by:	July 30, 2005

One of the games people talk little about it seems, is a game from Swedish developer Avalanche Studios. It is at the basis of the game Grand Theft Auto, but past that it is so much more, and did I mention before plenty of parachuting? The game has you playing a CIA agent working under cover as a crook, to try and sabotage the government’s missile plans, and more. The island is of course not real, and is influenced by real-life tropical islands. The island though has to be the biggest environment I have ever seen on any game. If I had to guess, it is at least the size of the past three Grand Theft Auto titles put together. The demo I was shown was running on PC mind you and the developers that were showing it gave me plenty of bird’s eye views of the game just to show the massive detail, and how massive the island really is. They also would show how real the environments are to real life, down from the clouds in the sky, the beautiful crisp detail of the buildings, street, cars, water, planes, character models and so on. If I had to compare the graphical fidelity to any game right now, I would say Half-Life 2 PC version with all the effects on, but in terms of scope and ambition it knocks everything else off the map.

I am extremely skeptical about this being an Xbox title, as the Xbox as nice and powerful as it is can’t do what a $4,000 beast of a computer can do. What is more they claimed there are no load times throughout, at least on the PC version. If this game “does” come to the Xbox I would imagine tons of the effects, quality of visuals, and load times would be implemented. Little has been said about the game since E3, and this could be because they might have actually taken mine (as well as I am sure dozens of other editors advice) and went to move the game’s production for Xbox 360.

A lot of the demo I saw was basically a display of the technology and what I would say could be the best part of the game at least at this stage, parachuting. In one instance you would see the main character get on top of a speeding car, leap off, and quickly release a parachute sending him flying into the air. The from there he guided the parachute a few miles down the road, onto the top of a car, where he then pulled a guy out of the car while it was still going, and then got in the car himself driving off with it. The most amazing part of the demo though was flying around in your simple little plane, and also a fighter jet. Not only could you use the fighter jet to do some damage, destroying environments all around you, but either one of the planes you could leap out of in mid-air. As you go face first towards the atmosphere, you see the clothes rippling in the wind, the sound of the wind cracking over main characters body, and then finally release the parachute! It was definitely a beautiful moment and had my giddy like a school girl.

Needless to say what I witnessed from the game had me going “Whhaaat!” in astonishment, salivation forming between my teeth and cheeks, and a lot of disbelief. Had more of the game been shown (especially running on Xbox) it would have probably been my favorite game on Xbox this year, but still taking a wait and see approach. At any rate you definitely need to keep a lookout for Just Cause.

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