First of all, let me begin by informing you just what you’ll read on the cover when you enter your local store & see this title on the shelf (here in the UK anyway).
‘Just Cause is bigger than GTA & better than Oblivion. Dive into the best game yet on the Xbox360’. One of those three statements is true and two are complete utter barefaced lies.
Can you guess which ones they are before I continue?
Just Cause is what is termed a sandbox adventure. This particular one is set in some remote South American archipelago. Your task is to liberate these said islands from its current evil dictatorship which you perform by hijacking vehicles and by shooting people (as is the solution in all sandbox adventure games naturally).
The game world is incredibly big, big as in it would more than likely take you a whole real life day to walk/swim one end to the other. While this is the games selling point it also ends up becoming one of its biggest weaknesses. The majority of the world looks like it was made with such programs as ‘speed tree’ with barely any distinguishing features between the different islands. There isn’t any load times due to the dynamic loading system, but this is a standard feature nowadays and much more impressive in games such as GTA or Oblivion where there’s content to actually see.
The other side effect of the world size is that it’s a pain the ass to actually get where you want to go on the map. Cars, bikes anything short of something that flies above trees is completely pointless in the game (and not only due to the terrible handling physics!).
Another selling feature of the game is its stunt system. This equates to being able to para glide, grapple, free fall, car-surf and other such activities. While amusing the first time you load the game it unfortunately gets old really rather quickly. It’s also more than often completely useless in terms of completing your assigned missions.
The core game missions are incredibly easy & also criminally short (5 hours main story). This is aided by the fact that the enemy can’t seem to hit you with their gun fire if you move, an ultra forgiving lock-on system which nearly guarantees you can’t miss & that the fallen enemies drop health packs by the bucket load. Basically the game AI is terrible, even more-so once inside a vehicle.From not being able to shoot you on foot, once inside a car you’ll barely last 10 seconds without being fishtailed or rammed into the nearest tree. It again adds weight to the fact that driving anything other than a plane or a helicopter is a fruitless & un-enjoyable venture.
There are a handful of sub-missions. But the sheer lack of thought that was put into them and also that it’s linked to get certain achievements almost makes you want to cry. All I can say is that you’ll be doing some of them 50 times or more. That is 50 times of exactly the same thing over and over again. If this is Avalanches vision of a good time then god help us all if Just Cause 2 does actually get finished.You get the feeling that the game was rushed out to be the first sandbox game on the 360 (which I believe was beaten by Saints Row anyway).
As a result all the extra development time that are put into ‘good’ sandbox games such as GTA are missing. A nice idea by all means, ruined by terrible AI and an awful game experience. Finally, no it’s not better than Oblivion.
Paw Rating : 2/5
Good: Huge landscape, interesting game mechanics, stunning scenery, budget price.
Bad: Terrible AI, lacklustre story, horrendous controls, short story.
No comments:
Post a Comment