Just Cause casts you in the role of a covert agent sent to a fictional
Caribbean island dictatorship with orders to foster a revolution. The premise
alone makes this game sound cool but it’s the gameplay that looks like it may
make the game a winner. First of all the game’s scope is huge. The entire
island, all 250,000 acres of it, is completely accessible allowing you to go
anywhere. You can drive to the next town, fly to a distant mountaintop, or even
walk the entire length of the island (if you have a lot of time to kill). The
island is also home to over 300 towns and villages, each of which is populated
by the locals, patrolled by the army, and whose streets are filled with traffic.
You’ll need to help the revolution take control of these towns, creating a
domino effect as one province after another shakes itself free from the
dictator’s control and leads you closer to the capital and the dictator himself.
The game itself is a third-person action game in which you make use of a
variety of weapons to help the revolution defeat the island’s army. Just Cause
will let you take control of any vehicle in the game, from a beat-up pickup
truck to an armored vehicle. In addition to the motor vehicles, you’ll be able
to take control of boats and aircraft. The aircraft range from single engine
small planes to fighters and even airliners.
Just Cause also features “stunt options” that not only look cool but really
open up the gameplay as well. Some of the stunts shown at E3 included skydiving,
parasailing, and wing walking on a light plane. One sequence really demonstrated
how the stunts can be used to complete missions. A plane was used to reach a
convoy at which point the player jumped from the plane. He directed his
parachute to bring him close to one of the vehicles and then fired a grappling
hook to attach himself to it. He then reeled himself in, forced his way into the
car, and took control of it. And this is just one way to go about this mission –
you can approach it in almost any way that you can think of.
Just Cause really stood out as an original game that gives the player a lot
of freedom in pursuing the game’s missions or in just exploring the island. Look
for the game to be released in Fall 2006. I know I’m looking forward to being
let loose on the island – viva la revolución!
