Reviewed: October 19, 2006
Reviewed by: Jeff Gedgaud
Publisher
Eidos Interactive
Developer
Avalanche Studios
Released: September 27, 2006
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature
6
8
7
7
7.0
System Requirements
Recommended System
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
I guess field operatives get to have all the fun these days...just cause. That seems to be the theme of this new action adventure game, Just Cause, from Eidos Interactive and Avalanche Studios. And from here on I will not do any more lame jokes about Just Cause as I also got tired of them when reading about this game on other sites.
Just Cause follows the exploits of agent Rico Rodriguez and his albeit illegal but highly well intentioned activities in helping overthrow a bad government on the island nation of San Esperito. Although the games physics are not exactly realistic and the game itself is more of a kill anything that shoots back style fighter you do have some excellent music and spectacular vistas to have your fun in.
In that popular Grand Theft Auto “go anywhere and do anything style” Just Cause takes you to some pretty great looking islands somewhere down south. You play as an operative making a general nuisance of yourself to the local government who the people want kicked out. Now the current government is corrupt, deals in drugs and other not so pleasant things so you have pretty much free reign in getting rid of them. You have the help of two other agents who are both bosses and fellow conspirators working on the islands.
You are given certain objectives along the lines of help the locals and do certain things specific to help overthrow the El Presidente of the island nation. Some of the missions are rather easy to accomplish with the overall lack of a very good AI but the fun is more in the open-ended way you can accomplish your missions.
Playing from the third person perspective you have your choice of vehicles to get from point A to point B on the islands, which is pretty important to some of the missions. You can also call in airdrops of vehicles starting with a motorcycle and earn others later in the game. At the end of each mission you can call for extraction to move you to the start of your next mission as well.
The AI in Just Cause is really lame but the game makes up for this with the great visuals and the open ended way you can complete your missions. You have to complete some missions like execute certain people but you are pretty open as to how. A slow sneak and then a quick shot in the head will work but I preferred the all out blow the place to bits kind of action. With your choice of weapons and vehicles it can be quite fun.
The islands you play on are large and to help out with this you have a small map in the corner of your screen and a PDA that has a larger map and some other features like your mission objectives and your vehicle drop or extraction pick up. If not for the availability of so many vehicles, just knock off a passing motorist and take his car or motorcycle, you would spend a lot of time walking here.
You start out with some pretty basic weapons but more become available when you either knock off local police or army men or when you complete side missions. Getting more weapons, ammo and health packs from people you kill is easy as they don’t do much to avoid your killing spree. Some of the mission’s difficulty is merely having those annoying police and army men pestering you while trying to complete your mission.
The side missions range from completing deals for local drug cartels or raiding a thief’s house who stole from the resistance. One of the missions that you can perform all over the islands is to liberate towns for the resistance by getting rid of local police, taking down their flag and putting up one the resistance banners. The police keep re-spawning so just killing does no good; you need to destroy the barricades they have set up one after the other and then hit the flagpole.
With the wide range of missions and open ended play you can have fun running all over the place doing all kinds of things to really annoy the current government. Just Cause may be pretty bad as far as the AI but it is still fun to run around shooting anything in your way. During the game you save missions after successful completion as well as starting at a previous point just a little back if you do die and restart right away.
Just Cause reminds me so much of two other video games, Grand Theft Auto’s open ended style and Far Cry’s graphics. The visuals here are great but not quite up to Far Cry’s and without any load screens during missions to mar the gameplay. The far clipping distance and graphics are really good and add so much to the open play style of the game.
Other things like the wide variety of plants and trees as well as the large amount of people and vehicles running around make the game quite busy while you’re wandering around.
There are settings for video quality on the options screen and with my medium system I was able to play Just Cause on high settings without any problems at 1024 x 768 resolution.
Audio in Just Cause has the usual adjustments for volume and such without any problems in sound quality. The game contains background music and sounds that add so much to the game's style and play. The music played during the action sequences is a kind of James Bond action theme music using Latin American instruments; kind of odd but it works.
During scenes when you’re out by yourself there will be no music but when you’re near civilization you’ll get the busy sounds you would expect. If any police recognize you or you do something illegal like crash into someone else or carjack someone the chase themes start along with the police yelling and sirens blaring. Throughout the game you’ll have a wide variety of pretty good music playing along with all the other pretty good sounds.
To complete the main mission objectives in Just Cause should take no more than six hours of gameplay or so, but the additional missions added in could go on for quite some time. You can liberate the entire islands villages and cities from the tyranny of the, well you get the idea. The larger villages and cities are harder to liberate but still fun and pretty easy once you figure out that guys shooting you doesn’t do all that much damage.
All the missions in Just Cause are pretty easy as far as killing the bad guys but getting your objectives done are more of a logistical difficulty. The problems in most of the missions come more from how some of the special moves required for some missions are performed. Other difficulties in missions are just the fact that you need to get to some far off spot on the island to complete your mission.
There are also all the side missions to play through that are scattered throughout the island. Some of the side missions are more for fun than anything else like a speed boat race. Just Cause has some pretty good value as there is such a wide variety of things to do other than the regular mission of liberating the island from the tyranny of the evil, well you get the idea.
Just Cause may follow in the footsteps of Grand Theft Auto but it does a pretty good job and without all the gang affiliations people were so riled about. If you’re looking for a realistic shooter you’ll have to look elsewhere but for a good shoot anything you want game try Just Cause. You’ll have a fun time breaking the law to overthrow a government and not even know who you’re working for.