Just Cause

Some twelve years later, I am again using my Xbox One's backwards compatibility feature to play the 360 version of "Just Cause".

The game is a free roaming action adventure title, in the vein of "Grand Theft Auto" although the city landscape has been replaced by a series of islands that make up a fictional South/Central American country. You are Rico, sent in by some CIA-esque bosses to stir up trouble and inspire the locals to overthrow the countries dictator leader, Mendoza. It's an open world game that you can traverse as you see fit with the standard story missions, side missions and collectables to spend your time on. As per the GTA 3 model, all the vehicles around the island can be commandeered and used by you, though doing so will soon attract the attention of the Islands police force who are hilariously committed to your murder at that point, sending wave after wave of helicopter at your for even the most minor infraction. There is also an existing cartel on the island that the side missions have you replace with a friendlier one, stealing the wrong car - or invading the wrong town will also push up your wanted level with them.

Though the game world is truly massive, what it isn't is particularly interesting. The vast majority of it is uninhabited mountainous woodland. There is no wildlife living in it to avoid or hunt, so much of your time there can be a dull slog from one side to the other whilst hoping that at no point is it ever going to switch to a really steep hill that Rico can no longer ascend. Though it looks quite impressive from a distance, closer up you soon see that it's all the same grass and tree effect. The weather is nicely implemented though, and can get some nice visuals once you're up in a helicopter and seeing the sun set around a mountain.

The trouble with the game is how glitchy it is. There are a lot of moving parts, and from a game that's 12 years old now it's understandable, but it's still not fun to be caught in a vehicle that explodes for no reason, or gets stuck in a wall. Sometimes objectives disappear or were completed without me having anything to do with it. It also, doesn't help itself with its design choices sometimes, forcing you to redo 5 minutes of travel before retrying a mission or walking through the jungle for 10 minutes after a mission to get back to some arbitrary point on the map. There is also quite a big difficulty spike towards the end the game that meant that I gave up rather than completing the final missions and then plodding through the game to get the achievements and 100% total.

There's much to admire in "Just Cause" but the restrictions of the consoles at the time betrayed the grandiose dreams of the developers. I'm hoping I'll soon discover that the sequels have enhanced the experience to a more satisfying one.

Well, I really enjoyed his game, mainly because the scenery is just beautiful and breathtaking at times...parachuting off a cliff and having a stunning view of the ocean and the smaller islands, and the white sands...beautiful :).

You're basically a guy working for two different "gangs" as such. But they are not rival gangs. You eventually work your way up in their ranks to become 'top dog'. There is so much to do in this game, and it's a real change from GTA or Saints Row, which are around streets of America completing missions...I would say Just Cause is much different to those games.

There are countless number of side missions to complete for both gangs, and also secret packages that can be found, some of which can be pretty tricky, and then about 8 races you can complete and get a best time.

The only downfall to this game, is that things are too far apart. What I mean is...if you go to start a side mission, the guy tells you where you need to be, and even if you're travelling by car, it takes you AGES to get to the place you need to be. I'm telling you, this place is huge...there are some things that can take you about 20 minutes to get to your destination! However, I found this to be a nice game to play. Kept me quiet anyway! I managed to 100% this game, and it took me (in total) 38 hours to complete (i haven't calculated that myself, it tells you in your statistics).

This is a good game, to keep you busy. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a change :)

Things, as you might expect, are not looking well. Government is gradually moving towards totalitarianism, citizens are harassed for no good reason and other countries are worried it will go to war and cost many lives. But enough about the US. Things aren't much better in the fictional South American(and this gets and utilizes the possibilities and local flavor, tone, plentiful beaches, exotic babes, etc.) island state of San Esperito. The dictator, Mendoza(Tatasciore) has to be taken down. Of course, an invasion would risk international incident. And McBain is busy. So a small task-force is sent in. Sheldon(McGonagle), your boss, Kane(DeLisle) the saucy arms tech girl, and you - Rico(Downes).

Why pick this up rather than the Rockstar original? This takes the basic core of that, and builds a lot of awesomeness on top of it(keeping in mind that, overall, this is not as good as the series that inspires it). The focus? Going through them one by one: Extreme sports. If you jump off a cliff(!) or are moving fast(when the ambient music switches to the energetic score), you can activate a parachute(or free fall). From there, you can attack, get into a mode of transport, and obviously get away. No matter what situation you're in, you can "move", you can affect where you're going, how fast, etc. with the smooth, well-streamlined, responsive and intuitive controls(handling can be OK, and is seldom poor). Everything you steer is equally easy to start using. Sure, their weight, center of balance, acceleration and such vary, but you get a feel for those aspects immensely fast. And before someone says that being a pilot is tough, well, so is being an expert chauffeur. Here, that is acknowledged.

All types of vehicles, common, without you getting blase about their use, and tremendously useful, make up the next aspect. Cars and motorcycles go without saying. Add to that boats(a lot of water - it might be best to cross it directly), helicopters(there are a lot of steep hills, it'll save you time) and planes(want to get from one end to the other of the 1,012km2 there are for you to explore? Here you go. Do note that about 70% of those are the lifeless sea and fugly, "early 3D kind of plants" jungle). All of them have variations that come with a machinegun and/or a rocket(including ones that come at you... typically, use of the latter doesn't go for when you're on foot - so plan accordingly) that, in addition to being a helpful, toggle-allowing auto-aiming, allow you to focus properly on what you want to decimate in a 90 degree angle in front of you. You can bail out at any time, and commandeer them from anyone else, provided you come close enough to them. You know, with the Grappler, that lets you lengthening/shortening the line. And you can be hanging off it if you'd like.

Some jeeps(and some guardposts, yours and theirs) come with a mounted M60, albeit this won't do much for you, a lot of the time: you can't be sure your ally(who will target you in case of friendly fire... and they get trigger-happy in their unsolicited aid of you, being, at times, more dangerous than who they're trying to protect you from) will drive, you can't get on it unless he's already stopped(and if you disengage it while he's still moving, you may go flying through the air - and no, you can't request he stop for a second). The Agency will offer assistance - finite by virtue of you "not being supposed to be there". They'll drop a car, a gyrocopter, or, if you want it to take off *and* hold a small arsenal, a catamaran or a humvee. You can also ask them to Extract you to any Safe House you've unlocked. There, you can fully heal, pick up bullets, save progress, grab something to get you from A to B, and, fortunately, expand what weapons are currently at your disposal.

You always have melee and unlimited ammo dual revolvers. Three of your slots can be occupied by your two types of C4(on a 10 second timer, or triggered) and the detonator of the latter. From there, you choose your preferred pistol, SMG(or sawn-off, LAW), and, last but certainly not least, whether to carry an assault rifle, a sniper, a shotgun, a grenade launcher or a 3-round bazooka(!). All of this combines to provide fodder for the creative destroyer within you. Two thirds of the main missions(that I understand you can complete in 5 hours) indeed allow you to approach them in different ways. Outside of that, there are side objectives(randomly selected between about 20; like the story ones, they boil down to "go here, do something, come back/go there", with hardly any twists, compellingly designed and unique ones as they lack the ingenuity of GTA) and liberations(taking over a town/base of operations from the people in charge, or the Montano cartel, who are on their payroll).

This earns you rank points with that of the two groups you were working for at the time, the Guerillas and the Rioja drug-runners(!). They stock the earlier mentioned bases for you - and getting to the top as well as completing the "plot"(there's little continuity, and thus, sense of accomplishment, between them), took me about 33 hours, which isn't a bad length for this. Sadly, beyond that, there's little to do here. Collectibles that also tie into aforementioned, and six races that vary in challenge(note that this has no difficulty settings), although it doesn't tell you which it'll be beforehand. The prevalence of glitches and bugs, including semi-frequent crashing requiring a cold reboot, in this make it clear that it was rushed. The arcade style is a lot of fun, though it could have been better achieved. Points/cash would do a lot.

There is a lot of bloody violence and disturbing content in this. I recommend this to any fans of open-world action. 7/10

In an island paradise archipelago full of brightly colored flora, vivacious inhabitants, countless villages, and even more vehicles to chose from than Burt Reynolds has wigs... this is the world of Just Cause.

You are placed in the footsteps of an agent working to overthrow a dictator in a fictional Latin country. Sounds good right? Not really...

The cast has about as much character depth as an Extra in a Paulie Shore film.

The game scripting is very buggy. Aiming is extremely difficult. The enemies can take a ridiculously large amount of bullets to the chest before they die. (example given- sniping a Boss character in the back, neck, etc takes health down but isn't an instant kill... the game is very arcade). The poor design allows AI that is so bad that, if you stand in the middle of an airport, you hear "Boom, boom, bang, boom" as the computer is much too stupid to fly, or land, any planes or helicopters- they just crash and immediately respawn above your head.

The game plot is far from linear (neither good nor bad) but at times it can be hard to remember why you are fighting in the first place- oh wait, you're an agent and its cool. That's right. That's why you are fighting. (Seriously, this is why you are set out on a slaughter campaign to liberate a country- because you're wearing black and have a gun, guess its your job *shrug*).

The plot is pretty much nonexistent.

Overall, the scenery is pretty. If you want to explore miles and miles of ocean and tropical paradise and see local villages with people harking their wares and gangs killing each other, this is the game for you. If you like to be entertained with good gameplay, a story, or anything resemblant of character development... this isn't for you.

This is a Grand Theft Auto clone containing both "theft" and "auto", but it is very far from "grand."

OK this is a easy simple review nothing to big and nothing to small but just right.

OK this is probley the biggest game ever i mean there is something like 10,000 miles of this i mean its Hugh the lush islands and sea and the little villages are just so much fun to explore take grand theft auto and then times that by 5 the free roaming is amazing but the only annoying thing is the glitches and the graphics it look like your playing a really good PS1 game and the glitches are just terrible i mean it's really bad but also the good thing about it is the drop in you can get cars boats motorbikes by a helicopter thats fun.

i spent 13 pounds on this and its worth it for the free roaming side but its nothing nobody has ever seen it will take you about a year to explore but if you found this game quite cheap then pick it up and play it also i have only played it for the ps2 and i don't know what its like on the XBOX 360 but i have heard its like playing the same game just with a few added extras so thats my review also the missions aren't anything special