I've been having the itch to play some open world game today, and after playing Mercs2 the second thing that came to my mind was JC1.

If you liked JC2 you should really pick this up. If you can, for 360, 'cause it's got awesome graphics (I got it on PS2, PC and 360, and PC graphics are infact worse than 360).

Like JC2, it's a really beautiful game. There are no climate zones like on JC2, but that won't affect the awesomeness of that landscape. The overall ambience really gives ya a little vacation feel, which gets interrupted by government troops and their attacks against Guerrillas on some occasions.

As for vehicles, there's about as much as on JC2, but there are more types of planes, boats and helicopters.

There are no annoying faction or stronghold missions that are mandatory for the story progress, and the overall mission design is better than on JC2. To put it straight: JC2's faction missions totally feel like JC1's side missions that are not relevant to story progress.

Side missions are scattered all over the island. They're marked by green and yellow dots. You can liberate a town or capture a stronghold by completing them, and after a liberation you can complete side missions of the classical type for that area, which can be: Delivery, hijacking, assassination, destruction... Well you get it. Go from A to B and do this. They're not relevant to your story progress, but you earn respect by completing them, so the factions will give you more hideouts, guns and combat vehicles.

The grappling hook is automatically obtained after the third mission; it can attach to vehicles, and has no proper range limit. It can grab every vehicle that is rendered within the player's sight, but the further the vehicle is away, the less is the chance you'll be accurate enough to grapple it. The parachute handles a lot different than JC2's parachute as well.

Graphically wise, it's basically on the same level as FC2, only with a much better colour scheme. While flying, the game really shows it's awesomeness. The landscape, the sky and everything looks really beautiful. As well as the underwater world.