djkicks's Profile

The game box does not really give you much information about the game. So I was interested to see what it was about. It turns out Just Cause is a sandbox game set in a group of South American tropical islands called San Esperito, and your a CIA agent called Rico Rodriguez. Sounds exciting! The game play consists of you playing as Rico from a third person perspective running around shooting bad guys or driving around in assorted vehicles. Now it sounds even more exciting. Alas it not.

This game reminds me of the James Bond film Goldeneye. There are quite a few similarities. Such as being a secret agent, you wear a black jump suit, to guy who helps you out on your team is like Joe Don Baker, and you don't get shot when you run around even though there are twenty guys with automatic weapons firing at you. As long as you keep moving you don't get shot. You can just run around in circles and the helicopters and soldiers will miss. Instead they will shoot at where you were instead of where you are or are going to be. But luckily you don't have this problem as there is an automatic targeting system that locks onto the target for you. It similar to the system in other 3rd person games such as GTA but much more simplified. All you have to do is have a gun equipped and you automatically get a target, and once that target is take out another target is automatically selected for you. So you can just hold down the trigger and kill everyone with ease. This means the only skills you need to possess to play this game are to be able to hold down the firing trigger and rotate the left thumb stick so you run in circles. That pretty much sums up the entire game.

Once you have clocked the games short story mode which is only 21 missions long there are over 300 side missions to complete. In these missions you help Guerrillas free villages from the government’s control. If you get sick of doing the same repetitive thing over and over there is more than 1024 kilometres of map to explore which is made us of an assortment of islands. They all look the same, with green hills and valleys with trees, grass and a few dirt roads. The game has only a few land marks around the place. But don't worry if you get lost because you can call for help and get picked up or have a vehicle dropped to your position. This sounds like a good idea but it makes getting between missions too easy.

Does Just Cause have anything that makes it stand out from other sandbox games? Yes, yes it does.

The only positive feature in Just Cause is that you can perform stunts from cars such as standing on the roof and jumping to another car. This makes hijacking cars very easy and fun. You can also open you parachute while on the roof which sends you flying up into the air. You can then use your grappling hook to attach yourself onto a car or even helicopter and get towed along. The hook can then be reeled in and you can climb on to the vehicle and hijack it. This is the only thing that makes to game kind of fun. It also gives you alternative way to complete a mission. For example you could drive into a base and destroy from the ground, or hijack a helicopter and do the entire assault from the air.

The graphics are pretty; a few times I'd go skydiving just to check out the scenery. The music is good too, it gets a bit repetitive but I liked it.

Overall I did not like this game. It's ok for a rent over the weekend but for a sandbox game there is not much replay value. If you’re looking something to play while to wait for GTA IV you would be better off replaying one of the old GTA games or Bratz Rock Angelz.