Review: Just Cause (360)

If you're old enough to remember the movie Spinal Tap, a parody of the heavy-metal lifestyle, you must of course remember the famous "these speakers go up to eleven" bit, which is the perfect analogy to begin a review of Just Cause. In fact, Gamestyle thinks that Nigel Tufnel would be an excellent PR representative for the game, saying that it cranks sand-box actions games up to eleven, before a cocky games journalist mentions that instead on focusing on eleven, they should have made sure ten worked properly.

Things start off great, with main character Rico Rodriguez (the most stereotypical Latin American name for an action star ever) parachuting onto the island of San Esperito, a pastiche of Cuba, arriving right in the middle of a chaotic fire fight and blasting his way out of there with his CIA boss in tow. Explosions fill the screen as police cars, military jeeps, motorbikes and helicopters descend on your jeep and you blow them off the road and out of the sky, taking almost no damage. For such an impressive opening sequence, you'd expect the rest of the game to follow suit, which it does, though not always to its merit.

Positively, Just Cause is one of the most over-the-top action games in years, mainly down to the fact that Rico is completely and utterly invincible. While enemy AI is nothing special (aside from the suicidal and rather successful attempts to ram you off the road in car chases), we doubt enemies would be able to defeat Rico even if they all had MENSA level intelligence, due to his superhuman level of endurance. Whether it be getting blown up, shot, or falling from three miles high and deploying the parachute at the last minute, Rico seems to suffer little damage, and if he does, health packs are plentiful.

However, because of this lack of reality surrounding the main character's mortality, it allows players to do impossible things, such as leap from a speeding car, grapple to a passing helicopter, abseil behind, then commandeer it to destroy an enemy base before spectacularly crashing it into the ground. While allusions to Grand Theft Auto can be made, Just Cause feels so different, it's hard to compare the two. Sure, you can steal tanks and cars in both games, but Just Cause lets you do it James Bond style and in a far more beautiful setting than any GTA game has managed.

Quite simply, Just Cause is stunningly beautiful in all areas of visual perception. The island paradise of San Esperito is the type of place where you could retire to... minus the non-stop war between government and rebel forces. The sun shines magnificently on the beautiful white beaches as you plummet towards them, Rico's shirt rippling realistically from the air rushing past him. While Gamestyle has seen one or two games that have more impressive graphics, few come to mind that have been used to create such a pleasing tropical paradise.

However, beneath the extreme sports/spy action and stunning scenery lies faults that mar the gameplay experience. While the main story missions of Just Cause are fun and pleasing, there simply aren't enough of them, causing the main story mode to be completed in about ten to fifteen hours if they are all the player focuses on. Plus, they can be rather samey, usually of the "go there, destroy this" variety; however how you complete these missions is entirely up to you, though usually the most straightforward approach of going in guns blazing will work.

In an attempt to extend the game's lifespan, there are multiple side missions to complete for either the San Esperito guerrillas (helping them to take territory and make toppling the island's dictator slightly easier), or for a local crime syndicate (who also want this dictator out of the way). However, most of these missions centre around three common themes: retrieving an item, killing a specific character, or helping to liberate a town or stronghold from the government and rival criminal organisations. Gamestyle gave up on the side missions after liberating the seventh town, with many more left to be freed, as it just became so repetitive it didn't seem worth the effort. Considering the rest of the game was completed with ease, it seemed the right decision.

Just Cause is also one of the buggiest games Gamestyle has ever played, which certainly makes it seem publisher Eidos was desperate to get the game out to counter the event of Saints Row, the Xbox 360's other sand-box stop-gap until GTA IV arrives. Many times Gamestyle would see pedestrians appear out of nowhere, or soldiers doing the same and stacked on top of each other, or, most annoyingly, your own allies turning on Rico for no earthly reason - and these are the ones that don't cause the game to crash. With a lot more play-testing, Just Cause could have easily over-shadowed Saints Row with its sheer ambition; unfortunately these bugs really do take away from the game's enjoyment.

However, if you can look past the bugs, brevity and repetitive nature of Just Cause, there is a lot to enjoy for the action enthusiast: abseiling behind speeding cars, insane parachute drops, massive amounts of gunplay and beautiful graphics to name just a few features. It may be GTA-inspired, but Just Cause manages to distance itself enough to feel like its own game.

Rating: 7 / 10

Words by Garry Webber