Just Cause 1 is an action-adventure game by Avalanche Studios and published by Eidos Interactive for PC, PS2 and XBox in September of 2006.
As the first installment of the Just Cause series, it pioneered the franchise's high-octane action-movie style and laid the foundation for what would wind up becoming its most lauded feature: The grappling hook, allowing players to latch onto vehicles, surf on cars and steal helicopters in midair.
While very under-developed compared to the sequels it went on to spawn, it is - at least in my eyes - a fantastic game with an excellent atmosphere and a soundtrack that is to die for.
But in retrospect, my first experience with the game was unusual.
While I now legally own the game, when I first played Just Cause 1 I had admittedly pirated it, and I played it on a crummy old Windows XP.
This was a time before Good Old Games Dot Com re-releases. A time before Steam. This was not a fancy edition of Just Cause made to run on modern PC's. Windows XP was the modern PC.
So I played the game, and I had my good time. I had an experience I would not soon forget, the atmosphere enhanced by the music that would play.
Then, years later, I wanted to have another taste of that experience.
It was then that I noticed something was missing. One of the most impactful parts of the game, at least in my own subjective eyes.
Picture it with me.
You've flown to the highest point in the sky. Below you, the vast landscape of an island nation spreads out over the sea.
Roads you spent hours traveling are nothing but scribbled lines in the vibrant green grass. Settlements you liberated in a desperate struggle, streets you fought to survive in as the military rained hell down upon you, they're all reduced to little more than a pinprick from up here.
There is nothing around you for miles but clouds and wind. There is no enemy here to fire at you. No jet to take you out of the air.
From this vantage point you can see everything.
From this vantage point you could go anywhere.
So you jump.
You throw open the door of your vehicle and you just... Leap.
You know you'll be okay. You have a parachute, an infinite supply of them in fact. There is no threat to this action, no fear in simply letting the air take you.
And then, right on cue... This music begins to play.
It perfectly emphasises this feeling. The sight of the clouds whizzing past you while the island draws closer so, so very slowly... A serene pause despite your immense speed. The peace and freedom of being able to take this one moment to just... Let go. To just let yourself fall, knowing you will always land safely, no matter where you choose to make that landing.
This was, to me, the defining moment of Just Cause 1 - That first time I took that death-defying leap from the very top of the game world and just soared down for what seemed like an eternity.
It may seem silly to anyone familiar with Just Cause. The over-the-top action and wacky silliness of the game's plot may make it seem like an ill fit for a profound feeling like I am describing, but I felt it. It gave me that feeling and that's what's important.
The very moment this song began to play was when I would never look at the game the same way again.
This one little almost unrelated part of the product that could so easily be overlooked was, in itself, a piece of art.
And when I played the game again, years later, just hoping to be able to feel something akin to that feeling again...
It was missing.
No matter how high I flew, no matter if I tried it at the very start of the game or after achieving 100% completion... The song simply would not play.
Save for one scripted sequence at the very end, the Skydiving Song was completely absent from the game.
"This can't be right", I thought. "Something's wrong here."
I noticed the safehouse music seemed to be missing too - I remembered there being several distinct variations, yet only one ever seemed to play. Surely this is a bug! Maybe the Steam re-release just didn't work right on modern PC's...?
So the Steam version is broken. Okay. I'll try pirated copies from the Pirate Bay. I'll try running emulated older PC's to play those pirated copies on, maybe it's the operating system's fault.
But no matter what I did,
the song was missing every time.
I thought I had gone insane. That I'd completely made up one of the most impactful experiences a piece of audio in a game had ever given me.
...Until I saw videos on the XBox version.
The music was there. Exactly as I remembered it, playing the second the player jumped out of a plane or helicopter high up in the sky.
But I played the PC version! You can barely emulate an XBox nowadays, let alone when I played the game years ago! The modding scene for Just Cause 1 is virtually nonexistent, and the only patches I can find, official or otherwise, exist to fix widescreen and shadow rendering issues.
So what on earth happened? What is this? What did I play?
In an effort to get to the bottom of this, I have created this page.
Somewhere, out there, there is a version of Just Cause 1 for the PC that has this music intact... And if I can't find it, I can at least share a little bit of this experience with you.
I suppose I was lucky enough to play Just Cause 1 at just the right time, and I'm sad that countless people most likely ended up never having even a chance at feeling what I felt.
If you have any insight into what version of the game I was playing, or why it might be missing from the game today, please let me know.
