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REVIEW: JUST CAUSE 4 (PS4, XBOX ONE, PC - PS4 VERSION TESTED)

14/1/2019

13 Comments

 
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What about that weather, eh? Grr! Bloody weather <WAVES FIST AT SKY>.

We British love discussing the weather, and we love complaining about the weather, which is all a bit weird when you consider that our default weather tends to be "grey". I suppose that's why we get all excited when we hear it's going to be sunny, or there's snow on the way. Anything to break up the monotony. 

"Oh good! Something new to complain about!"

Remember last summer's extended heatwave, and how we all lolled around like we were dying, and missed the greyness?

If you'd bought into the previews, you'd be under the impression that weather plays a big part in Just Cause 4, but we'll get to that in a moment.

First I want to apologise for this review being so late. Truth is, I couldn't quite work up the enthusiasm to write it. Not because Just Cause 4 is a bad game, but because I feel like I'd already reviewed it. At least I've actually played this one, unlike the latest Call of Duty, which remains shoved down the side of my bed, still in its shrink-wrap. 

You see, for vast swathes of Just Cause 4 I felt I was playing Just Cause 3. And there were times when it could've been Just Cause 2. And adding to the sense of familiarity was that, if I squinted during certain sections, I could've been playing any one of a number of other open world destroy 'em ups.

However, just like an 100m athlete who has created a super-fast clone of himself that lacks a body from the neck down... I'm racing ahead.

Yes, you're right: that is a tortured metaphor. But hey - at least it's not raining, yet.
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RICOCONUT
The Just Cause games, if you're unfamiliar with them, are usually set around some fictional South America country, with you - as glistening, Latino, alpha male Rico Rodriguez - leading a B-Movie revolution against Some Bad Dudes. Ultimately, what this boils down to is retaking the country area by area through completing missions, capturing enemy installations, and - new to Just Cause 4 - ordering your troops to advance across a needlessly complicated and confusing map. 

The USPs of the Just Cause games are two-fold; aside from the usual array of weapons, and the ability to requisition any vehicle, Rico primarily makes his way around the map using a combination of a lewd strut (grappling hook) and a lecherous swagger (wing suit).

It's ludicrously unrealistic, but Just Cause has always been about over-the-top stunts taking precedent over, y'know, physics and that. Who cares about gravity, when Rico can deploy his grappling hook, and a number of special attachments (balloons, jet engines), to cause spectacular damage to his surroundings?

There are moments where it's a big pile of fun to tie two huge, inflammable, structures together, and watch as they're reeled closer together. Or fire a bunch of balloons at some vehicle that's pursuing you, and watch it be catapulted into the air. Or tie a speedboat to a helicopter.

​But then, it was a lot of fun in Just Cause 3 as well, and there's not a great deal here - at least for much of the game - which can profess with confidence to be new

BIG ADDITION
The big addition that Just Cause 4 brings to the series are those dynamic weather effects; the bad guys have control of the weather, and can unleash tomatoes (tornados), lightning, sandstorms and the like to make your job harder.

Unfortunately, while that might sound very exciting, a potential game-changer in fact, the weather missions are just brief moments in a game where the vast bulk of it is comprised of identikit mission types. Indeed, the variety is really what you'll be bringing to the table, and limited only by your willingness to experiment with the destructible environments and the gadgets at your disposal.

Sadly, there are few opportunities to use them in any sort of strategic fashion; as fun as it is to strap gas canisters to everything, or float baddies into the stratosphere, the chaotic nature of the firefights - sometimes fought while you're balanced atop a vehicle - means you'll be doing your experimenting while also trying not to be killed.

And even if death is a rare occurrence (Rich can absorb preposterous amounts of damage), too often an explosion will send you catapulting miles away from where you were just moments before. 

So, it's chaos - indeed, the game awards you "chaos points" for causing chaos - but even in a sandbox you still want to be able to play with your toys. You don't always want some bigger kid coming in and start throwing water bombs and fireworks at you, or letting rip with a Dyson, while you're tying to build sandcastles. 
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HARD PRESSED
So, for a lot of Just Cause 4, you'd be hard pressed to tell you're playing a different game from Just Cause 3. However, while these games have never offered the most beautiful virtual, open world, vistas, there was something bright and appealing about the location in the latter.

Unfortunately, while I appreciate the scale of the world, the dynamic destruction, the over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek, nature of everything, there's no escaping that Just Cause 4 is a really ugly game.

I guess that's sort of the point - it's set on a war-torn island full of slums - but it made me appreciate the stunning views in Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Far Cry 5 all the more. I realised how those games - likely bigger-budgeted than Just Cause 4 admittedly - are as much a product of their production design as anything. Those sunsets and shadows and distant horizons may appear to be procedurally generated, whatever that means, but in reality it's all about positioning, an eye for beauty, and making the most of the technology.

If something like, say, Journey - which boasts a fraction of the budget of Just Cause 4 - can feel epic and breath-taking, then there's no excuse really. Unless that excuse is "We were all really drunk" - in which case... fair enough.

"Why were you drunk?"

"Just 'cause!"


Just Cause 4, perhaps in a way that's true to the nature of its gameplay, basically just dumps everything in the sandbox without a great deal of consideration towards aesthetics. Even the dynamic weather events - which you would've thought were the perfect way to show off - are a little underwhelming in this context. 

There are moments where you can buy into the pandemonium, but for vast swathes it's not always chaotic in a good way. Throw in its reluctance to bring much in the way of new ideas to the series, and you have a disappointing, unsubtle, sequel. 

SCORE: 521312.4444 out of 9999.918111


13 Comments
Clive Stone link
14/1/2019 11:06:10 am

Loved 2. 3 was also pretty fun even though some features were stripped back...did anyone ever use the pathetic melee attack?

I had high hopes for this. Gone were the grenades and portable explosives, gone were the base attacks where you had to destroy radar dishes, masts, fuel tanks and the likes which was a major blow.

The graphics are as good as AIDS. Rico looks like he took ALL the drugs and had a shit beard ( this is on PC where I always have my settings on MAXIMUM TITS). The water is unforgivable though. 2 and 3 looked quite pretty. 4 looks like they used a Nintendo 64.

Don't understand why the focus was on the grappling hook and having the most ass-backwards system to deploy balloons etc that reach multiple heights. Why not just have one eh?

I'm sure the game is still fun to play, and I'm not disagreeing with the review.... I just don't understand how it looks like arse toffee and all the good stuff got taken out.

Please watch this https://youtu.be/a2vuZ06ms7Q

Reply
Voodoo76
14/1/2019 11:34:49 am

I've never really wanted a PC until reading this...... MAXIMUM TITS.

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Clive again link
14/1/2019 07:51:35 pm

MAXIMUM TITS OR GTFO. Just wanted to add that my use of word-age such as "gone were the grenades etc." is irritating me. Plus, just then, I used the word "word-age". Or is that two words? Or a non-word? I hate words.

I meant to mention that I uninstalled and got this refunded after about 20 minutes.

I also meant to mention that the pop-up was horrendous. Trees that were close by would continuously appear then disappear for no valid reason, especially when running on MAXIMUM TITS. Spinning around whilst parachuting really highlighted how sloppy this new engine is.

Haiku bot 9000
15/1/2019 08:54:20 am

Gone were the grenades
Shit beard and took all the drugs
Graphics good as AIDS

Voodoo76
15/1/2019 12:23:01 pm

I've just been escorted out of PC World for asking to see a PC running on MAXIMUM TITS. I maybe shouldn't have shouted it as loud as it reads.

Fancy Pants
14/1/2019 03:03:10 pm

I really dislike the word “inflammable”. I know it’s technically correct, it it doesn’t make sense. What’s wrong with a good old fashioned “flammable”?

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John Veness
14/1/2019 08:51:57 pm

Not sure if joking... but you do realise that inflammable is the older word and flammable the younger upstart?

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Dr Nick Riviera
15/1/2019 09:46:49 pm

Inflammable means flammable? What a country!

Spiney O'Sullivan
14/1/2019 03:13:47 pm

Funnily enough, despite owning and largely liking Just Cause 1 and 2, I never bought Just Cause 3 because reviews made it sound too much like Just Cause 2. And then I didn't even bother looking at much preview information about Just Cause 4 because it also didn't look like much of a step up on Just Cause 3. I probably won't even notice when Just Cause 5 gets released.

Just Cause is interesting as it kind of shows how important the traits of meaningful world-building, character and story are to games by completely lacking all of them. I've seen people try to call it a parody of dumb action movies, but it's not clever enough to pass for that, and there's enough games out there that can provide a stream of constant explosions in giant unengaging open worlds that it just feels redundant on every level.

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Col. Asdasd
15/1/2019 09:04:36 am

This is interesting. Imagine you're the God of Avalanche Studios for a couple of years. You're designer, developer and executive - anything goes on your say-so. Your only brief is to keep making Just Cause games that sell well. How do you keep the series alive?

Do you try to emphasise the world and the characters, to make the viewer truly care about Rico McProtagonist so they keep buying sequels to find out what happens to him? Or do you refresh the world and keep the mechanics the same, using the emergent gameplay as the connective tissue between sandboxes that span all the environments the Earth has to offer?

Do you only retain the title and throw everything else out between games, Final Fantasy style? Presumably you don't keep making what appear to be endless iterations of the same game while expanding the feature set. Or maybe you do, only with better innovations and less game-ruining bugs?

C'mon everybody. How would you (or you, or YOU!) fix Just Cause?

Reply
Spiney O’Sullivan
15/1/2019 11:54:20 am

After a point I’d just start rereleasing the old games and just updating the numbers on them. It’s not like anybody’s going to notice.

DEAN
15/1/2019 12:29:36 pm

Better graphics and larger set-pieces - Why not pull the moon out of the sky and into a pond? Fuck the moon!

Co-op - does it have that? Would be cool to smash shit up with your mates.

To be honest, I only played JC3 a tiny bit - nothing wrong with it but..... Hey, played QUBE 2 recently and then QUBE - brilliant games them is!

Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
16/1/2019 05:54:20 pm

I’d bring back Bolo Santooosiiiiiiii and make her Rico’s sidekick.




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