Just Cause

"A GTA clone which may be worth your time."

Just Cause, like a few other games, is a GTA clone. JC takes the premise of GTA (a massive free roaming world, mission based game play etc), and tries to make it a bit more interesting. Whilst JC is no way near the quality of the GTA games, JC is a pretty good attempt.

The story is fairly simple. The game is set on a fictional tropical island, where the government is pretty much corrupt. Rico, who you play as, is sent in to start a revolution and over throw the government. Through out the game you will complete missions to help with this goal. Thats pretty much it really, with a game like JC you don't really expect a proper story, and JC doesn't have one. You arrive, you over throw the government, and thats pretty much it.

Game play, like mentioned before, is like that of GTA. Once you arrive on the island you're greeted with a simple mission. Once you complete it, you're free to explore the massive island. I forget just exactly how big it is, but the island is big, its massive, its insanely huge. Flying from one side to the other will take ages, never mind running! You can simply continue with the story missions, these invlove capturing certain towns or stations, to saving key figures of the resistance, or simply killing key figures of the government. The missions are fairly easy and the main story can be completed in about 5-10 hours easily if you just concentrate on the missions. Whilst the missions aren't boring, they aren't particularly varied, nor are they extremely exciting. Apart from this, there are a few things you can do. Collect Missions are scattered through out the whole island, these simply require you to collect items from around the island. The map shows you where these items are however, so you're never stuck trying to find where they are, but it still takes a long time to collect them all since there are about 10 different collect missions. You can also complete races which are fairly easy, I just used a small helicopter (I forgot what they're actually called, but im sure you know what I mean) to win the races easily (no fuss with the roads really). You can also take over small towns and even cities, you run in with a group of resistance members and take control of the city by destroying barriers and advancing toward the flag. You can also complete side-quests, there are an infinite amount of these, you can simply talk to the same guy and do them over and over. Whilst they're different every time, that doesn't stop it repeating old ones over and over, you simply collect items or kill certain targets, they're fairly boring, the rewards you gain from them are fairly rubbish too, the main benefit from completing side-quests are the achievements. It probably already sounds like there isn't much to do, and there isn't. The island is massive, but there isn't much content in there. I managed to get all the achievements in the game (essentially 100% complete) in about 20 hours, which isn't too bad, but considering the island size, they could have done a lot more. The only other thing different is the stunt system. Rico can jump on top of cars, hop to other cars, grapple onto vehicles and even jump out of a helicopter, through the rotor and some how stand on top. Its pretty fun and cool considering you always have a parachute. I feel I should mention a little glitch (maybe), standing on top of a car in stunt position, if a helicopter is just above you, get it right and you can actually jump from the car all the way up to the helicopter, which is obviously impossible, but actually very helpful in-game.

The graphics aren't too bad. Whilst you can see the PS2 quality in some aspects, the lighting and tropical seas are really good, it looks like a mix of last gen and current gen (I guess its current gen at time of writing at least).The animation wasn't too good however, Rico's running animation isn't exactly great, and some other animation looks a little stiff. There isn't much music but it fits the scene pretty well, although the name of the music currently escapes my mind. Voice acting was alright but it sounded a little dodgy at some points, and the sound effects are alright.

If you're a big fan of GTA and can't get enough until GTA IV comes out (which isn't too long at time of writing), Just Cause may be of your interest. It will be pretty cheap now too, and whilst there isn't much content (apart from a massive, but empty, game world), the game play is solid and pretty fun, JC will give you quite a few hours of enjoyment.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/08

Game Release: Just Cause (EU, 09/22/06)