The box art may emulate that famous Che Guevera photo, but cribbing the title of Just Cause from the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama proves this Latin American uprising simulator is not quite as revolucion-ary as it thinks. But even if it would be braver, not mention morally superior, to make shit-disturbing protagonist Ricardo Rodriguez a local rebel rather than an American black-ops interloper, President General Mendoza of the fictional archipelago of San Esperito, a drug-running dictator with a suspected stockpile of WMDs, still deserves to be overthrown.
Maybe the propaganda works but whatevs Mendoza;s a bad man and so long as you pretend youre not instituting regime change on behalf of Bush (whose real-world foreign policy earns in a few satirical elbows thrown his way), its quite a thrill. Not surprisingly for a game ostensibly about spreading freedom, its a free-roamer in the GTA mould and how great is it to have a tropical sandbox game for a change as you complete the main and (repetitive) side missions across literally 250,000 acres of jungle-covered islands. The graphics in the Xbox 360 version, complete with real-time weather system, are stunning and easily admired when deploying your ever-present parachute to float from island to island. Some have complained about the games over-the-top stunts, impossible physics and relatively short playtime, but that just ups the fun of busting guerrillas out of jail, inciting rebellion, liberating villages, taking over TV stations, allying with drug cartels and, natch, assassinating politicians. Ah, democracy is on the march.
(Avalanche/Eidos)Maybe the propaganda works but whatevs Mendoza;s a bad man and so long as you pretend youre not instituting regime change on behalf of Bush (whose real-world foreign policy earns in a few satirical elbows thrown his way), its quite a thrill. Not surprisingly for a game ostensibly about spreading freedom, its a free-roamer in the GTA mould and how great is it to have a tropical sandbox game for a change as you complete the main and (repetitive) side missions across literally 250,000 acres of jungle-covered islands. The graphics in the Xbox 360 version, complete with real-time weather system, are stunning and easily admired when deploying your ever-present parachute to float from island to island. Some have complained about the games over-the-top stunts, impossible physics and relatively short playtime, but that just ups the fun of busting guerrillas out of jail, inciting rebellion, liberating villages, taking over TV stations, allying with drug cartels and, natch, assassinating politicians. Ah, democracy is on the march.