Most game reviews consist of someone taking a game that, at a 5-second glance, is pretty fun. They then focus on a few things and reveal that there are in fact utter spikes in the quality level, and the game isn't quite as good as you thought.
Now here's sort of an inverse scenario. I can start off telling you that Just Cause is really a pretty bad and buggy game, but there are actually some spikes in the quality that are ^-shaped, rather than V-shaped. I can start off this focus with the fact that the game isn't a sequel to anything else. You can't quite say that about every game that shows its face to this day and age.
For a bit of background, Just Cause is a GTA-style freeform game where you play as a spanish stuntman-turned-hitman in the middle of an archipelago of islands where people with gold chains around their necks own a lot of pot, a lot of slaves, a lot of money, and apparently, a high price on their heads.
The formula is pretty simple, as you might expect. You get a mission, you go and blow something up or kill someone, sometimes fighting through people or driving past them in X vehicle of choice. The vehicles in the game might feel a bit lacking, as they all have that worn-down feeling of a third-worldish country. You won't be seeing any slick BMWs like you might in most games that are still drawing heavy endorsement money from such companies. The big problem with vehicles in the game is that if you're not following the road like a train on its tracks, then you're going to hit a tree. It's inevitable; the steering in the game isn't up to par, which wouldn't be a problem if the entire world wasn't covered with jungle and rocks. Sure it makes sense, but it ultimately makes it completely unfun to drive around at all. Once you get there, the enemies are a bit lackluster in that your main character seems to be able to soak up enough bullets to earn the name "iron man" (or "lead man"?) and the enemies aren't about to do much other than point their gun towards you and shoot, so combat ends up a little uninteresting. It's not hard to say the missions usually either don't have variety or are just plain annoying. There's one mission that tries to tout the game's physics engine by having you drive a truck somewhere without all the crates in it falling out. Y'know, there's a reason people haven't really counted on Havok to nestle eggs in a basket on a moving tank, and this mission is, to say the least...a bit frustrating. It's just an example in a string of wierd developer choices, such as destroying cocaine crops using grenades, but they really don't matter as you're free to do what you want in the end.
So I think I've beaten one horse quite enough by now: Just Cause isn't really a great game. But now for those little promised carrot-spikes. These come in the form of the game's transportation. Right off the bat, you have a re-usable parachute which does as it sounds. However, unlike a BF2 parachute, you can put this one away mid-flight, take it out again, etc. At first, this is fun because you can jump off a cliff and parachute into an enemy base, or jump out of a plane or chopper and parachute onto your enemy's heads. Additionally, while driving a car you can jump on top, then use your momentum to open up your parachute and drift off. It's really pretty satisfying, though not often useful. But that's only the beginning, when you find another little gadget that is given to you after about ten missions.
You soon receive a grappling hook that can attach to cars, choppers, etc. Attaching it to a moving vehicle allows you to hangglide from it. You can then reel them in like a fish, land on the top, and steal the car, or just ride it out and jump to another car. The game actually lets you "jump" straight from wherever you are to a nearby vehicle when you're in midair, which is pretty epic when parachuting near a chopper (though it seems to make absolutely no sense). This will lead you into a spree of stealing vehicles from people just like you did when you first got GTA3.
You'll be parachuting so much, that you'll find momentum may actually be more useful to you than it is to Chell in Portal. If you were moving downwards at a high speed when you open your parachute, it turns into more of a glider. You gain a lot of horizontal ground without losing a lot of height, and I've even been able to move over an entire island by grappling onto my CIA transportation as it leaves me. The ability to shoot guns as you drop is not entirely useful, but gives a great feeling.
These few mechanics were actually great ideas that were probably not developed enough before they got to coding. With Just Cause as a prototype, we can see how this "super-power" ability of flight doesn't break the game, and yet makes it a lot more fun to play, and much easier to get around (certainly a welcome alternative to driving/walking in games). One thing that I think needs to be worked on is how much the game rewards you for "stunt" behavior. You should be able to try insane things, and see them work for you. In one session I tried repeatedly to jump from a car in one lane to a car in another, and while the automated "jump to car" thing appeared, it never quite worked. Also, while you would expect a high-speed chase to careen into the jungle with guns blaring, these don't quite work as mentioned before. If you're an insanely skilled driver, and can tell which trees are trying out noclip, and which ones have roots of steel, you might just pull it off, but this may be a signal that the next game should change its setting, or make for a more easily-destructed jungle. (maybe this is a signal that I hate plants)
So there you have it. I live in the hope that some game developer with a big budget and no ideas comes across this and has the dastardly idea to rip off everything that made Just Cause good, and leave out the bad parts. Until then it's just another thought in the mind of a gamer that is, at heart, always just whining about quality and story at developers who probably are a lot more hurt than I think.
Now here's sort of an inverse scenario. I can start off telling you that Just Cause is really a pretty bad and buggy game, but there are actually some spikes in the quality that are ^-shaped, rather than V-shaped. I can start off this focus with the fact that the game isn't a sequel to anything else. You can't quite say that about every game that shows its face to this day and age.
For a bit of background, Just Cause is a GTA-style freeform game where you play as a spanish stuntman-turned-hitman in the middle of an archipelago of islands where people with gold chains around their necks own a lot of pot, a lot of slaves, a lot of money, and apparently, a high price on their heads.
The formula is pretty simple, as you might expect. You get a mission, you go and blow something up or kill someone, sometimes fighting through people or driving past them in X vehicle of choice. The vehicles in the game might feel a bit lacking, as they all have that worn-down feeling of a third-worldish country. You won't be seeing any slick BMWs like you might in most games that are still drawing heavy endorsement money from such companies. The big problem with vehicles in the game is that if you're not following the road like a train on its tracks, then you're going to hit a tree. It's inevitable; the steering in the game isn't up to par, which wouldn't be a problem if the entire world wasn't covered with jungle and rocks. Sure it makes sense, but it ultimately makes it completely unfun to drive around at all. Once you get there, the enemies are a bit lackluster in that your main character seems to be able to soak up enough bullets to earn the name "iron man" (or "lead man"?) and the enemies aren't about to do much other than point their gun towards you and shoot, so combat ends up a little uninteresting. It's not hard to say the missions usually either don't have variety or are just plain annoying. There's one mission that tries to tout the game's physics engine by having you drive a truck somewhere without all the crates in it falling out. Y'know, there's a reason people haven't really counted on Havok to nestle eggs in a basket on a moving tank, and this mission is, to say the least...a bit frustrating. It's just an example in a string of wierd developer choices, such as destroying cocaine crops using grenades, but they really don't matter as you're free to do what you want in the end.
So I think I've beaten one horse quite enough by now: Just Cause isn't really a great game. But now for those little promised carrot-spikes. These come in the form of the game's transportation. Right off the bat, you have a re-usable parachute which does as it sounds. However, unlike a BF2 parachute, you can put this one away mid-flight, take it out again, etc. At first, this is fun because you can jump off a cliff and parachute into an enemy base, or jump out of a plane or chopper and parachute onto your enemy's heads. Additionally, while driving a car you can jump on top, then use your momentum to open up your parachute and drift off. It's really pretty satisfying, though not often useful. But that's only the beginning, when you find another little gadget that is given to you after about ten missions.
You soon receive a grappling hook that can attach to cars, choppers, etc. Attaching it to a moving vehicle allows you to hangglide from it. You can then reel them in like a fish, land on the top, and steal the car, or just ride it out and jump to another car. The game actually lets you "jump" straight from wherever you are to a nearby vehicle when you're in midair, which is pretty epic when parachuting near a chopper (though it seems to make absolutely no sense). This will lead you into a spree of stealing vehicles from people just like you did when you first got GTA3.
You'll be parachuting so much, that you'll find momentum may actually be more useful to you than it is to Chell in Portal. If you were moving downwards at a high speed when you open your parachute, it turns into more of a glider. You gain a lot of horizontal ground without losing a lot of height, and I've even been able to move over an entire island by grappling onto my CIA transportation as it leaves me. The ability to shoot guns as you drop is not entirely useful, but gives a great feeling.
These few mechanics were actually great ideas that were probably not developed enough before they got to coding. With Just Cause as a prototype, we can see how this "super-power" ability of flight doesn't break the game, and yet makes it a lot more fun to play, and much easier to get around (certainly a welcome alternative to driving/walking in games). One thing that I think needs to be worked on is how much the game rewards you for "stunt" behavior. You should be able to try insane things, and see them work for you. In one session I tried repeatedly to jump from a car in one lane to a car in another, and while the automated "jump to car" thing appeared, it never quite worked. Also, while you would expect a high-speed chase to careen into the jungle with guns blaring, these don't quite work as mentioned before. If you're an insanely skilled driver, and can tell which trees are trying out noclip, and which ones have roots of steel, you might just pull it off, but this may be a signal that the next game should change its setting, or make for a more easily-destructed jungle. (maybe this is a signal that I hate plants)
So there you have it. I live in the hope that some game developer with a big budget and no ideas comes across this and has the dastardly idea to rip off everything that made Just Cause good, and leave out the bad parts. Until then it's just another thought in the mind of a gamer that is, at heart, always just whining about quality and story at developers who probably are a lot more hurt than I think.
