Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1750 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Eidos
• Released on: 2006-09-22
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Platform: Xbox 360

Amazon.co.uk Review:
In a nutshell:
Grand Theft Auto might give you the freedom of a whole city or county but in Just Cause you’ve got the task of overthrowing a 250,000 acre island all on your lonesome in the world’s first Che Guevara simulator.

The lowdown:
Taking inspiration not just from Grand Theft Auto but also Mercenaries and old Amiga classic Midwinter you play CIA black ops agent Rico Rodriguez as he attempts to overthrow the evil dictator of the fictional island of San Esperito. Despite the huge island and the complete freedom of movement you have on it the game actually only has 21 story missions. There are over 300 side missions but it quickly becomes obvious that these fall into only a very small number of different styles, not all of which are all that entertaining. What makes the game fun though is just wandering off and doing your own thing, which invariably involves upsetting the local military or drug lords and instigating a massive, impromptu firefight. The game may lack depth and variety but it offers a freedom to explore and cause chaos that few others can rival.

Most exciting moment:
As impractical as it may seem you’ve always got a grappling hook and a parachute, which allows you to lock onto any vehicle and commandeer it whenever you want. It also lets you perform some utterly outrageous stunts as you parasail behind boats and jump from a moving aircraft straight onto a road convoy miles below you.

Since you ask:
Instead of storing the island of San Esperito as a gigantic map the game uses a new technique called procedural synthesis to create the landscape on the fly. This is the only way to make such large scale graphics work on the PS2, especially when you’re flying miles above the island.

The bottom line:
Che Guevara meets James Bond in this shallow but satisfying sandbox game.
HARRISON DENT

Manufacturer's Description
In Just Cause, you take on the role of the flamboyant Rico Rodriguez - an undercover CIA operative specialising in regime change - as he tries to overthrow the corrupt government of San Esperito. This rogue South American island is suspected of stockpiling WMDs and it's your job to negate the threat to world peace. It could be to your advantage that this tropical paradise is about to implode as various factions vie for power - it just needs a gentle nudge in the right direction.

Just Cause offers the freedom to tackle your assignment however you want: play the island's factions off against one another; incite a rebellion among the masses; or build alliances with rebel forces and drug cartels. The incredibly detailed game world consists of 1,225 sq. miles of mountains, jungles, beaches, cities and villages which can be explored by land, sea and air. And you will have at your disposal one of the most varied and exciting array of vehicles, planes and watercraft ever seen in a video game.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant at times but something missing.
This is a strange game in that it really does feel next-gen with amazing graphics, especially the lighting and a hugely immersive world where you can travel anywhere and do anything. Even from the very first mission though, something doesn't feel right.

You sky dive from a plane into some realistic looking water and swim to a beach where is all kicks off with local guerilla fighters. You then follow your contact to a jeep where an on-rails shooting sequence begins. The graphics, as I said are mind blowing but something about the completely over the top nature of even this first mission makes the whole thing unbelievable.
The worst bit comes when you have to get rid of a road block and the soldiers you are up against mehcanically rise up and down in time from behind their barricades shooting you. It feels like some 1990s arcade game such as 'Commando' at this point. Unbelievable bad. No AI , it just feels like a game.
And yet despite all this, there are many brilliant aspects of the game. You can commandeer any vehicle, skydive and use your parachute repeatedly, there are lots of chunky weapons to us and loads of fun can be had roaming round the massive group of Islands causing trouble and starting firefights and chases.
Some totally fantastic moments too, mainly due to the graphics engine. I commandeered a speedboat and was chased across some beautifully rippling water by gun totting government fighters, then escaped to run through a jungle section. Still being chased I got to a road and managed to steal a car. Drove off just as the tracers started whistleling by. This might not sound any different from say, GTA, but its the atmosphere of fear and being chased that is different here. In GTA its all cartoon violence. There are times when this feels real, which makes it all the more of a shame when this atmosphere is let down.

Sadly for every moment like the one mentioned there are bugs and just generally badly designed sequences that ruin the game and moreover your sense of being there rather than playing a game.
Here's hoping theres a fix for some of the bugs plus more downloadable content on 'Live'. This should have been 5 stars out of 5 but doesn't quite reach its potential due to the flaws outlined. The sequel should be mindblowing though and if you want a game to show off the power of your 360 then this is it.

Depth? Nah...
Having played Just Cause for approximately 3 days and earned myself over 600 points i can quite happily say that this is a dull, cheesy and plotless game, if significantly shiny.

Beyond a technical demonstration of avalanche's engine there's very little game actually there to play. Once you've done the first few missions and played with the grappling hook, ridden a few 'on rails' gunning sections.. that's it, until the last few missions where things heat up again.

The characters are.. transparent, the plot.. distinctly unremarkable.. storyline? Nah. Gameplay variety stops at 'kill/fetch'. There's limited sandbox playing as the driving's poor, roads suck and you'd better get used to the noise of a chopper if you're wanting to play the game.

Aside from that yes there are some good points:
1) Lighting. The lighting in the game is incredible. From the day/night changes to the water reflections, very nice.
2) Load times? What load times?
3) Heavy drops - nice.
4) Parachute
5) high altitudes.

Bad points:
1) If you're looking for a story, try a cereal pack there's more there, and it's less clichéd/predictable.
2) voice acting... as shallow as the characters
3) variety? side missions / takeover missions / liberations are all the sodding same.
4) landing gear - it's supposed to go UP.
5) Trees - yes there's a load of island to explore, but once you've seen one part...
6) Again, mission variety.
7) poor music.
8) AI? AI!? Where ARE you?

So yeah, aside from a nice tech demo there's not much here beyond the freedom to snatch choppers and go on a rampage (which is amazingly unsatisfying). If you want a good sandbox 360 game then go for Saints Row, it's a massively richer game, and has multiplayer.

IMHO to improve just cause there really needs to be some plot and characters in it, a bunch of races collect missions and same-old same-old needs to be replaced with depth and variation, meaningful stuff. Coop would rock the boat too.

Amazing visuals, damn good fun!
The game is based in a luscious tropical archipelago of islands, the game world is massive and has realistic day/night, weather effects like tropical storms, lightning, low lying cloud and so on, the scenery is beautiful - think Farcry but with weather effects and on a much more massive scale and including towns, bridges spanning valleys, docks, an airport and so on.

The game leaves you pretty free to do what you want and you're free to go wherever you want however there is also a mission based storyline which is pretty cool. Missions range from hijacking vehicles, to chasing a train through a valley in a helicopter to obliterate it with rockets. There's a wide range of vehicles - cars, motorbikes, helicopters, buses, planes, boats that are all useable. The game has a large variety of sub-games such as races round mountain tracks, races in planes and boats, helping friendly cartels take over enemy villas and so on.

The game isn't without it's bugs and the AI can be a bit simple, however none of it is game breaking and they're all probably going to be fixed in a patch I'd guess as they all look like fairly easy things to resolve from a programming point of view.

Overall, think of the game as grand theft auto in that you have a massive set of areas to explore and things to do, inserted into Far cry's luscious tropical settings coupled with a james-bond like secret agent style theme and story line.

If you want a game with lots to do then this is a great choice, purchased alongside Saints Row it's a perfect companion with both games being of the same genre - that of massive, free roaming worlds but both with differing storylines, differing vehicles, weapons and sub-games.

All in all I really recommend this game, one of the most fun I've played in a while and probably the best looking game I've ever played!