Just Cause 4 is the latest addition to Avalanche Studios’ Just Cause series. Published by Square Enix, the game has included more weapons, vehicles, grappling hook mods, explosions and destruction than its predecessors. Just Cause 4 was released on December 4th 2018 and is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
tl;dr – rating: 8/10
Positives:
+ Huge open world with varied environments
+ Parachute, wingsuit and grappling hook from the start
+ Different types of grappling hooks with their own mods
+ Tonnes of weapons and vehicles
+ A mountain of unlockables
Negatives:
– A few glitches from the new physics engine
– Slightly confusing menus
– No Multiplayer option
Once again Rico Rodriguez returns to cause mayhem and chaos and Just Cause 4 has you taking down yet another dictator, this time of the fictional South American country of Solis. However this time it’s personal, the dictator in question apparently gained his most powerful weapon from Rico’s Father. Until now we haven’t had too much backstory to Rico and it’s nice to be able to gain an insight to his history for once.
True to the Just Cause formula Rico joins forces with the local rebels, the difference in Just Cause 4 however is that you are a main figurehead of the rebel force named: The Army of Chaos, and also you’ve had a hand in the creation of the rebels after your presence in a slum town causes it to be targeted in an attack. The core elements of the games story revolve around four key areas. The island country of Solis is divided into different regions and at the start of the game all of them, bar one tiny initial starting area, are under control of the Black Hand (an enemy force that Rico has fought against in past Just Cause titles) led by Gabriela Morales.
For most of the story you will be disrupting Black Hand control of these regions which allows your own Army of Chaos to take over the region and push the front line of conflict further. This isn’t to say the only goal for the story. Your second in command will often have various missions for you to do inside your own controlled regions such as blowing up surveillance equipment or training up new recruits. The other two side stories are quite odd but are important nonetheless, the first tasks you with finding hidden tombs to discover the true history of Solis as opposed to the one the Black Hand have enforced, obviously anyone delving into the matter becomes a threat to the Black Hand and so there’s quite a bit of fighting to do as opposed to just walking about dusty crypts. The other side story involves helping an aspiring director create a realistic war film and has you doing various stunts and challenges to be shot for the film. These stunts can be anything from speeding boat chases to high-flying vehicle jumps but most tend to end in an explosion of sorts.
All of these story objectives are equally important, especially since three of them improve your different grappling hook mods… like in past titles Rico’s trusty grappling hook makes a return with a major difference. You can customise the grappling hook with three different features (unlocked in the first few missions): air lifter, retractor and booster. Air lifter gives the ability to attach balloons with your grappling hook, these have different mods that can be added to change the effect, such as how high they go, whether they are explosive, how easy they are to pop, etc. They can be used to send things into shooting into the air or to simply lift things off of the ground and keep them floating. The retractor will be familiar to Just Cause 3 players as it featured there first, the retractor will pull two objects together until they are touching or something gets in the way, this one is very effective for pulling over tall structures or for tethering two enemies together for an explosive finale. Lastly the booster may seem vaguely familiar from Just Cause 3 but the most significant change is the fact that it’s part of the grappling hook now and can be placed more easily. Also through mods you can change the effect of the booster such as how long it fires for, its intensity and what happens when it expires or whether it’s renewable, meaning a single booster can be reused as a makeshift nitro-boost. You can save three custom loadouts and switch between them effortlessly with the d-pad on the controller, but beware you can only have up to ten hooks active at a time. Amazingly though you have access to all ten right from the start, whereas in Just Cause 3 you would start with one and unlock more as you progressed.
One thing to note is that at the start of the game you have immediate access to all three of Rico’s signature tools, his parachute, wingsuit and grappling hook; this means you have everything at your fingertips as soon as you start meaning you don’t have to go straight for the missions if you don’t want to. With all these different mechanics being so integral to the gameplay it’s worth noting that the physics engine has been greatly improved. The world you play in has so much physics to it; you have a weather system along with extreme weather conditions like tornadoes which have their own wind mechanics. The movement physics have been improved meaning objects will respond to the environment in more realistic ways and the AI is upgraded so the bad guys won’t just stand still shooting at you.
All of these new physic mechanics added to the game has taken its toll though. A few times I’ve been playing I’ve found some truly extreme glitches, things like planes taking off vertically and nose-diving into the ground, enemies flying thousands of feet into the air, Rico getting trapped on corners from grappling and items, weapons or cars spawning in mid-air or half in the ground. It’s to be expected though with a game with so much depth and a huge and sprawling game world. Unexpected glitches will happen but so far all of the glitches I’ve encountered haven’t been game-breaking or disastrous, I haven’t had to reload anything, they’ve all just been rather odd or comical in some way so they don’t bother me too much. The map isn’t as big as Just Cause 3’s but it does have a lot less ocean whilst remaining just as varied in the environments that it brings to the table. I’ve seen forests, mountains, lakes and rivers, deserts and tornado-torn valleys; the variety is still there only now I don’t have to ride a boat for twenty minutes to reach it.
The supply drops are something I’m glad to see return. Now instead of finding vehicles and bringing them to a safe point you unlock them by taking over territory from the Black Hand. The list seems to have a lot more to it than in past titles too. Not only can you call upon cars, planes, helicopters, tanks, forklifts and cranes but you can also call in other things like explosive fuel barrels, cargo containers, AA turrets and even sea mines. You can also call in weapon drops and there’s a good deal of variety there as well. Machine guns are plentiful and range from rifles to SMG’s but there are also grenade launchers, rocket launchers, lightning guns, wind cannons and sniper rifles to name but a few. The sniper rifles in this game are actually very useful and effective and even for someone, like me, who doesn’t play first person shooters that often I had no problems getting in a few headshots.
All of the supply drop vehicles and weapons also have multiple functionalities. Many of the weapons have an alternate firing choice, such as a rifle with a grenade launcher on the bottom or a shotgun with a ricocheting scatter shot. This means that many of the weapons have more than one situation they perform well in. One rifle has a built in shield that pops out the bottom and turns you into a bullet-sponging juggernaut, another gun has an automatic lock-on that fires a whole ammo clip at an enemy.
The vehicles have many different uses too especially the utility vehicles. The crane, for example, is fully functioning and you can pick up any other vehicle or metal object with ease, I ended up turning a car into my own personal wrecking ball and smashed down a bridge along the way. Other vehicles like the carrier boat have a single use but are incredibly flexible, the carrier boat is huge and can hold a small legion of tanks without much problem and even has a ramp that can be raised and lowered for loading and offloading.
One of the small disappointments was the lack of any kind of multiplayer. The feats from Just Cause 3 return to tell you where you stand in terms of people on your friend list but that’s about as close as you get to other players online. Just Cause 2 on PC ended up having a modding community that created an online mode for the game. From then on fans of the series have been asking for a multiplayer mode and I was half expecting to see some side option on the main menu for multiplayer or at least some kind of online minigame that had maybe a much smaller map or sandbox to play with friends in. Still with all the physics causing mayhem for just one player I dread to imagine what would happen with a group of four or more.
Another thing that was slightly annoying was how overwhelming the menu screen seemed to be. Upon opening it I’m bombarded with different sub-menu’s and scroll menus that it took a while to get adjusted. You have options to interact and manage your Army of Chaos and you have another menu which you can cycle through the missions and side missions all on one screen. The controller however had a small surprising feature in that the game makes good use of the vibration rumble and I found it went off for things like explosions and also sometimes whilst driving. Another thing to note is the sheer amount of destructible objects in the environment and it was nice to find that not every destructible object is coloured red, there are some other things like doors and panels that can be pulled off or smashed that are coloured as you would expect. Many of the other objects are still coloured red to show their vulnerability.
So what does this all mean for Just Cause 4? Well to me it seems to be a good example of a production studio listening to its fans, I know that there isn’t a multiplayer option for the game but the fact of the matter is that most of the things that I enjoyed with the Just Cause series (and that other people enjoyed) have been brought over to Just Cause 4 and improved. Far too often I see companies that remove some of the things they did right in the past games instead of expanding on them. Just Cause 4 then is everything right in a sequel, it brought forward all of the tools and equipment that was fun and enjoyable in the previous games and then it added more. Whilst it’s true that some may see this as too ‘samey’ I say ‘why change what isn’t broken’ and Just Cause 4 definitely gives me more of what I loved in the previous games: Complete freedom, explosions and a grappling hook.
BcT Review Rating: 8/10
Reviewed on PS4
BugcatcherTom Reviews 