One of the better 360 titles you will never play, and chances are never heard of.
Top all that off with the fact that you have access to motorcycles, cars, helicopters, boats and in a pinch you can always ride your motorcycle off a cliff when police are in hot pursuit and pull your parachute and drift to safety as you watch the hordes of police go flying off the cliff. Graphically; Its not revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination, but its certainly different. When you play GTA you normally are in a city with a ton of generic looking buildings you cannot enter and as such the actual "accessible" portion of the map is reduce because of all those pillion buildings. In Just Cause the vast majority of the map is jungle and water both of which you can drive over, on or swim in which leads to a HUGE environment for you to play within. The cars, thugs, and villages are nothing special as you will see the same car and generic Islander walk by at least 1000 times over the course of the game, but there are enough variations that you will generally not keep you distracted but rather an observation. Its not that the graphics are good or bad but they are really the definition of average for this sort of game and as such really leave it up to you as a gamer to decide of gameplay > graphics. With that said from a gameplay stance this game is very enjoyable. From the "Looney Toons" physics to the simply outlandish missions you have to go on, and the over the top central characters if you can put your sense of reality aside for the balance of the game most people will really get a charge out of it. The storyline is interesting to follow and its made more interesting by the over the top voice acting and the general "out there" aspect of the people and the tasks that you are doing, but that at least for me did not take away from the game but rather allowed it to stand out as something very different yet the same as many other GTA style games. The huge map makes for much to explore and lots to do, but at the same time there is nothing more annoying that blowing up your car in the middle of nowhere during a police chase and having NO civilian cars or bikes near by to pillage. Although the "Air Drop" feature which seems to be borrowed from "The Outfit" is handy when you need some sort of transportation in the field its a pain when you are in a shoot out and low on life. The Story Mode itself is rather short, which many have used as a knock against the game but what I find interesting is that a game like GTA:SA which should give the user upwards of 40 hours of gameplay can easily be finished in 10 hours if you solely do core missions. The same can be said for Just Cause, if you avoid any of the rather enjoyable side missions the game can be polished off within eight hours or so, but it becomes MUCH easier if you have a higher influence with the Rebels and the Cartel. The knock may be that main missions are not as entertaining as some of the side missions but if you spend the time and do a mix of both you will generally find that the games evens itself out. Sound as anyone who reads any of my reviews knows is the cornerstone of what I like in a game, and I have to say that the guns and explosions in some cases are generally underwealming in some cases and greatly overwealming in others. From the effects aspect the game lacks a firm balance. Also small things like a SUV and small car generally outputting a similar sized "boom" was something that I noticed fairly early. Aside from that the Voice acting was well done and very well cast. As I stated before many of the characters are over the top and that does lend itself very well to the game. As for the Value; Even as a full priced game it has its charm. The achievements are set up in such a way that you will have to partake in many of the side missions and overtake EVERY Village in the game which will tack on the hours and the joy
As a sub twenty dollar game, I would go as far as to say the best in the bargain right now.