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Just Cause
Just Cause 1 Boxart
Developer(s) Avalanche Studios
Publisher(s) Eidos Interactive
Engine Avalanche Engine
Aspect Ratio 4:3
16:9 (via mod)
Resolutions 640x480
800x600
1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
Platforms Windows (XP and later)
PS2
PS3
Xbox
Xbox 360
Release Date(s) EU September 22, 2006
NA September 27, 2006
Genre(s) Action
Third-person shooter
Mode(s) Single-player
Multiplayer via modding
Ratings ESRB: M
PEGI: 16+
Media DVD
Steam download
Input Methods PC: Keyboard and mouse
Others: Gamepad
Languages English
Spanish
French
German
Italian


Just Cause is the first game in the Just Cause game series.

For the last Agency mission in Just Cause 2, see A Just Cause.

Technical info

Released on September 22, 2006 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 platforms in Europe. It arrived in North America on September 27, 2006. The game was developed by the Swedish company Avalanche Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. It's a third-person "sandbox"-type game. The game map is about 250,000 acres (1024 km²) in size, with 21 story missions and about 35 different side missions to complete. See also: Game limits.

Setting

Just Cause is set on a fictional South American tropical country known as "San Esperito", where the player works as an Agency black ops agent Rico Rodriguez, supporting a Guerrilla war to overthrow San Esperito's dictator, who may be in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Gameplay

The core gameplay consists of elements of a third-person shooter and a driving game, with a large, open environment to move around in. On foot, the player's character is capable of walking, swimming and jumping, as well as utilizing weapons. Players can control a variety of vehicles, including cars, boats, airplanes, helicopters and motorcycles. Players can also perform stunts with their cars in which they can stand on the roof and jump to another car, or choose to open their parachute whilst still in motion on the roof. Other key features of the game include parasailing (grappling onto a car while utilizing a parachute) and skydiving.

The open, non-linear environment allows players to explore and choose how they wish to play the game. Although storyline missions are necessary to progress through the game, players can complete them at their own leisure. When not taking on a storyline mission, players can free-roam and create havoc. However, doing so can attract unwanted and potentially fatal attention from the authorities - "Heat".

The player can also partake in a variety of optional side missions, for example Races, liberating a village, or taking over a drug cartel plantation/villa. These are generally quite repetitive but are necessary to gain points with certain factions.

Game manual

The game manual is written in the form of an issue of a newspaper - "San Esperito Vanguardia" and, in addition to the usual technical info, contains interesting articles about life and recent events in San Esperito.

This newspaper costs "1.200 pesos". The game manual is the "Thursday April 20 2006" edition and it's the "No. 68834"'th published issue. The game manual doesn't support Mendozas government and it contains info that wouldn't have been known, or published, so the newspaper form is only there to get the reader in the right mood.

For the in-game national newspaper, see: Gaceta Nacional del San Esperito, which describes in-game events, that would have happened after the events in the game manual, but its issues were published in 2005.

The PS2 version game manual has a picture of Rico on page 11. In the picture, Rico wears a grey suit-like outfit while standing by a red Shimizu Tumbleweed. It could be a picture from the beta version.

Soundtrack

The game has A LOT of mostly very similar music in it. Link to youtube for it.

One of the different sounding ones is the "high altitude skydiving theme". Link.

Reception

As the first title in the Just Cause Game Series, this game was actually fairly underplayed compared to future installments in the series. Thus, it is not really known by many what fans of the series thought of this game. Those who did play this game however, have remarked this game is somewhat more difficult compared to future games.

Some review sites [which ones exactly?] have reviewed it positively, while audience reviews have been somewhat mixed, generally leaning towards positive.

Trivia

  • The game is largely a parody of the United States foreign policies from the late 1940s to the present, drawing on the phrase "the enemy of the enemy is a friend".
  • According to this site:
    • Originally Rico Rodriguez was a tattooed guy with dreadlocks. As the focus testing showed that players wanted a handsome hero rather than the stereotype games hero character, his looks were changed.
    • The original plot of the game involved a kidnapping of the pope, threat of WMD’s and drug trafficking – all at the same time.
    • The original game world was 64 x 64 km (10486 square miles), which would have been about 4 times as big.
    • Rico was deliberately not given much of a persona, as they wanted the players to create their own Rico.
    • There are over 10 million trees on San Esperito.
    • The game is not based on the US military operation in Panama, labor union contracts, or the 1995 movie.
    • The original idea was to create an over-the-top parody of action movies.
    • The Xbox 360 version was developed over the course of six months and was approved on the first submission.
  • Minimizing the game has different results depending on the operating system and possibly also depending on if it's an old disk version, or Steam version. Disk + XP seems to be the most user-friendly combination.
    • On Windows XP, depending on your software combination, you may be able to minimize it with only the windows logo button, but if that doesn't work, Ctrl-Alt-Delete should do it.
    • Minimizing the game on Windows 7 does not seem to be possible.
    • On Windows 10, the game can be disabled into a sort of window when using Ctrl-Alt-Delete to bring up a Task Manager. This allows the user to navigate to an internet browser. Reportedly however, this does not work for everyone.
  • Windows XP (or at least some XP-equipped laptops) have one more advantage for this game: The game can be stretched/set to cover the whole screen, to support aspect ratios other than 4:3. On Windows 7 and 10, there are wide black bars on either edge of the screen, if the screen is not 4:3.
  • The PS3 version of the game is not listed on many sites. That's because the PS2 version is unofficially supported by some PS3s.
  • As spoken by game developers during a promotional interview for Just Cause 3, the official abbreviation for the name of this game is "JC1", so as to eliminate confusion over "Just Cause" (the individual game) and "Just Cause" (the Just Cause game series).
  • While every subsequent game in the series obviously has its differences, this is the only game so far in the series to feature a police force. Until Just Cause 3, this was also the only game to have a weapon with infinite ammunition that Rico carried consisting of Rico's Holdt R4 Pitbulls. This is also the only game to not have any female antagonists, unless there are some in side missions.
  • See Just Cause 100% completion list for things to do.

Gallery (screenshots and promotional art)


Gallery (game box designs)


Videos

Trailer 1:


Trailer 4:


A little about the early development:

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