Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

I think back almost three years now to a private booth showing from Eidos.  They had a then-untitled game that featured an incredibly large island that players could travel across in a Grand Theft Auto style while they instigated and orchestrated an uprising against the local government.  The game was as serious as the subject matter, and it looked pretty fantastic for a work in progress.

Fast forward to the release of Just Cause for the Xbox 360.  Something has happened in the years since I last saw the title – the game has become a near parody of the former design!  What were the designers thinking?!  I can tell you what they were thinking – they were thinking El Mariachi, GTA on Human Growth Hormone, and a dash of ridiculous might make for a great game!  Don your Sombrero, it is time to head South for a closer look at the very expansive Just Cause.

The easiest way to determine what the graphics for Just Cause look like is to simply download the demo from the Xbox Live Marketplace.  When I fired up the game I immediately flashed back a few years to the demonstration that I saw – other than a heavy dose of light bloom the game looked exactly the same.  This lack of detail is prevalent in the animation, texture modeling, lip synch, CGI, and essentially the game as a whole.  In short, the game sat in the cooker too long for its own good. 

This isn’t to say that the whole game looks bad, there are some bright points that will really catch your eye.  Hop into a speedboat and look below the boat - you’ll see fish, coral, and clear blue water.  Hop into a helicopter and cruise over the island and you’ll see an incredible amount of tree cover that seems to stretch forever.  Set off into the deep jungle with a motorcycle and you’ll find that you are completely alone in an area that is densely populated with grass, bushes, tree canopy, and environmental effects. 

Speaking of effects, there is one area that gets the royal treatment and then some – light bloom.  While the lighting engine is top shelf, the application of light bloom is a bit overboard.  While it does mask some of the issues with the graphics, it also adds to the near-comic look of the game.

Halt! Policia!  It makes sense when you hear it in the middle of a firefight with police in tow.  It doesn’t make any sense when you are miles into the jungle and all alone.  Just Cause has some odd sound glitches that crop up constantly.  Some examples might be voices that cut off, sound effects that won’t stop, or the most irritating set of boots I’ve ever heard being ten times louder than anything else. 

The soundtrack of the game is a great blend of Latin beats mixed with modern rock and electronica.  The blend is actually pretty cool, and while there are few tracks, they don’t become irritating.  After many hours with the game I still enjoy the opening track. 

On the other side of the sound spectrum is the voice acting in Just Cause.  The main character is a bad facsimile of Antonio Banderas, trying to sound smooth but sounding creepy in the process.  On the other hand, your handler Sheldon sounds like a smart ass who has obviously been running the government disruption game for a long time.  He enjoys his work, and has no trouble sending you on suicide missions with a laugh and a chug of his wine.  His sidekick Kane sounds as ridiculous as she acts, leaving no room for you to become attached to her character.  Similarly, nearly every character you encounter is a cartoon version of themselves.  If you buy into this being a government uprising, then it doesn’t fit.  If you buy into this being how a government uprising might be in a cartoon, then it fits.

The controls in Just Cause are fairly simple.  Your left trigger throws grenades, the right trigger fires your weapons.  The face buttons allow you to jump, use items, or activate items in the various game menus.  Thumbing the D-Pad left or right selects weapons, including mines and the grappling hook.  It is also a sore point with the controls as the menu does not wrap, meaning you have to backtrack if you need a particular weapon.  You can only hold a few weapons, so you won’t have to cycle far, but it is a nuisance nonetheless. 

The grappling hook in the game allows you to latch on to any moving vehicle, activating your parachute to pull you into the air.  You can latch on to airborne vehicles including helicopters and airplanes with the grappling hook as well.  Using your triggers you can reel yourself to the vehicle which will allow you to take control of the vehicle, or perform aerial stunts.  While the grapple system is rather glitchy, it is the best part of the control mechanic.  This brings me to the ground vehicles.

The ground vehicles in this game control in the most bizarre way possible.  Some vehicles that you’d expect to have a good hold on the ground below squirrel around like you are on ice.  Other vehicles that you’d expect would be all over the place stick to the road like glue.  You can save vehicles in the various strongholds you capture, so finding a vehicle you like for ground travel and storing it for later is paramount.  Honestly though, you will probably do what I do half the time and simply piss of the locals until a helicopter comes to investigate.  It’s like an aerial taxi that likes to try to kill you. 

There are a total of 21 missions in the primary plot thread of the game.  They can be as simple as delivering supplies to a drug lord, or as complex as assaulting a military compound defended by surface to air missiles and tanks.  You can go on a metric ton of side missions to help fund your liberation campaign with weapons and vehicles, but they are not required to complete the game.  In fact, very little is actually required in Just Cause.  The game purports itself as a political uprising game, but in short it is a giant sandbox with a mission thrown in here or there. 

The island of San Espirito is huge.  It can take literally a half an hour to go from one tip of the island to the other if you are flying a prop driven plane.  A jet is a little faster.  Getting to the other end in a car?  Forget it.  There is an expansive world for you to explore, and there is literally no boundary beyond taking the time to get there.  You can’t skip ahead and unlock strongholds and houses that you haven’t earned through service to the two factions in the game, but you can certainly get there without trouble.  There are no invisible walls holding you in a particular area. 

The side missions are fairly simple.  You can start a minor revolution to help capture a particular area.  This will yield a friendly zone for you, as well as some faction points for the particular group you are working with.  As you liberate the island, you’ll be promoted within the faction.  These promotions give you access to new boats, planes, helicopters, motorcycles, trucks, cars, and even a gyrocopter.  By completing the primary missions you’ll earn the ability to air drop a motorcycle, truck, boat, or gyrocopter, complete with machine guns and missiles.

The missions in Just Cause try to be many things.  They play at destabilizing the local government, they play at being important, but it never really feels like you are the moving force behind the revolution.  My experience with the game was more a degeneration into the same mission over and over.  I’d get assigned some mission, it really never mattered, I’d hijack a helicopter or use one of my own, I’d fly to the mission, use death from above tactics on my enemies, and come in for a quick landing to accomplish whatever objective was required.  Given the abundant health and near unlimited ammunition it is almost impossible to die.  Don’t jump on grenades or suck face with a rocket and you’ll be fine.  You can do timed ‘race’ missions, as well but you’d have to be a sadist to want to race with these physics.

Overall, the game is too easy and doesn’t quite accomplish the goal of immersing you in a guerilla warfare regime change.  That said, the open area nature of the game is a blast to play in, and since the side quests can be played over and over, you can simply hop into the game, jack a helicopter, and whip some El Presidente butt at your leisure.  The game is better than the sum of its parts, or the sum of its faults.

As I mentioned above, there are 21 missions in the primary storyline.  You can knock it out in roughly 6 to 7 hours.  The side missions are fairly simple and fall into a few categories.  Most of the side mission threads start off with a revolution, meaning you have to kill some people, blow up three roadblocks, and then change the flag in the area.  Other missions have you performing FedEx duties with packages.  Speaking of packages, you can also do collection missions that involve picking up drugs, chips, or the like.  They show up as blue dots on your map, so it isn’t exactly hard to accomplish. Once you’ve done a few of these, you’ll know the drill.  Unfortunately you’ll be doing a lot more of the same if you want to rise to the top ranks of the cartels, or you want some of the achievements.  The variety is clearly lacking, so I suspect that most people won’t bother with them after a short while.  I’d expect the average play time for this title to be close to 12 hours or less, making the replay value fairly low.Just Cause had a somewhat lengthy development cycle. The results are a game that delivers on some promises while completely losing sight of others. The overall gameplay is fun, but a few bugs tend to frustrate the experience. Graphically the game feels like a system launch title – not quite up to snuff with many of the titles that are coming out in the next three months, but not quite previous generation. On the other hand, the game is just inexplicable comic fun. At $49.99, the asking price is less than any other new Xbox 360 title, and it might just warrant your attention. Download the demo from the Marketplace and see if inciting revolution is your thing.

Gaming Trend Score

76

1. Graphics: 75
2. Audio: 75
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 80
5. Value/Replay: 60
6. OVERALL:76