEEE!" at the top of your lungs, you are guaranteed to get a roomful of grins and at least a few guffaws. Games like Just Cause 2 are performance art, like a round of friendly extempo competition in which each player passes the controller with the sometimes-secret, sometimes-shameless hope that the next guy (or girl) will find an even more ridiculous manner of making stuff explode. Add alcohol, rinse and repeat. The memory of friends bonding over beer and a borrowed guitar is the stuff of legend, and I think we're fast approaching the day when the cultural zeitgeist will ensconce a gamepad in the halcyon halls reserved for the beloved building blocks of social capital.