Just Cause (PS2) (New)

• Revolution, defeat corruption, fights for justice and lead a nation to freedom in an open ended world where everything is possible
• The largest environment ever seen in a game! Over 1,024sq kilometres of land, sea and air, allowing complete gameplay freedom.
• Over the top stunts! Jump from vehicle to vehicle, skydive, base jump, parasail
• Your playground 1,024 sq kilometres of mountains, jungles, beaches, cities and villages to explore, quire possibly the largest environment ever seen in the gaming world
• Freeform gameplay approach missions in any way you like, or break off from the fight and enjoy exploring the islands landscape.
• Massive selection of vehicles over 100 of the most varied, exciting array of land, sea and air vehicles ever seen in a video game.
• Stunts Over-the-top stunts, jump from vehicle-to-vehicle, parachute, parasail, skydive and base-jump.
• Wealth of missions story missions, side-missions, bonus missions and many more all ensure there is plenty of action spread throughout the islands.
• Province Control change the balance of power in the game world by building alliances with the local guerrillas and drug cartel.
• Support team Sheldon and Kane, two top secret US government agency field operatives, will provide you with reconnaissance info, extraction and vehicle drops.
• Avalanche Engine procedurally generated landscape delivers a huge game world with an incredibly high level of detail while eliminating loading times

In a nutshell:
Grand Theft Auto might give you the freedom of a whole city or county but in Just Cause you’ve got the task of overthrowing a 250,000 acre island all on your lonesome in the world’s first Che Guevara simulator.

The lowdown:
Taking inspiration not just from Grand Theft Auto but also Mercenaries and old Amiga classic Midwinter you play CIA black ops agent Rico Rodriguez as he attempts to overthrow the evil dictator of the fictional island of San Esperito. Despite the huge island and the complete freedom of movement you have on it the game actually only has 21 story missions. There are over 300 side missions but it quickly becomes obvious that these fall into only a very small number of different styles, not all of which are all that entertaining. What makes the game fun though is just wandering off and doing your own thing, which invariably involves upsetting the local military or drug lords and instigating a massive, impromptu firefight. The game may lack depth and variety but it offers a freedom to explore and cause chaos that few others can rival.

Most exciting moment:
As impractical as it may seem you’ve always got a grappling hook and a parachute, which allows you to lock onto any vehicle and commandeer it whenever you want. It also lets you perform some utterly outrageous stunts as you parasail behind boats and jump from a moving aircraft straight onto a road convoy miles below you.

Since you ask:
Instead of storing the island of San Esperito as a gigantic map the game uses a new technique called procedural synthesis to create the landscape on the fly. This is the only way to make such large scale graphics work on the PS2, especially when you’re flying miles above the island.

The bottom line:
Che Guevara meets James Bond in this shallow but satisfying sandbox game.
HARRISON DENT