JUST CAUSE THE GAME DVD TALK REVIEW FOR XBOX 360

It seems the Grand Theft Auto checklist of features oozes into a variety of games these days. Just Cause happens to strongly carbon copy most of those features in its Latin American take on an open free-roaming world. Perhaps the strongest element of Just Cause is based in their unrealistic, but highly entertaining physics system which allows for crazy stunt based maneuvers such as grappling to moving helicopters or leaping from vehicle to vehicle. Just Cause also takes a page from Mercenaries / The Outfit and allows the player to call for vehicles drops including a motorcycle, mini-gyro copter, and a speedboat. The storyline centers on a federal agent, by the authentically stereotypical name of Rico Rodriguez, and his mission to overthrow the monarchy of a corrupt Latin American government on a tiny Caribbean island. Along the way, Rico is given CIA Intel briefings from Sheldon, a fat white guy similar to James Bond's American contact in Goldeneye, and Kane, a sultry blond chick who appear impervious to Rico's obvious charms. The evil dictator who runs the little island of San Esperito is hell-bent on keeping the resistance movement quelled, developing a WMD program, and causing various acts of genocidal insanity.

Gameplay: The main missions total up to 21 and are spread all over the map. They have to be completed in succession, but don't require much strategy to finish off. Mission objectives are often to assassinate a particular person or blow up two or three sections. The later missions are more entertaining, especially escaping certain areas before the timer runs out. For instance, one mission essentially reprograms a nuke to reposition its target path on the launching silo. Rico has to grab a nearby motorcycle, launch himself off a steep cliff, and parachute himself to a safe distance within 90 seconds. The majority of the time players will be able to complete missions on the first run-though, but a few problematic missions offer up a slight challenge.

If the main missions become tiresome, there is a vast world of side missions to complete. Street racing, collecting packages, regaining properties, and liberating provinces are the four main tasks as your disposal. Street racing is moderately entertaining, but certainly not to the level of any racing game. Collecting packages is a borefest as they are already marked on the map at the outset; no exploration required. Regaining Cartel properties is helpful as each property has a helicopter, but becomes overly repetitive after the umpteenth takeover. The same goes for liberating provinces as the mission structure is exactly the same for each takeover. Basically, Rico has to take out three blockades in the path of the rebel forces and raise the guerrilla flag. I'm shocked at the lack of variety within the sets of side missions.

Between missions, you can rest up at the nearest safe house. These houses are unlocked as you progress through the main missions as well as increasing your ranking with the rebel guerillas. These houses provide a place to recoup health, swap out weaponry, reload ammo supply, and save your game. Also, a vehicle is provided at most areas of varying quality dependent on your progress. The weaponry also increases in variety and power at the safe houses as you become more popular with the guerillas. Eventually, the higher powered sniper rifles and rocket launchers are unlocked for Rico's assault on San Esperito.

Your wanted level is broken into two meters; the San Esperito government and the reigning drug Cartel. Pissing off both factions is fairly simple to accomplish. Often, I found my meter rising just because I was passing though an unstable territory. As either meter rises to the maximum five notches, the amount of aggressive action taken against Rico increases. While a level one or two rating will only cause ground troops to frequently spawn, four or five will explode into a full assault of APCs, attack helicopters, and jets.

Ground based A.I. is overly simple to destroy due to one silly factor; they have no ability to target you on the ground while moving. As long as Rico continues to move, it's essentially a God mode. An occasional stray bullet will graze an appendage, but nothing more than a miniscule tick off the health meter. Alternatively, racing around in the sky in a plane or helicopter is a completely different matter. Enemy A.I. has an insane skill at targeting and shooting down your flying contraption within seconds. Continuing to move will help, but ultimately they always win. This also goes for land based driving as well. Enemy helicopters will hone in and send a missile up your car's tailpipe the second your vehicle comes to a complete stop. Overall, the A.I. could have used a larger amount of fine tuning to create a balanced challenge.

The achievements are split into the maximum 50 tasks for a cool 1000 gamerscore points. All of the points are awarded for single player tasks as there is no multiplayer mode within the game. The majority of the points are awarded for finishing the storyline and completely liberating the entire country. Other minor tasks such as collecting packages and street races will pump up the score a bit, but those are just small potatoes. None of the achievements are challenging in the least, but they do require a sizeable time investment. Competent players are looking at 30 to 40 hours to rack up all of those precious points.

Graphics: Visually, the game is more representative of the Xbox version than wholly coming into its own on the 360. While the Xbox 360 version is certainly the most clean and smoothest version, the motion blur effect is vastly overused and ruins an otherwise vividly colorful environment. The beauty of San Esperito is masked by an overly compensation blur to promote a high sense of speed. Standing still is the only true to take in the beauty of the lush, thick foliage and sprawling ocean.

Special effects such as explosions and water ripples are very well done. Watching a helicopter burst into burning wreckage and splash into the water is very entertaining. The frame rate stays pretty much rock solid during the majority of the game, but there is a point in the final mission that the game starts to chug along a bit due to the amount of action on the ground and the skies above. Loading times aren't horribly bad in Just Cause, but it's sad to see a complete lack of a quick loading feature.

Audio: The voiceovers aren't particularly memorable. Rico has the flair of Antonio Banderas, but with dialogue more appropriately penned for Telemundo's Comedy Variety Hour. Kane's actress portrays the hardened military chick moderately well, but the script fails again. The only real winner in the group is Sheldon. His arcane sense of humor meshes well with the various quips about the San Esperito's military program. Still, the voiceovers don't make much of an impression as there isn't a smidgeon of recognizable voices within the game.

The soundtrack for Just Cause is a wonderful mix of Latin American music, mostly comprised of acoustic guitar solos and fast paced rhythms. All of the tunes perfectly match the ambiance of the sprawling countryside and suit the main character to a tea. The music reacts appropriately to situations such as raising the tempo for chase scenes or lowering the pace for island navigation. The sound effects are mostly repetitive. All the different versions of motorcycles, helicopters, automobiles, planes, and water vehicles sound very similar. This also carries over into the weaponry. The various machine guns, pistols, and rifles are not differentiated enough in terms of sound effects.

Conclusion: The main storyline is almost an afterthought as the entire affair only takes about six hours. The depth of the game is resultant from how much time you wish to spend doing boring side missions or hunting for little blue dots on the map. In their attempt to copy the GTA formula, Avalanche Studios left out quite a bit of the personality that makes a GTA clone successful. Beyond achievements, players have no reason to complete the extraneous tasks as there are absolutely no useful rewards at the endgame for doing so. The sheer boredom that envelops the gamer after the brief storyline finishes off just sucks the enjoyment out of completing the game. I can only recommend this 360 title for those still craving the GTA experience after finishing the wonderful Saints Row. It's worth a purchase at the $25 to $30 price point, but more likely a rental for the vast majority to knock out the main storyline and garner a few achievements.