Just Cause 3 Review

Avalanche Studios recently-released Just Cause 3 has made its début on current generation consoles and left the ageing hardware well and truly in the past. The improvements are clear to see, first things first the game looks really quite stunning (even more so impactful if you’ve fired up the included backwards compatible Xbox 360 version of Just Cause 2).

What grabs the attention first is Rico Rodriguez himself, it’s a big departure from the black-leather assassin decked Antonio Banderas look of past games. Accent aside, Rico now looks like your typical action game hero that you see in every other game, which is a bit of a loss of the game’s unique persona but I suppose more broadly relateable. Besides the hero himself there are of course some big changes possible with the shift to new hardware. The vibrant colour palette is striking as is the impressive draw distance and lush countryside. While slowly parachuting over the trees it is really quite a pleasing sight to take in, and then there’s the realisation of the scale of this fictional, humongous map, Medici.

just cause 3 -Screenshot-Original(4)

Rico’s manoeuvrability and tools of destruction naturally return, with some new additions added for good measure. The parachute and grappling hook in conjunction with an all new wing-suit really help Rico get around at great speed. As before, the mechanics are still a bit wonky and don’t always get the desired result, a few face-plants into tarmac are inevitable, but when it all goes to plan it’s smooth gliding throughout. It’s much more closer to low-level flying than gliding which really is a large part of the appeal factor. Tether is an interesting ability, enabling Rico to shoot a cord and lock it onto one object and lock onto another, and with a pull of the left trigger force them together like an elastic band. This gives a great many options for destruction as well as general mucking about with NPC’s, just ’cause.

just cause 3 -Screenshot-Original(3)

Some story missions are a surprising highlight of the possibilities in this large-scale sandbox and can have you trying a variety of different approaches. Protecting Rico’s fellow rebels on numerous occasions was really entertaining and seemingly came unexpectedly from nowhere. Grappling, parachuting and gliding over to one hot spot to protect team-mates; mopping up, hijacking a chopper or a conveniently placed jet plane and bombing the next area before moving on; these are just some of the campaign’s main highlights for me. I would have liked to have seen more explored in this area, either many more missions of this ilk with varying possibilities of approach, or even user-created missions in a similar fashion, with optional challenge scores or completion time – as opposed to the emphasis on tedious challenges littering the map upon an outpost’s completion.

While repetitive it’s difficult to grow tired of blowing stuff up, so capturing and liberating bases, which always involves balls of fiery explosions, it’s satisfying, even if it does wear thin as it’s really what the game relies heavily on. The main appeal on such outposts is a sense of scale. There can be a large area to glide and parachute around, with many more objects to destroy as well as a high probability of a higher heat level bringing in more enemies to keep you on the move. It’s especially satisfying to steal a chopper with unlimited missiles during the ensuing chaos of explosions, gun-fire and lay waste to the remaining explosive objects and stragglers.

just cause 3 -Screenshot-Original(2)

For an added personal challenge there are bases which are protected by FOW air-strikes that hit you within seconds of being in the area. These require story progression to disable their defences but unknowingly going in was a great and thrilling challenge to try to keep on the move at speed and have the enemy’s air-strike do most of the destroying of objects for you.

While there’s little to grumble about the voice-acting, the story itself is by no means on par with other big open-world games. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the emphasis is clearly geared towards over-the-top action in this huge playground. The cutscenes often just serve as filler or amusing banter before (loading… loading…) loading you back into the fray. Unfortunately there are some compromises for the game’s rather glorious visual presentation. The target 30fps can nose-dive even despite the lower 1600×900 resolution on Xbox One. It’s more the excruciatingly lengthy loading-screens that hinder the flow of the action, as well as the severe slow-down with the dropped framerate when the action gets too hectic. The loading in particular can take a long, long time. So much so where I am unsure on some occasions if the game has crashed and have resorted to restarting it – oddly even the map in the menu itself takes a few seconds longer than expected to fully render. This proves especially frustrating when the framerate drops and the delayed controller response means you can’t get away fast enough before death, and thus have to endure yet another tedious loading screen. I’ve since got the knack of knowing when I may be overwhelmed and position myself for a super slow-motion getaway in preparation.

just cause 3

There’s no big soundtrack for the radio which is likely due to it being much quicker to glide/fly around than it is to use the majority of vehicles. That’s not to say that some suitable action music doesn’t kick in, because when the action is tense there’s usually some music muffled behind the sound of explosions. The former Doctor Who star David Tennant lends his vocal chords as a radio broadcaster providing some light comic relief in scripted moments, typically following Rico’s capturing of an enemy outpost. There’s not much in the way of story, it’s more about the huge sandbox of Medici being at your disposal with the objective of recapturing outposts from the evil dictator Di Ravello and his army. Although it is Rico’s child-hood friend Mario and mercenary allies that prove the highlight of much of the banter. While I would have liked to have seen more variety or side-quests to go alongside the story-based missions, the many enemy outposts you can capture offer some degree of variety with a smaller and larger number of items requiring to be destroyed. Although this does become extremely repetitive early-on, especially when a specific number of outposts are required before story progression can even continue. Which means exploring is mandatory to get them to appear on the map; there appears to be no Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry-esque radio towers to mark such locations on the map.

just cause 3 -Screenshot-Original(5)

Despite its several shortcomings, if you’re after a no-nonsense action game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, then Rico Rodriguez’s latest adventure will certainly provide the explosive thrills where your brain is best switched off and you can go into explosive auto-pilot mode which may just be what the Doctor ordered.

Score 7/10

Written by: News Bot

General dogsbody posting regular news and media content.