Some twelve years later, I am again using my Xbox One's backwards compatibility feature to play the 360 version of "Just Cause".
The game is a free roaming action adventure title, in the vein of "Grand Theft Auto" although the city landscape has been replaced by a series of islands that make up a fictional South/Central American country. You are Rico, sent in by some CIA-esque bosses to stir up trouble and inspire the locals to overthrow the countries dictator leader, Mendoza. It's an open world game that you can traverse as you see fit with the standard story missions, side missions and collectables to spend your time on. As per the GTA 3 model, all the vehicles around the island can be commandeered and used by you, though doing so will soon attract the attention of the Islands police force who are hilariously committed to your murder at that point, sending wave after wave of helicopter at your for even the most minor infraction. There is also an existing cartel on the island that the side missions have you replace with a friendlier one, stealing the wrong car - or invading the wrong town will also push up your wanted level with them.
Though the game world is truly massive, what it isn't is particularly interesting. The vast majority of it is uninhabited mountainous woodland. There is no wildlife living in it to avoid or hunt, so much of your time there can be a dull slog from one side to the other whilst hoping that at no point is it ever going to switch to a really steep hill that Rico can no longer ascend. Though it looks quite impressive from a distance, closer up you soon see that it's all the same grass and tree effect. The weather is nicely implemented though, and can get some nice visuals once you're up in a helicopter and seeing the sun set around a mountain.
The trouble with the game is how glitchy it is. There are a lot of moving parts, and from a game that's 12 years old now it's understandable, but it's still not fun to be caught in a vehicle that explodes for no reason, or gets stuck in a wall. Sometimes objectives disappear or were completed without me having anything to do with it. It also, doesn't help itself with its design choices sometimes, forcing you to redo 5 minutes of travel before retrying a mission or walking through the jungle for 10 minutes after a mission to get back to some arbitrary point on the map. There is also quite a big difficulty spike towards the end the game that meant that I gave up rather than completing the final missions and then plodding through the game to get the achievements and 100% total.
There's much to admire in "Just Cause" but the restrictions of the consoles at the time betrayed the grandiose dreams of the developers. I'm hoping I'll soon discover that the sequels have enhanced the experience to a more satisfying one.
