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| Just Cause |
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| Action |
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| Avalanche Studios |
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| Eidos |
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21st September 06 |
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26th September 06 |
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16+ |
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(M) - Mature |
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In Just Cause you play as uber-slick secret agent Rico Rodriguez, it is your primary objective to bring peace to San Esperito; this will be accomplished by eliminating corrupt government officials and their associates. The fight for justice and the battle for freedom begins.
Just Cause is easily comparable to Grand Theft Auto, however Just Cause offers so much more in game play terms. The game world is over 1,024 sq kilometers, which can be explored by any way you see fit. Rico will travel through the game through the many mountains, jungles, beaches and villages on foot, in a vehicle, boat or perhaps the more scenic routes of flying a helicopter and sky diving.
Stunts, stunts and more stunts is what can best describe one of the game’s unique features. The over the top stunts in Just Cause are what I personally think will help it stand tall instead of just being considered another GTA clone. The fact that the game’s main setting is on a tropical island instead of a busy city will also go some way to achieving that goal.
During the demo you can simply explore the mesmerizing island or follow the game’s missions and have your self a nice killing spree and then finish the majority of the rebel forces off by running them down with a truck before jumping onto the hood of the vehicle as it goes over a cliff; and just before you plummet to your death remember to release your parachute. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Well perhaps not at first, though it's certainly not difficult but some stunts require more timing and patience than others. Just Causes’ overall presentation and draw distance is excellent and you can hear birds tweeting and you can see them flying past Rico in the thickness of the jungle. When your in the sea you can see the ripples in the water as it sways and when you're submerged the rays of light sort of beams through the water giving a weird sense of realism. there are also fish which tend to swim closely to Rico, all of which adds to the fact that wherever this island is (if it even exists) you want to go on holiday at this place for real - just without the guns and explosions obviously.
The graphics of the surrounding areas are excellent, the one thing that looks a bit dodgy are the character models themselves, Rico looks reasonable at best, but nothing spectacular and the enemy models are also some what lackluster. The enemy AI is fine, as enemy rebels will run in and out of cover as they try to take you down, but they are no match as the demo is far too easy to run through without getting killed. Hopefully the final game will be somewhat more challenging with different difficulty options being available. The only gripe I have with the demo is the controls, which I found to be not to be very responsive; Rico's jump animation also appears sluggish.
Shooting enemies is easy enough but not intuitive as I expected. Just Cause has an auto lock-on feature which seems to work fine most of the time but not so good at other times. Also, jumping from the hood of a car to another one sounds like a simple task, but it’s more about timing; the game’s sluggish controls don't help the cause and I hope they will be tweaked by the time the retail version is released in September.
Just Cause is one of those games that has the potential to be a big hit, I feel that it needs more work on the controls and certain parts of the game play to make it more enjoyable to play. The overall presentation is bang on the money with beautiful beaches and jungles and believable villages and a decent sunny sky for those all important air stunts. If the game play was right then it'd be a top recommendation, hopefully the developers will fine tune this before release. The only other thing letting the game down is the fact that there is no online support via Xbox Live, so the only thing really adding replay value is going to be the game’s Xbox 360 Achievements.
Regardless of the good and the bad points, Just Cause will be popular amongst free roaming fans as the game offers such an incredible amount of space to travel and there are so many interesting and diverse-insane ways in which to travel. As the game is also being released on Xbox and PS2 I was expecting another rundown port from the last-gen consoles, this does not appear to be the case as Just Case on Xbox 360 looks excellent for the most part. It will be interesting to see though how the Xbox and PS2 versions fair up against the next generation version?
Get your taste of the tropical island of San Esperito in the form of the Just Cause demo which is on the Xbox Live Marketplace now (632mb). The full game is due on the 22nd of September in Europe and the 26th in the US.
Click here for Just Cause movies and click b>here for Just Cause screenshots.
Preview By: Wayne Julian
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