Just Cause

Just Cause for PlayStation 2 is the 2006 open-world action game that introduced Avalanche Studios' Rico Rodriguez and the series' blend of shooting, driving, flying and airborne stunts. Published by Eidos Interactive, this PS2 release places the Agency operative in San Esperito, a fictional tropical island nation whose dictator, Salvador Mendoza, is suspected of holding weapons of mass destruction. Rico is sent to find his mentor Tom Sheldon, support the uprising against Mendoza, and turn the island's competing powers against the regime.

The PlayStation 2 game is played from a third-person view, combining on-foot combat with a wide choice of transport. Rico can run, jump, swim and fight with weapons or basic hand-to-hand attacks, but the landscape is designed to make travel part of the action. Cars, motorcycles, boats, helicopters and aeroplanes can be commandeered, so a trip between objectives can become a chase, an escape by sea, or a flight over the island. Players can also open Rico's parachute in the air and use it for skydiving, BASE jumping and parasailing behind a moving vehicle.

San Esperito is not a sequence of isolated levels. Its roads, towns, resorts, jungle, mountains and surrounding waters form a large area that can be explored before or between story assignments. The main campaign moves Rico through operations against Mendoza's government and the forces protecting it, while the open structure leaves room to choose when to pursue the next major mission. Agency safehouses provide useful staging points and can add access to equipment or vehicles as the campaign opens further territory.

The political conflict gives the missions their direction. Rico works with the guerrilla movement and the Rioja cartel while opposing Mendoza, the government-backed Black Hand mercenaries and the rival Montano cartel. Optional activities include helping liberate settlements and attacking cartel properties, and these jobs build standing with the factions involved. That system makes the wider map more than scenery: side work can support the revolutionary effort as well as supply another reason to travel across the islands.

Vehicle action is a defining part of Just Cause PS2. Rico can hijack traffic and aircraft, move between vehicles during dangerous pursuits, and use the parachute to turn speed and altitude into an escape route. Stunt challenges and races sit alongside combat-oriented tasks, while the ability to approach the world by road, water or air encourages experimentation. The result is an early series formula centered on reaching a problem, selecting a vehicle or weapon for the moment, and improvising when the plan changes.

This is the first Just Cause game, made by the Swedish studio Avalanche Studios before later entries expanded Rico's equipment and moved the action to different fictional countries. The 2006 PlayStation 2 version is its own original console release, not the later PlayStation 3-era sequel Just Cause 2 or a port of one of those follow-ups. Its large island, free-roaming structure and emphasis on parachute-assisted movement established the foundations for the franchise's later spectacular action.