Going back and visiting old-ish games it’s easy to look back with the benefit of retrospect and judge what aged well and what didn’t. Just Cause (2006) falls firmly into the second category. It begins as every Just Cause does after, with Rico Rodriguez being deployed as a one-man army to an island to sow discord and overthrow the dictator of the week. Sweet. it’s silly, it’s stupid, it’s awesome. It’s an 80s action movie that you can actually play. The problem from there is the amount to do. You can steal vehicles like aircrafts and cars, do repetitive side missions where you walk through a town and shoot enemies, base jump from high points and parachute….. and that’s about it. The main differentiator is the possession of a grappling hook that you can use to hook onto vehicles. I’m not sure if it’s a limitation of the technology or the developer’s imaginations, or maybe I’m spoiled by the sequels but the grappling hook blows. You must manually equip it so no shooting while using it, you have to manually retract and extend the cord, and you have to fight to do anything that’s not paragliding at a breakneck speed of 5 miles an hour. Wherever I could I would ignore this mechanic entirely. A slice more to do would have made this game not feel so empty for being open-world, but as it stands the first Just Cause is nothing more than the first step that had to be taken to craft a remarkable game we wouldn’t see until the sequel.