Just Cause

"Go Buy Mercenaries Instead"

Save Your Money, Go Buy Mercenaries
Having read a lot about this game in the past months, I had been eagerly anticipated it's release. An area larger then San Andreas? Over 300 Cities, Towns and Settlements? Grappling Hook and Parachute? On paper it sounds like you are in for one hell of a thrilling roller coaster ride of action, adventure and regime change. The only really accurate part of that last sentence is 'hell'.
Graphics: 5/10
Even on the aging PS2, the graphics look dated. The textures are rough and just plain ugly. Pop-up is appalling, often with cases of you seeing stuff that is behind something because that something hasn't spawned yet. The cars are nothing special, and some seem to take an unfeasibly large bashing before displaying damage.

As for the characters, well, it's all right angled knees and running like you have two strings tugging on your legs. I've seen more convincing movement in an episode of Thunderbirds. Rico has very limited animation, capable of walk, run, swim, dive underwater, jump, with no variations based on speed or heading. Even if he's caught in an explosion (which are unimpressive) he's merely propelled through the air standing bolt upright.

Most of the 300 settlements consist of a single dirt road with around 10-15 huts along it, while the major cities seem to be entirely composed of the same 3 buildings. An orange one, a yellow one with arches and a grey one, repeated over and over.

The cut-scenes are stuttery (as is the whole game when things get busy) and look more like a late PS1 game than a late PS2 game.

The sole saving grace is if you get air-borne. The view up there is quite impressive, with lush jungle stretching away, and the sunset giving everything an orange glow. Then you go down to the ground and see the trees are mostly crudely pasted sprites drawing the detail on about 5 feet ahead of you and the effect is somewhat ruined.

Controls 3/10
Standard GTA-clone fare really. Shoulder buttons control firing and vehicle acceleration, jump, the usual. Lock-on mostly consists of waving left and right tapping L2 until a hostile is targeted. The big letdown is the context-sensitive stunt buttons. Depending on your precise situation, these can ake you jump on top of your car, jump to another car, deploy your parachute, jump to the roadside or interact with save points and first aid kits. The problem is that when you do these, your usually doing it so fast that you end up completely messing up. Jumping into the path of your pursuer for instant death rather than leaping across, kicking out the driver and hightailing it away in his jeep.

Sound 5/10
Someone obviously never told Avalanche that variety is the spice of life. There appear to be 4 songs in this game. The title music (very good) and 2 driving tunes and an action tune (all very dull). Expect stereotypical Spanish guitar with an over-zealous drummer.

Speech is limited. Rico is mostly mute during the game, speaking rarely, even in cutscenes, but the voice is about as Latino as you would expect. Then there's the stereotypical American field briefing guy who sounds good, which is nice because he says the most, and a very bland female sidekick.

Walking the streets. don't surprised to hear the same comments multiple times in 5 minutes. As with a lot of this game 'repetitive' is the key word. Spanish villagers saying the usual 'comedy pedestrian' stuff.

The guns sound really weedy, which help detarct even more from a very limited experince, and the cars all sound like they have 1930s engines under the bonnet.

Gameplay 4/10
The best way to review gameplay fairly is to break into three sections: Mundane, Vehicle and Stunt

The mundane stuff is your basic movement and shooting. Don't expect any surprises here. Lock on means you could play this game in a coma and still emerge victorious. Just keep tapping L2 and waving left and right until the lock on appears and fire in their general direction. The game does the rest for you. An abundance of health kits along with the increasingly (and worryingly) popular concept of a health bar that can regenerate a bit when in trouble means gunfights are rarely, if ever, a challenge. You'll have a harder fighting the vehicle controls than you will the government hordes.

The vehicle controls are sluggish, with regular fishtails, spin-outs and jammings between a rock and a tree. The computer as a worrying habit of spinning you out when it even looks in your direction. And aircraft travel is so boring it's not worth the effort of finding one.

The stunts are a nice touch, but it feels unfinished. Utilising a grappling hook, you can grab cars and parachute behind them. So far so good. The problem comes when you actually try to DO anything from this position. Reeling yourself into the car works, but trying to jump on the car from the parachute tends to result in you jumping on top if a completely different car 100 feet away. And actually trying to grapple a car from the air is lucky dip, due to the appalling auto-lock on.

Story 2/10
Overthrow the regime for the CIA. Move along, nothing to see here. The story consist of 21 missions, making around 6-7 hours gameplay. The sidemissions seem to consist of 'Get a car and drive it here' 'Go here, shoot him, come back' and 'Go there, get that, drive back' repeated infinitly! I got the same 'Bring back a sedan' mission from three seperate people!

In summary, Just Cause tries to many things, and never pulls off any of them. Maybe if the team had spent more time developing and testing (there are some wicked game-killer bugs requiring a reset in here) and less time hyping, this could have been a game of the year contender. As it is, it feels unfinished and rushed. Maybe they were worried about it being lost in the usual Xmas run-up, who knows?

If your interested in a game with action, explosions, vehicles and regime change, go buy Mercenaries. It might not be bigger, but it's longer, better and more satisfying.

3/10 - Just Awful

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/06