Just Cause is like a Grand Theft Auto minus much of the morally reprehensible parts. Sure you can hurt citizens and hijack their cars, but the story clearly places you on the side of good trying to depose a cruel dictator.

Unlike GTA, Just Cause places a bigger emphasis on sea and air. Boats play a big part of the game due to the collection of island nature of the location. And seeing as how you have a grappling hook and an easily employed parachute, the game gives you every opportunity to take to the air.

However, while the story is pretty good, the game is a bit lacking in sub-quest areas of the game which consist mostly of collecting items and claiming areas for certain factions. It's still a good, strong 3rd person sandbox game and worth picking up.

The open-ended playing style of the game is what drew me in and kept me captivated. Sure, there were main storyline missions to work on. Sure, there were generic side-quests you could do for prestige. But what I loved the most was just roaming the island, by boat, helicopter, car, or even grappling hook - and just causing mayhem wherever I went. The freedom was exhilarating. This is what makes the game so replayable in my opinion.

To the worshipers of GTA SA, this game is dedicated.

Using the same formula brilliant sandbox, the game will provide many hours of fun, is fulfilling the many missions and following the main story, just be walking down every street map, chasing the rival gangs.

In a game you has its headquarters, where you can buy weapons, equipment, cars, everything before leaving for a mission!

The world looks great but that's probably the best part of this game. The combat is oversimplified and vehicle control can be clumsy. The story follows all the bad video game cliche cut scenes without any charm.

The big draw for this game is it's freedom and while it's a cool concept to help the rebels take over this island nation the missions are all very repetitive. While the faction specific missions offer very little in terms of rewards or purpose. This game was decent fun several years ago but hasn't held up well over the years.

I've been looking at Just Cause for a while. It reminded me a bit of Tropico for the PC, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I was put off by the negative reviews. I shouldn't have been. I finally bought it on special here, and haven't regretted it. Like an action movie, it starts out hard and heavy and doesn't let up. You're Rico Rodriguez—an undercover CIA operative specializing in regime change,and you've been called into San Esperito to do what you do best- take out the corrupt Generalissimo and help the revolution succeed.

The gameplay is spot-on, in a GTA-inspired manner that allows you to pull off outrageous stunts. It's all about style, as you don't get too bogged down in the firefights, inspiring you to pull off outrageous moves while gunning down foes in the best action movie style. Along the way, you perform missions to destabilize the region that you're in as you move along a board to claim territories for the revolution. Sometimes it's causing a drug war to stretch the government's forces, and sometimes you have to get down and dirty and take out the forces in the area. You're also building up your reputation with the cartel and the revolution to get access to better weaponry and devices.

The stunt system is a hilarious addition to spice up the GTA formula a bit- you can take over just about any vehicle, and take to the skies with your every useable parachute, sailing above your enemies, grappling to them and taking over their vehicles. It might not be realistic, but it's cinematic, and fun!

It's not perfect, and its for sure not politically correct, and it certainly doesn't pay heed to physics in the stunt system. Notice I said in the stunt system, because the driving is spot on, and there are a lot of little touches- from the music to the acting- that drive it over the top. I'd definitely recommend it!

Just Cause is yet another sandbox game that takes a lot of hints from the immensely popular and far better GTA-series.

On the surface the game actually looks full of potential but unfortunately it delivers very little.

On the plus side you do get to wreak lots of mayhem as a secret agent in a tropical paradise and most of the action is completely over the top in the best way.

You’re free to use a variety of vehicles including cars, motorbikes, tanks and even helicopters – and with your unlimited supply of parachutes (somewhat curious but very practical) you get to basejump of every bridge or mountain you come across.

The missions in the game are pretty repetitive though (destroy X camps or Y roadblocks) and they get boring pretty fast.

But what really keeps Just Cause from being even a somewhat moderately enjoyable run-of-the-mill shooter is the insane amount of bugs. This is by far one of the worst PC ports I’ve ever tried!

Seriously, I keep getting stuck in environments over and over – which is even more annoying since you’re only allowed to save at save points.

Also the draw distance on vehicles and environments is horrible – they just pop out from out of nowhere. Shadows and lighting effects look glitchy and the “motion blur” effect looks like the screen is experiencing some kind of weird static interference.

On top of this the car handling is terrible – we’re talking “Alone in the dark”-bad!

I never really expected much of the game in the first place but I was still amazed to find out it had this many issues.

In many ways Just Cause reminds me of Total Overdose which was another (sort of) GTA-clone with a Latin flavor but with a much more focused gameplay. This game simply tries to much and achieves to little. Or maybe it was just yet another rushed release. Either way I personally wouldn’t recommend anyone buying it.