Better than GTA? almost certainly!
Just cause is a fast paced third person gta alike, with a twist. Rather than the usual cause as much purposeless crime as you can to annoy rival gang/gangs, Just cause allows you to incite crime and aid guerrillas and a drug cartel in order to bring down a recently self-elected and heavily corrupt dictator. You do this by completing missions for ‘The Agency’, along with liberating various villages and cities for the guerrillas and rioja drug cartel. All this, plus a literally humongous fictional island that would easily take an hour (real time) to get across in any land vehicle, and absolutely phenomenally good graphics, the like of which rival any other game released before or since.
The main missions are kept simple and varied, and make use of all of the island and its facilities. Without giving too much away, some of the objectives include setting a guerrilla commander free and destroying power plants, along with many others. The game has a slight comedy twist that also helps keep the game interesting. Side missions are not as varied and interesting, and if you want to increase your rank with the guerrillas or the riojas you will find yourself doing the same things over and over again, but there are plenty of different ways to go about them, and with all of the vehicles on offer, you are sure to find a way to make it fun.
Everyone should own this game!
One of the major ups of the game is your ability to both freefall from great heights and use a convenient parachute as often as you want, these enable for some cool stunts, like jumping from vehicle to vehicle, or when coupled with the grappling gun, hijacking vehicles that you could not normally get to. This is something no game that I know of has attempted before or since, and is one of the many things that makes just cause so unique and brilliant.
It comes as a letdown after the so far brilliant review that the game is filled with flaws and glitches. A video on the Internet shows a few of these, but I will list a few of them anyway. If Rico (you) dies underwater, when you choose to continue the game, he will rise up through the map and out of the ground, which is very weird. You can also fly aeroplanes underwater without them exploding, provided that you don’t hit anything. You can call in extraction to safe houses under water or under ground, and the helicopter will still come and pick you up, but in the middle of a city, extraction is always unavailable. These are just a few of the many glitches I have found, but none of them seriously affect the as glitches in other games like Driv3r have (I used to love the place in driv3r where you could drive straight through the ground and the island appeared above your head upside down) and the game is still worth buying despite the bugs and glitches.
All in all, Just Cause has a few bugs and niggles, but all of its other brilliances more than make up for them. The games missions are varied and interesting and explore the whole of the island, and the graphics are mind blowing. Just cause is a thrill trip from beginning to end, and is packed full of things to keep the player interested for days, and once you have finally managed to find that last collect item or capture that last military base, you can just start again and it will still be just as enjoyable as the first time around. This game really deserves a 10, but unfortunately, the glitches bring it down to a 9. Everyone should own this game!
The Bad: numerous bugs and glitches
Gold Y Award