An overdose of destruction on screen does not work in film; bucket loads of CGI and visual effects can quickly kill the magic and some directors don’t learn. As for games, it works very well, because you are the one doing the exploding and that sense of power over all you survey quickly becomes addictive. First person shooters can do it right, but only if there is a good story out of it, but the king of explosions has always been Avalanche Studios with Just Cause 2. Now with Just Cause 3, everything has changed.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Whether all of this change is good, well shall have to see. The story for this looks fairly promising; one many dares to topple an evil empire in the hope that his people can be free, basic heroic story that everybody loves. Set after Just Cause 2, Rico finds himself on his way home to the Mediterranean island of Medici, only to find that this, like in Just Cause 2, is ruled under a dictatorship. General Di Ravello has taken control of the island in order to mine a mineral called Bavarium to achieve his goals of global domination. Typically, Rico must topple his empire piece by piece and bring an end to the tyranny of the island nation and restore it to its former glory. It all sound great, but I’m afraid, it is not to be. The story is very simplistic and very straight forward; you won’t find any plot twists or exciting characters in this game and to add insult to injury, the dialogue and humour in this game is woefully poor. I’ve seen better comedy, from the ramblings of an old person.
It really is bad storytelling, and the characterisation in the game is beyond belief. It’s almost as though the developers have tried to make the clichés typical of action movies into jokes, but that clearly hasn’t worked. I’ve never done this with a game, but about half way through playing, I realised that the dialogue and the characters don’t contribute much to the whole game, so I just ignored what they were saying. Rico may look like a badass, but as a person, he is far from it. General Ravello is also a pretty crap villain; no great backstory, nothing interesting to say and critically, like Rico, his humour falls flat every single time. The supporting cast don’t add much either, it’s almost as if the characters and story of the game were an afterthought, which is the worst thing that could happen in a campaign. But there is a lighter way of looking at all of this; it is simply a device to allow for some of the most over the top action of any game to date.
Avalanche has done a good job of making the world of Medici look stunning. From end to end, everything from the snow-capped mountains to the oceans the surround the island, all of it is beautiful to look at. Sadly, though, to compensate for the size of the world, the graphics aren’t the best Avalanche has done. I think with their work on Mad Max, they concentrated more on creating something brand new and exclusive rather than an extra instalment to the Just Cause series. That said, at a distant, if you were to frame the island, it looks fantastic.
Though it isn’t quite as fantastic as the way the game is played. Pretty much everything from small buildings, bridges, oil rigs, fuel tanks, cars and towers can be toppled and blown up thanks to the curtesy of unlimited C4 explosive. The grapple hook has returned and you can now hook multiple objects together to perform some spectacular action stunts. You now have a wing suit so you can glide and you still have all kinds of vehicles from military to civilian that you can move over and ride on top of them. You feel all powerful as you play through the game, that being said, I managed to complete the whole game in under 10 hours, including side quests and settlements to destroy. The side quests themselves, from race courses to time trials of the wingsuit, are all very fun but a bit repetitive. Mind you, there is a lot of them when you look at the world.
About the same size as Just Cause 2, it spans over 400 square miles and extends into the oceans and the skies. It is one of the biggest maps of any game in history and as a result, no two places ever look exactly the same. Everything then really seems like an enormous playground, but, against the worlds of games like GTA V or Watch Dogs, it doesn’t really feel alive. And there is another problem, because of the sheer size of this world, there are bugs and glitches everywhere, in fact, the game froze at least twice when I was playing it. Mind you, like GTA V, the military and law enforcement are never far away from trying to kill you whenever you mess up their operations. It may be flawed, but it is a lot of fun.
It seems to me, that the outlook of the aspects of this game have always been very good, but when you dig deep, you realise that they are riddled with all sorts of problems. Take the sound effects for example; from hearing explosions, sea gulls, heavy traffic and speed boats, it all sounds like a real living world. But, in games like GTA V, there is usually a broad scope of different sounds for the same effect, in this, they simply reuse the same effects again and again. There is no genuine craft involved. They sound great when you first hear them, but after a while, it becomes quite tiresome.
The score for Just Cause 3 is a lot better than the sound design. Henry Jackman was hired to compose and has brought a very nice Mediterranean feel to the whole score. And unlike the sound to the game, there is variation in the music pieces and creates a nice, gentle atmosphere to balance out the all-out chaos to the game.
For such a large game, it also has great flexibility, but not in the way of stealth vs. guns blazing. You can choose how to blow up an enemy fortress using rockets or guns or C4 or even your grapple hook to pull down entire structures. Just Cause also has a perk system that is unlocked by doing challenges and side quests. The more you do and depending on how well you do them, influences the amount of points you get that go towards perks. You choose between wingsuit or plane, car or grapple hook, they have thought of a lot of ways to cater for countless numbers of different players, and that shows in the community section of the game.
Instead of co-op multiplayer or online matches, you get competitive leader boards that show community records in certain challenges e.g. furthest someone has flown in a wingsuit or most explosions from a central point. It can get really fun, but you could’ve had so much more is co-op was introduced as everyone wanted it. Sadly, it never happened.
Just Cause 3 is an example of being successful at a lot of things, but a complete failure at a lot of others. And what really annoys me, is that it could’ve been so much better and sadly it wasn’t. It isn’t completely terrible, you can still have fun off the campaign and that is what I suggest you do.
I give this game a 4.5/10.
Robs Raving Reviews 