Suspension of disbelief is such a fundamental part of the video game experience that we often take it for granted. Multiple lives and first-aid kits that instantly mend whatever ails you are conventions that we accept without batting an eye, even in games that purport to have realistic settings. That said, Just Cause is a visceral third-person action game with some outrageous action that will require an extra helping of that suspension of disbelief to be able to enjoy. But, if you can get past the infeasibility of a man hanging onto the tail of a flying jet with one hand, you might find a lot to like in Just Cause.
Why are you hanging off the back of that helicopter? Just 'cause. Click to enlarge.
Though the broad structure of Just Cause is copped from the Grand Theft Auto series, the game also shares certain characteristics with Mercenaries and Pursuit Force. The game takes place on the fictional Caribbean island of San Esperito. You play as the black-clad Rico Rodriguez, an amused but detached character who in no small way evokes Antonio Banderas' mariachi character from Desperado. Rico comes to San Esperito to help overthrow Salvador Mendoza, a corrupt dictator in league with the Montano drug cartel. With the assistance of the People's Revolutionary Army of San Esperito, as well as the rival Riojas drug cartel, your aim is to dismantle the existing regime through assassination, espionage, and plenty of mayhem.
The island of San Esperito is huge, and though there are a few urbanised areas, including a small high-rise district, several military installations, seaports, and airports, most of San Esperito is blanketed in undeveloped rainforest that is peppered with crude settlements. Its size is a little deceptive, since there's not much to be done in the huge tracts of forest, but it all feels organic, and the scope of the island is still impressive. You're given a good feel for the size of the island, as well as some of Rico's more unconventional skills, right off the bat, as you start off the game by jumping out of a plane at several thousand feet. You can control Rico's speed and direction a bit while in freefall, and you can instantly deploy a parachute at the tap of a button, which slows you down enough to make a safe landing and frees up your hands to hold any one of the weapons you might have on you. The parachute system is just one of many absurd contrivances in Just Cause. There's no limit to how often you can deploy your parachute, it doesn't seem to take up any space on your person, and it never gets snagged on obstacles like trees, buildings, or streetlamps.
In Grand Theft Auto fashion, Just Cause lets you commandeer just about any vehicle you see, including boats, planes, and helicopters, provided you can get close enough to it. Once you're behind the wheel, most vehicles have a "stunt position," which forces you to relinquish control but lets you jump onto other nearby vehicles and take control of them or deploy your parachute, which will jerk you back up into the air. After a few missions, you're given a grappling gun, which you can use to hook onto vehicles from a few hundred meters away. Grappling onto a moving vehicle will cause your parachute to automatically deploy, making it possible to parasail around the island. Perhaps most impressively, you can use the grappling hook to skyjack helicopters and planes while they're in the air.
There's a decent learning curve to using the parachute and grappling gun effectively. Click to enlarge.
The game doesn't even bother trying to justify any of this craziness, and it will no doubt annoy those expecting even a modicum of realism, but once you figure out how to effectively use these abilities to seamlessly grapple onto a car, take control of it, get into stunt position as you drive it off a cliff, deploy your parachute as you watch the car explode in the ravine below you, grapple onto an attacking helicopter and take it over, then freefall directly into the warm Caribbean waters surrounding San Esperito, it makes the action uniquely visceral and extremely satisfying.
In all of the console versions of Just Cause, there's a liberal autotargeting system that only asks that you be pointing in the general direction of an enemy, which makes the gunplay a bit too easy. By comparison, the PC version defaults to a mouse-and-keyboard setup, though even then the gunplay is pretty forgiving and not especially satisfying.
The main mission of taking down Salvador Mendoza is relatively short, and if you're focused, you can burn through it in well under five hours. Missions are usually heavy with checkpoints, which means that if you die in the middle of a mission, you'll automatically start from the most recent checkpoint rather than from scratch. As long as you're not in the middle of a mission, you can be extracted to the starting point of your next mission at the touch of a button. The nature of the missions is predictable. The crazy parachute and grappling-gun mechanics can make the how of these missions much more interesting, but save for a few rather spectacular moments during the endgame, it's a lot of assassinate this guy, steal this item, blow up this building--there are rarely any big twists or turns.
But then, you can have a good deal of fun with Just Cause simply goofing around with taking in the sights of San Esperito, which really does look and feel like a choice vacation spot with its beautiful greenery, white sand beaches, and clear blue waters. The Xbox 360 version gives you additional incentive to explore San Esperito with achievement points. You'll get a fair number by playing through the different missions, but there are also achievements for killing a number of enemies, performing a number of different types of stunts, or pulling off daring feats like base jumping for 1,000 meters. There are a lot of different unique achievements, and you could soak up a lot of time trying to earn every last one.
The use of achievements is just one of the reasons that the Xbox 360 version of Just Cause is the best version. Though the game's use of motion blur and light bloom can be a little overwhelming at times, the 360 version has the most stable frame rate, the clearest textures, and the cleanest overall look. The PC and Xbox versions are close in terms of fidelity, though we couldn't get the PC version to run in a wide-screen aspect ratio, and the Xbox version ran at a noticeably lower resolution with a more erratic frame rate. Additionally, we found no apparent way to opt for gamepad controls in the PC version. While the Xbox, PC, and Xbox 360 versions are comparable, the PlayStation 2 version feels compromised. The draw distance is much closer, there's a distracting amount of pop-in, textures look comparatively flat and grainy, and the frame rate regularly chugs. Though there's not much perceptible difference in terms of the actual content of the different versions of Just Cause, the PS2 version's technical shortcomings make it much harder to recommend.
Just Cause will evoke strong love-it-or-hate-it reactions from people for a lot of reasons. The game's amoral stance on the complicated issues surrounding US-sponsored regime changes in third-world countries will rub some people the wrong way, while others will be annoyed by its fast-and-loose approach to basic physics. Even though it doesn't get some of the particulars right, Just Cause can still be engaging simply because of the risks it's willing to take.
wanger69
23/04/2008, 10:02 AM
rating
10/10
hello samo
Pros: yer its so tropical its lik the best game ive ever played
Cons: ya feel lik ur close to somthing but ur ages away
Report offensive comment
mrvent
15/08/2007, 04:08 PM
rating
10/10
Great game!!! Can't wait to play it..
Report offensive comment
josh
21/03/2007, 01:28 PM
rating
10/10
This is the best game eva the game play is awsome
Pros: Alot of action
Cons: no landing gear
Report offensive comment
red15420
21/03/2007, 06:34 AM
rating
9/10
Kick A$$ Great Fun For An Afternoon
Report offensive comment
20/10/2006, 09:08 PM
rating
10/10
awesome game, excellelent graphics..better than GTA4
Pros: an excellent game with loads of game play features. hmm... probably better than GTA4.Graphics are awesome. i bought it for $89... its worth for its amount.
Report offensive comment