You play as an undercover CIA agent named Rico Rodriguez and the gist of the game is that you’ve got to infiltrate the rogue (and fictitious) South American island, San Esperito and overthrow the naughty government. In a way, Rico actually resembles James Bond. He’s described as flamboyant and has a wide range of moves and abilities at his disposal. In the demo, we were tasked with the assassination of four major militiary personnel before the sun sets.
Getting to them is actually quite a blast. You start off by parachuting towards your first target. He’s being chartered in a car and if you’re able to get a grip on the controls soon enough, you’ll be able land on his car and take care of him very quickly. Otherwise, it’s left to you to catch up to him by the token car jacking methods. However, a new aspect added to the game is that of stunt moves. Press a button and Rico lines up in a stunt position, such as on top of the car, and (if your timing is good) you can jump to another vehicle. All important personnel are heavily guarded so you shouldn’t have any trouble picking up weapons.
Hurling yourself down chasms can be exhilarating.
The next target is a short drive away but he’s hauled himself up behind several barricades. Here, you team up with the local guerillas, they provide you with grenades and back-up while you go in all guns blazing. The third target is a bit further away and as you approach, he’ll take off in a helicopter. Obviously, you hop into another helicopter as well a give chase. The helicopter is armed with some heavy weaponry but you’re advised to be quick, as the target will be protected by stationary gun turrets.
The final target is even further away and we decided to take the breezy route. In our helicopter we flew as high as we could and popped out into our stunt position, which had us holding onto the helicopters tail. Then, we freefell all the way to our next destination. This happened to be a port and we were given a prototype boat (with homing missiles, of course) that we used to eliminate a few of the remaining nasties. In general, the control scheme held up reasonably well, even though it played a lot like GTA. Most moves could be pulled off at the press of a button and when on foot, you could click the right thumb-stick button to go into an over-the-shoulder aiming perspective.
So what does the game do right? Well, the sense of exhilaration that can be experienced as you freefall and parachute or when you are traveling in some of the faster vehicles, is something that has been rarely achieved in games. Furthermore, we were confined to a rather small portion of the entire map but even this small portion was quite huge. The entire map will surely be something for sandbox gamers to behold. That, and even though we got no real insight into Rico’s character, he has the moves that we would’ve liked Bond to have in some of his games. Despite a persistance of unplausible actions, such as boat-jacking and the mysterious parachute dissappearance, this is a video-game after all.
Fire power in the game is unlikely to be an issue.
However, there are a few areas of the game that were a cause for concern. The stunt controls are something that players will probably take some time to get used to. They aren’t exactly sharp and leave little margin for error. The AI, both enemy and friendly is downright moronic. We’d throw a grenade at a barricade, only to watch out allies charge and get themselves blown up. Enemies aren’t much brighter, often turning their back on us or mindlessly charging at us and getting stuck in that position. The heavy police and protection presence became quite annoying because they don’t put up much of a fight. They simply barge you and stand and fire at annoyingly regular intervals. The other thing is that we’re afraid that the game won’t build far enough on its advantages and “borrow” too much from similar games.
The game didn’t have much of a soundtrack and it is being adapted across generations so we will reserve our judgment on the game’s presentation.
The thing that was most striking about Just Cause was that oozed with potential. It is definitely endearing enough to have a chance of reaching this potential and the sheer size of the game ought to appeal to the fans of open-ended games. However, the game is left in the shadow of a few, rather glaring hitches that may not get to be addressed. We're hoping that they are.
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