Just Cause

One of the first games that introduced me to the sandbox open-world genre was Just Cause. Ever since I first played the game, I have had nothing but nostalgic thoughts when it comes to the first title in the series. But I recently thought to pick it up again and see if it still holds up. So here is my retrospective review on Avalanche Studios' first game, Just Cause on the Xbox 360:

Just Cause Review (Xbox 360)

Synopsis

Taking place on the fictional Caribbean nation of San Esperito, Just Cause centers around top-secret agent Rico Rodriguez as he is sent into the country to topple the government and remove the president of San Esperito. Along the way, Rico is given plenty of assistance - including his handlers Tom Sheldon and Maria Kane, as well as from local contacts such as the Guerrillas and the Rioja drug cartel. Generally Just Cause's storyline is not very special, so don't expect any stand-out moments. If you view the story merely as a homage to standard, Hollywood blockbuster action flicks then you'll somewhat tolerate the story here.

Setting

The game takes place in San Esperito, which is an island nation located in the heart of the Caribbean. Because the game is open world, Just Cause allows you to fully explore this massive open-world environment. The map is uniquely diverse, and offers many different locations for you to explore including dense tropical jungles, large urban cities and rural farming communities. For an early Xbox 360 game, the map is extremely impressive even by today's standards and looks absolutely amazing - especially from the air!

Gameplay

The gameplay of Just Cause revolves around third-person shooting and driving around a massive open world environment. Throughout the game's short story missions, you are usually expected make your way to a location to shoot some bad guys, then go somewhere else. Then you are rewarded with a cutscene and maybe a safehouse or a unique vehicle.

Aside from that you can also take part in Liberation missions, which task you to shoot a few bad guys in a settlement or villa, blow up some barricades and then either click A next to a flag or shoot another, slightly more powerful bad guy. There are quite a few of these Liberation missions, that aren't significant to plot progression but are for achievement collecting. They are also important when it comes to building relations with the two prominent factions of San Esperito - the Rioja cartel and the Guerrillas. The more points you get from each faction, the higher you rank up and get more vehicles, weapons and safehouses throughout the open world.

You can also participate in side missions as well, of which the game boasts over 300 of them. However, don't expect much in variety as they require you to go from point A to B just to collect something or shoot someone. It's very grindy, and might put some people off from doing post-game content. As a result of the amount of vehicles on offer in Just Cause, the game allows you to take part in racing missions. However none of these missions require any particular vehicle or have any AI racing with you, and you can just do all of them easily with the gyrocopter.

The most iconic weapon Rico has in his arsenal, the grappling hook, is not a main gameplay feature in the original Just Cause. You cannot use the grappling hook to tether objects, or traverse across the map like you would in Just Cause 2. Instead, you can only use the grappling hook to tether onto vehicles and either parasail off or hijack them. Heck, you have to select it from the weapon menu! It's obvious that they didn't think that the grappling hook would be the main focus of the Just Cause series like it would be today.

Like it's other open-world counterparts, Just Cause has a heat system. Where if you do something illegal in front of authorities, they will reign fire upon you until you escape from their grasp. However the heat system in Just Cause is very broken and police officers / militia will come after you for no real reason. And sometimes, the higher heat levels don't necessarily mean that the authorities will come after you at all. It's simply a mess.

Just Cause has a huge amount of glitches, some are game-breaking, some are graphical and all of them have never been patched since the game came out in 2006. Take for example when you stand on top of your vehicle in stunt mode, but honk the horn of your car, the game instantly crashes and forces you to reset the console. And the glitch where planes and helicopters can go through water like it doesn't exsist.

When it comes to Just Cause's gameplay, if you're coming to this game with the mindset of more Just Cause 2 then you will be very disappointed. See this game as a basis for what the series would become.

Graphics

Although it also came out for PS2 and Xbox, Just Cause has extremely dated graphics even on the Xbox 360. The game sort of looks like a slightly better version of Grand Theft Auto III. Rico's character model looks sort-of out-of-place with the rest of the game's character models, many of the animations look hilarious and the cutscenes look like they were ripped out of a PS1 cutscene. However, the environment of the game world still look absolutely amazing.

Audio

Just Cause's soundtrack is surprisingly extensive. In fact, there are quite a lot of tracks for Just Cause (about 45 in total according to YouTube). However you end up hearing the same 8 or 9 tracks in the open-world. The soundtrack is solid, it is reminiscent of Latino-style music mixed in with more tense-sounding beats and rhythms. The most iconic track in the game would have to be the sky music, which you hear when you are gliding in the air (and is the first track you hear when the game gives control to you). This track is very relaxing to hear when you are thousands of feet from the surface, it's a shame it didn't return to some extent in the other Just Cause games. The soundtrack is very interesting stuff to listen to, and probably where the root of my nostalgia for this game lies.

The voice work of Just Cause is mediocre at worst, but interesting at best. Some of the voice actors who worked on this game went on to do games in the Uncharted series. Robin Atkin Downes plays Rico Rodriguez, and Richard McGonagle portrays Tom Sheldon. Both of these actors would return to work with each other on the Uncharted series. So in essence, you could view the Just Cause games as precursors of Uncharted. Aside from Downes and McGonagle, there is no one else really worthy of credit to discuss.

Conclusion

Just Cause was the blueprint for what would be a bombastic sandbox game series. And for being the first game that introduced me to the series, it had many ideas that weren't fleshed out enough that made it into the immensely popular sequel. However the nostalgia of this game is still there for me, as it takes me back to my childhood. My final rating for this game is a 3/5 stars.