As well as help the Agency keep their fingers in everything, and to help the Rioja drug cartel wipe out their enemies.

To sum it up quickly, Just Cause is a third person shooter "sandbox" kind of game. (If you're wondering what other kinds of games are like that, think of the Grand Theft Auto games or Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction or Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction if shooters aren't your thing.) You play an Agency agent, often armed with nothing but a pair of large caliber pistols and a grappling hook. But as time goes on, you'll grab a variety of other weapons and vehicles as you drive, shoot, and blast your way to freedom for the people of San Esperito.

The nature of a sandbox type game means that while there is a plot unfolding, you don't have to stick with it. That's typified in Just Cause by the "main mission" - mostly given to you by fellow Agency cohorts Tom Sheldon and Maria Kane. Running these missions opens up Agency safehouses, as well as advances the storyline. You'll do everything from break into a prison at the beginning of the game, to guarding areas, to various other tasks - just generally causing mayhem.

However, if you don't feel like doing the next "main mission" right away, you can take side missions. Those vary, depending on who you're doing them for and a few other things. Simplest are the racing side missions - go through checkpoints in order. Also fairly simple are collection side missions, where you pick up certain items that are laying around. More complicated are the missions you get from rebel bosses and Rioja cartel members. These basically break down into one of two different kinds: liberation and side missions.

Liberations start with an agent near a village. For the rebels, it'll typically be near a small village, though they are also near larger cities. When you start the liberation, you'll move through the village, blowing up ammo dumps and barricades while shooting it out with enemy soldiers. After you get through the barricades, you switch the flag for the rebel flag and you've won. For the larger cities, you'll be in a full fledged war with armored vehicles and helicopters a-plenty. It's not recommended to start one of those unless you're heavily armed.

Rioja cartel member liberations are similar. Instead of liberating a village, though, you'll typically be taking over a Montano cartel stronghold. Again, you fight your way through the village close to the stronghold, but instead of switching flags you'll need to kill the Montano sub-lieutenant.

Side missions, for both sides, are fairly similar, and randomly given out. They typically involve going to a set location and either killing someone or stealing something (though, a lot of times, to steal something you'll need to kill a bunch of people). Then, typically, you'll have to return what you stole back to your contact, or if it's a vehicle, to a garage.

You accomplish these various things by running around shooting stuff and driving around, trying not to (or trying to, depending on how you feel and what you're driving) run over stuff. The left stick controls your movement; the right stick controls your camera. You throw grenades with the left trigger and shoot your gun with the right trigger - you will automatically lock onto targets, but you can switch the target with the left bumper. You can also shoot manually and take better aim by clicking the right thumbstick.

You switch weapons using the D-pad, scrolling (typically) between unarmed (and no, it's not hand to hand combat - the only time you see that is if you try to shoot someone right next to you), your default dual large caliber revolvers (these have infinite ammo), a pistol of some sort, a submachine gun of some sort, and a larger weapon of some sort, followed by your grappling hook pistol and your timed explosives. The last two can also be "quick" accessed by pushing up or down on the D-pad. The weapons all have different capabilities, and since while running around they're only identified by silhouette until you pick them up, you learn to figure them out. You also lose any weapons you picked up if you die, but many safehouses will have additional weapons for you to pick up.

The grappling hook deserves further mention. As you run around, if you pull it out, you'll find you can shoot it at various vehicles. If the vehicle is going fast enough, you will paraglide behind it (or below it, if it's a helicopter). If everything goes well, you can even try to board the vehicle!

That's one way of getting a vehicle. The other three ways are a bit easier. First off, each safehouse will have a different vehicle, depending on whose it is and how much you've helped them. The second way is simply to carjack someone. You can press the "Y" button while near their car (most of the time - sometimes it doesn't seem to work) or you can tag their car with another vehicle or gunshots, and then when they get out, take it over. Keep in mind that when you do that, the police may start to come after you. Finally, if you're not in combat, you can call in for a "heavy drop", giving you whichever Agency vehicle you choose.

You actually have two gauges on the screen next to your mini-map. One shows how angry the Montano drug cartel is at you; the other shows how angry the police are. These aren't explained very well in the manual or in the game, but eventually you figure it out. Yes, those beeping noises you hear occasionally show up when you hit level "5" in wanted-ness.

And I hate those beeping noises. I know that I'm at level 5, because usually the bad guys are throwing a heap ton of cops or drug technicals (you know, trucks with machine guns in the beds? Technicals!) at me, plus choppers, heavy weapons, what have you.

Driving is fairly straight forward - use the left stick to aim your car, use the right trigger to accelerate and the left trigger to break. Some vehicles will have weapons built in. Helicopters maneuver slightly differently - the triggers control altitude instead in those.

The biggest problem with the game is its bugginess. I've had the game lock up on me. I've had missions fail to end when I've even gone back to the contact and gotten the "mission ended" sequence (and my reward). I've had missions become impossible to finish because the garage I need to get into won't open. I've gotten stuck in between vehicles and had to blow my way out with grenades (killing myself, basically). I've often had the allies liberating a village with me, open fire on me instead of the bad guys.

Then there's the grapple launcher - it is very hard to use. It's often difficult to get it to aim at the right target, hard to tell which vehicle it's targeted on if there's a lot of traffic, and it has no range indicator, so a lot of times you'll target something and still can't hit it. Even if you connect to a vehicle, actually doing the "action movie" style stunts typically becomes a matter more of luck than anything else.

The AI isn't strong, either. Cop cars, for instance, will come right at you, and then veer to their left in front of you. Once you figure that out, it's fairly simple to dodge them. The running battles between cops, Riojas, rebels, and Montanos is fairly interesting; though it can get old hearing the cops yell from helicopters at people other than you. Anytime cars collide, the people will get out and yell at each other, and if they're from opposing factions they'll start shooting it out. (It does make it easy to get some free weapons and vehicles if you want, though.)

The graphics are okay - they're not what I think of when I think of next generation games, but they're not bad. The characters actually seem pretty inconsistent to me. Some characters seem to go for a bit more of a realistic look - such as yourself, or Esmeralda. Other characters, like Maria Kane, look more inspired by Japanese style games, while characters like Edmundo Rioja look downright cartoonish. Not to mention the animations - just, well, not so great.

(And let's not mention the cities. While they look fine, even up close, as soon as you realize you can't enter any buildings, or even a porch or balcony - well, it's not only frustrating, but very damaging to immersion.)

On the other hand, the audio is great, if repetitive. The music feels very appropriate for the setting, the voice work - while not great - also sounds authentic, and the effects work for the game, making it possible to identify things that might make a difference. (Though it's not like you need the sound of a missile exploding near you when the ground shakes and throws your car around.)

The game is pretty violent - after all, you're trying to start a revolution, often with the assistance of violent drug lords. One mission may have you, for instance, recovering a severed head given to an army colonel to scare him.

All in all, the game is pretty fun - but it can be frustrating, mostly because of the AI problems and the bugs. I understand the technical reasons for the lack of non-vehicle "hook points" to use the grappling hook pistol on, but it's something that I wish could be expanded. The "stunt" aspect, letting you stand on top of cars, etc, is almost a complete loss. (One big thing I do like though is flying over the side of a hill in a car - an out of control, not going to kill you, fun experience!)

If you're looking for a good, open ended game that'll give you hours of fun, I'd suggest Just Cause. Just make sure you get an extraction back to the safe house so you can save the game on a regular basis, or you will be sorry.