I recently got a hold of a new PC game called 'Just Cause' last week and have been playing it most of this weekend.  The game is a 3rd person, adventure game (think Grand Theft Auto - GTA).  Actually, that's really good advise, because the game tries to be just like GTA.  Except this new game is worse in some cases but better in others.

First let's talk about the pros in this game.

1.)  Graphics.  The graphics are pretty good in this game.  They're not the best but at least on par with current gen graphics.  The bloom effects in this game are nice and the water effects in the game are pretty.  There's no AA in the game though, so things can get kind of jaggy sometimes.

2.) Stunts.  This was actually a really nice addition to a GTA clone.  In Just Cause your character can do a number of over-the-top stunts that you would typically see in movies.  It's fun and cool to re-enact them in this game.  For instance, I can drive a car, bust out the door and hop onto the roof of my moving vehicle, then jump to the roof of another moving vehicle that I was chasing, and finally jump into that car and evict its driver.

3.) Parachute.  Your character's parachute in this game is pretty damn fun.  It can be used whenever you want.  Use can use the parachute while on top of a moving vehicle to fly up high into the air or use it when you jump off a cliff.

4.)  Altitude.  Skydiving was fun in GTA and it's even more fun in Just Cause.  The reason I like it more in Just Cause is mainly due to the height you can travel in your plane.  I haven't exactly timed it yet, but if you take your plane and fly it as high as it can go, then jump out, your character can free fall for several minutes before having to open their parachute.  It's really quite impressive and fun.

Next, let's talk about the cons, or things that really make me hate this game.

1.)  Vehicle physics.  Vehicles in this game are so hard to control and contain such unrealistic driving physics that I avoid them all together.  Ok, well the cars and motorcycles are the worst.  Air vehicles like planes and helicopters are easier to drive but don't seem to have any rudder controls.  Why the hell not?  Good question.  Boats handle like...well like a boat would I guess.  The controls for all these vehicles seem very unresponsive at times and at other times barely tapping left or right while driving will cause your vehicle to spin out of control.  They should of spent more time getting the vehicle physics right.

2.)  Animation.  The animations in this game suck.  They're not smooth or fluid or realistic.  Instead they're jaggy and glitchy.  Watching your character car-jack a vehicle is painful.  You character sort of opens the car door, while the current driver dives out through your character, and finally your character like pops into the vehicle.  Not very smooth at all.

3.)  Jumping.  This annoys the shit out of me.  Every single time your character jumps, when he lands he goes into a Comanche type roll that moves him a good 6 feet forward of where you originally landed.  Every....single....time.  This ugly little roll that he does after every jump has caused me to roll right off a countless amount of cliffs and building.  Why is he doing this?  Don't f#$ing roll!  NOOOOOO!!!  *SPLAT*  Honestly the only time your character should Comanche roll when coming back in contact with the ground is if you're falling from a high distance.  Not when jumping over a picket fence.

4.)  Open space.  The map for this game is massive.  It is the biggest map I've ever played on in a game.  It's bigger than any GTA map, and bigger than the Oblivion map.  This may be a cool thing but it also sucks as it takes forever to get anywhere.  Driving from one side of an island to another can take you a good 8-9 minutes.  And the drive is boring (other than the uncontrollable driving physics).  The landscape is the same everywhere.  Trees and bushes.  A lot of this map is just blank, empty space.

5.)  Miscellaneous annoyances.  No sprinting.  Want to travel a short distance without vehicles?  I wouldn't recommend it as your characters max running speed is about as fast as molasses on a winter morning.  No controller/game pad support for the PC.  Instead I have to use a mouse and keyboard.  This is fine for most PC games but I like using a controller for GTA games and their clones.  FMV cut scenes.  They suck.  Don't use them.

Anyways, like the title says, Just Cause is meh or so-so, or just ok.  It has some really cool features and game play elements that would of made this game an A+ in my book.  But unfortunatly it seems the cons out weight the pros.  Overall the game just feels unpolished and amature-ish.  It makes the game kind of annoying to play.  I've only played this game for several hours and only did a few dozen missions, but I'm writing this review now because I probably wont play much more of this game.