Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5370 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Eidos
• Released on: 2006-09-22
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: PlayStation2

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

Just Cause for disappointment?
I have only been playing this for two days so this is by no means a full review. The first thing you notice is the shear size of this game, it makes San Andreas look like it takes place in the world's smallest village! The similarities to San Andreas are many, you can hijack vehicles, store vehicles in garages at safe houses, a similar system to the wanted star's and pedestrians chatter away as you pass them etc. Thankfully you can use the extraction option at almost any time and at virtually any location to one of many (unlockable) safe houses scattered all over the various islands which means you don't have to spend forever travelling through endless empty roads to get to the next mission.

The story missions I have done so far aren't particularly difficult, I have only failed one (due to poor vehicle handling) and should you do so then you can return to a checkpoint at the point you started.

I have noted some irritating bits, the liberate mission for the guerrillas and cartel are exactly the same (and there are a lot of them!) you kill a few of the opposition, blow up 3 barricades, kill some more goons then their boss. Hopefully this wont carry on throughout the game as I've done about ten so far across 3 islands and they are becoming a real chore, also the side missions after you have done the liberation seem very samy, go there, pick something up, bring it back. It seems almost impossible to die in combat, your character can absorb a huge amount of gunfire damage and you pick up health from those you've killed. The vehicles don't handle very well and its very, very easy to lose control, I clipped a tree in a monster truck which flipped it and it would not go back on to four wheels, it just kept rolling from side to side until it started smoking at which point I tried to exit and it ran me over and killed me. The most annoying thing is getting killed by vehicles, you can stand stationary in the middle a battle for ages and absorb huge amounts of damage but get clipped by a car and its instant death, this has been particularly annoying when you get hit from behind for no reason and it happens to me a lot. The inventory is also a bit of a pain as you can carry three pistols, a machine pistol but then only 1 out of shotguns, Assault/sniper rifle or rocket launcher. The map does not let you zoom in enough to see roads so its useless for route planning.

Air vehicles are fun, the right stick allows you to move the aiming point so straffing is easy, I haven't found any jets yet but then again I've only explored about a tenth of the map.

The game has some good ideas, for instance the grappling hook is quite good and it allows you more freedom in how you approach the missions which was sadly missing from some of those on San Andreas. Overall the game as a whole is to repetitive and feels as if it was rushed out before development was finished, a bit more time spent on vehicle physics, the story and the mission content and it would have been an absolute classic. This is the first (and last) game I'll buy without reading reviews first, its not the worst value for money given the size but If you were expecting a GTA or Mercenaries beater this is not it. Rent it before you buy it.

Probably the most obvious GTA clone yet...
The game play, controls, and game itself is extremely similar to GTA. Although the story is much different. It is similar to GTA in that you can have entire free roam of the games massive map, set in San Esperito, a South American tropical island. Also, when you are going around doing your own thing, you can create havoc. This is similar to GTA because you can terrorize people and get chased around by the opposition.

The story: You play as Rico Rodriguez, who is a CIA black ops agent. You are in the middle of this tropical island because of your mission; to overthrow this island's dictator who is suspected to be in possession of doomsday weapons, weapons of mass destruction. This is based on a real life war against Guerrilla fighters. The island looks fantastic, and the whole island is an absolutely massive place to roam. Like GTA, you will be on this game for months exploring and starting the game all over again.

As you go through there is not a very good explanation or story for all the things you do all the way through; the game play does get slightly boring. Also, the real big problem about the game is that it is really short; there are 21 story missions, all of which, like GTA, don't take long to do. 20 missions in a game like this is not nearly enough, these themselves only takes 4 hours. But, there are over 300 side missions, an absolute mass. The side missions are what keep you playing this game. After a while though, after about two game completions, you start to realize that the side missions start to get boring and repetitive. There are really cool methods of transport, including sky diving, boats and helicopters. Rico has really cool gadgets like grappling hooks, Para gliders, and parachutes. And of course he has a massive array of weapons. This is just like GTA; the most annoying thing is that the controls are similar to GTA.

Overall, I think that this game is very entertaining, loads of extras to do, until about 3 or 4 weeks. I would not advise you to buy this game if you are looking for a long game that you will be hooked to for ages. There are many good points about the game, the stunning landscapes and the very good story based on real happenings for examples. However, there are the bad points, I don't think this game would have ever come out if there were no GTA games, also the game play is repetitive.

6/10

could be better!
At first you think it is the best game ever then you wish it was in a city instead of a tropical island.The missions are great but you don't get rewarded often. Doing stunts is great but it gets boring after a while. Overal it could be better.