Just Cause (2006)

Just Cause is an open-world action-adventure video game developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released in Europe on September 22 2006, North America on September 27 2006 and Australia on September 29 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows.

Plot
Players take control of an Agency black ops agent, Rico Rodriguez, who must overthrow San Esperito's dictator Salvandor Mendoza who may be in possession of weapons for mass destruction.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Huge Open-World to explore, being about 1,025 square kilometers. In other words, it has a much bigger map than even Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
 * 2) Despite only having 19 Main-Missions in total, they're still fun and over-the-top to play. Breakout, Good Cop Bad Cop, I've Got the Power & Guadalicano Choo Choo were notable highlights.
 * 3) A hefty amount of Side-Missions to do like Liberation Takeovers, Deliveries and Races.
 * 4) Likable characters like Rico Rodriguez, Maria Kane and Tom Sheldon. While not as memorable, Inmaculada Palmiera and Esperanza Caramicas have their moments.
 * 5) Funny cutscenes and dialogue, especially from Rico's one-liners. Even NPCs can say some cheesy one-liners that can be very humorous to hear.
 * 6) Awesome Latin inspired soundtrack that is arguably the best in the franchise. Not only does it fit well with the setting but it will have players tapping to the beats regardless.
 * 7) Great variety of weapons ranging from Pistols, SMGs, Shotguns, Rifles, Grenades or RPGs. It's also the only game in the franchise that allows you to carry up to 6 Weapons.
 * 8) Speaking of the weapons, the Grappling Gun is an awesome weapon since it can latch on to any type of vehicle, though this would later be replaced by the Grappling Hook in subsequent sequels.
 * 9) Great variety of vehicles ranging from Land, Sea and Air. You can access your PDA to send a vehicle delivery drop-off (although you have to be in the ocean to drop off the boat).
 * 10) Great graphics, especially on the Xbox 360. It's also the only console version to run at 60fps, same as the PC version.
 * 11) Cool Stunt Position moves that'll have you constantly doing them over and over again.
 * 12) Tons of collectibles all across the Map with the Xbox 360 having Achievements that can be earned for collecting them.
 * 13) Taking Out The Garbage, the final mission in the game, is one of the best final missions in the franchise, on top of being one of the longest.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The story isn't really that interesting as most of the characters lack any type of development.
 * 2) Side-Missions, like the Liberation Takeovers, can get extremely repetitive as they constantly repeat in an endless loop. The Liberation Takeovers however do end once they've all been completed.
 * 3) Cars are slippery to handle (except for the bikes) which leads to crashing into other cars or your car flipping and bouncing around.
 * 4) The map is a pain to use. It doesn't provide settlement names, you can't set any markers and it can be very hard to distinguish places due to their legends having low quality images.
 * 5) The voice acting (aside form the main characters) can range from decent to flat out annoying (although many find it to be so bad it's good and funny to listen to).
 * 6) As mentioned in WIR #2, there are only 19 missions which makes the game pretty short, clocking in around 8 hours. But as also mentioned in WIR #3, there are still Side-Missions to do (even if it gets repetitive) and collectibles to find.
 * 7) Very odd physics like how Rico flings out of his bike and lands perfectly or how (sometimes) he doesn't die from explosions.
 * 8) Idle and running animations look rather bizarre and unrealistic, though this is fixed in the Xbox 360 version.
 * 9) A lot of cheap deaths. They'll be times when you can just randomly die like enemies draining your health quicker than usual or dying from explosions so frequently. There's also a glitch where if you grapple your Grappling Gun onto the drop-off Helicopter, you will die instantly.
 * 10) The PlayStation 2 port is awful. The graphics are severely downgraded, lots of texture pop-ins and tons of frame rate issues occur.

Trivia

 * The Xbox 360 version was only developed in 6 months and still managed to have better graphics and a stable framerate.
 * There's a PS3 version of the game but it's only downloadable.
 * This is the only game in the series (so far) to have a police force.
 * The game draws inspiration from the real-life United States invasion of Panama.
 * It's the only game in the series to have a Grappling Gun.
 * Rico was originally going to have tattoos with dreadlocks.