Played on Windows.
Also Available on PlayStation four and Xbox Ane.

Just Cause 4 is the fourth game of the But Cause franchise, each game was fabricated by the same company, Avalanche Studios. With Just Cause 2 and three being well received there was a lot of anticipation for Just Crusade four, withal, information technology got hammered at launch by both reviews and fans and that pretty much sealed the fate of this game. The level of the negative reaction was unexpected, and while preparing for this review, a quick review of major bugs from the launch makes it clear why the game was so ill-received initially. Simply has it gotten better?

Many of the original reports of bugs doesn't seem to happen, and in fact, I can even say the game runs surprisingly well. I all the same recall problems with Just Cause three's stability in my review for that years after release, and Just Cause 4 didn't present whatsoever technical problems. Simply, oh boy, did it find other bug to replace it.

Graphics

The first thing noticed past myself and probably any actor is how awful the first cutscene looks. The models seem to hover over the scene, the faces look out of identify, and there's almost a drawing cutout effectually the focus of the scene, the leader of the villains. This set up off several red flags, and perhaps I should have listened to them.

Don't get me wrong, Merely Cause as a franchise has never been the elevation of graphics, there's a huge open globe and a ton of stuff to exercise, and graphically, this game has ever been about a half footstep behind other games released in the same year, or empty world in the case of the original game.


This is the get-go cutscene. Non in game, just a cutscene and it looks similar this.

Withal, the graphics in Merely Cause 4 can look terrible and do and then very frequently. I normally don't judge games based on graphics because any game can piece of work with whatever graphical set. Thomas Was Alone is a fantastic game with minimalist graphics, Nethack is nevertheless one of my favorites with only a set of Ascii characters, so realize that when I'm calling out Just Crusade 4, information technology's beyond just an aesthetic, but rather a failed look that makes the game noticeably awkward.

I honestly feel like the graphics would be more at home in the previous generation. I recollect Just Cause iv has some neat moments, but the character models feel like they belong on an Xbox 360 rather than an Xbox One, or a PlayStation three instead of a PlayStation 4. I'm personally running this game on rather excessive hardware and yet the experience is weak.

Now information technology's possible that this was done in a fashion of a tradeoff, where extremely low visuals could be used to take far ameliorate experience or performance of the game. Indeed, about of my experience with Only Cause 3 and many of my issues were probably due to poor operation, so weaker graphics, and better performance would be preferable. Nonetheless, Just Cause four abuses that choice and instead has just consistently bad quality to the graphics they provide.

There's stylized graphics, and then in that location's weak graphics that feel incomplete. I'm not certain what the main villain should await like merely he feels unfinished. Similarly, while Rico Rodriguez and a few main characters look fine, many of the background models might even be Playstation 2 era models, they only look phenomenally bad, fifty-fifty one of the people that aid Rico for a decent chunk of the story just looks awful every time he'due south on screen.


Try not to focus on in game models, they don't look much improve.

There'due south no way I can defend this, it's weak and rather than have a simplistic simply stylized look, such every bit Viewtiful Joe, or Okami, But Cause iv seems like it'southward attempting to keep up with the graphical powerhouse games, but showed up in a beater, and … I tin can't ignore the quality here. It'southward ever-present and trying not to think of the graphics for twenty hours is rather hard.

Story

Similar to the bug with the graphics, the story of Just Cause 4 has bug. The biggest i is only a scattering of missions are role of the principal storyline. There are a huge corporeality of areas in the game, and while taking over bases and capturing the locations are a large office of the gameplay there'southward only a quick reason to exercise it each time and that's it. While the island is beautiful and diverse, something we'll talk near in the gameplay, the story doesn't be.

There is the main narrative though and it feels like a total mess. The game starts with the master villain and his top henchwoman discussing Rico Rodriguez, the franchise's hero, also as his friend Tom Sheldon. I thought there was a possibility of an interesting story when the villain mentions that Rico Rodriguez' dad worked for him. That plot betoken alone could take done quite a scrap.


The story revolves around taking over the unabridged island with this Risk style board, and completing major missions.

Sadly all of this falls apart fast, and but as a heads up, there volition be some spoilers here, but everything is done in such a poor style that I feel that I must discuss this to prove what bug I have here. I'll effort to limit many of the spoilers, simply honestly, I hope it doesn't thing much considering if it does, you'll exist disappointed with the commitment likewise.

So first, Rico'southward dad isn't part of the game at all, in fact, he died in Simply Cause 3, something I forgot until this game mentioned information technology afterward about fourscore per centum of the mode through the game. The villain mentions that, and that sums up everything, but there's almost no reason for the mention since he doesn't mention his father's decease to Rico directly and, in fact, the two characters don't directly talk. It's almost as if it doesn't know what to exercise with that fact or that the initial scene was done because players didn't realize that Rico had a male parent. Similarly, information technology would explain the odd reference to Tom Sheldon that feels out of place, only to remind the players of him equally well.

But fifty-fifty talking about his begetter, Rico just shrugs it off equally if it doesn't matter. So that hint about Rico'south father is completely wasted here. We don't even get any interesting moments about "The Sins of the Father" motif, which would absolutely be a trope, but too could be washed well. Instead, we go other tropes that aren't as interesting.

We have the guy who's focused on aliens considering he saw a UFO (actually the villain's device), our female costar is the primary villain's henchwoman'due south cousin which, of course, ways the villain rebels at the last moment. Tom Sheldon shows up, which is the only reason he is mentioned before and assists Rico. And finally and perhaps the biggest outcome I take with the game is that the final boss is killed in a cutscene after a rather weak gauntlet of enemies.

While But Crusade 2 and Just Cause 3 didn't accept the best final boss encounters, they at least summed upward the story and gave a great activity fix piece to terminate on. Just Crusade 4 has some good action setpieces, but the final fight is extremely disappointing equally it's just shooting people the same mode you take for the concluding twenty hours.

There's no ziplining betwixt missiles or a large conflicting craft. In that location's fifty-fifty a hint that the villain will be using a large craft that will be hard to have down, only instead, Rico merely rides that craft and crashes into the villain's aeroplane in an uninteractive cutscene. That's the finale, and information technology's extremely weak.

It's not that Just Cause iv does nil right, only so many of its major moments and thoughts on the stories are simply flat wrong. These are things we've seen a hundred times before in games, movies, and TVs, and it doesn't execute well on any of them.


This is a mission cutscene, what went on hither?

At the same fourth dimension, the main story does get subdivided into three different sets of missions that demand to exist completed, where the player will tackle a different defence force of the terminal location. Each of these missions has an interesting story, and this is where the game starts to piece of work. There are also two or iii side missions that start where the histrion meets an archeologist or a flick director and sets up a friendship and again these pieces are rather stiff.

The good parts of the story don't alibi the rest of the experience that produces an underwhelming narrative for the player, and that's what kills the feel of Just Cause four.

Gameplay

And then with an ugly looking game and a weak story, hopefully, the gameplay has something worth playing the game for, or was my time just wasted?

To be honest, in the first couple of hours, I honestly couldn't imagine myself giving this game to a higher place a 1.v. Just Cause iv is weak and needs a lot of work before it becomes a game I tin respect. But I noticed something. At one point I finished playing and put down the controller noticing I had played between four and half-dozen hours in a row without noticing, which is a decent session. During that time, I noticed the graphic problems, but yet I however was having fun. So at that place'southward at least something going on with the gameplay.

Much of But Cause 4 is like to previous titles in the series, I won't go too deep into the mechanics, merely everything is however here. Players can grappling hook, parachute, wingsuit around the environment with the same outlandish physics allowing players to take fun with these features. Guns and explosives are plentiful, though the player no longer has c4 or grenades which are missed. Still players volition e'er be able to observe high explosives, take over vehicles with their ability, or even call in supply drops if necessary. Information technology all works every bit expected. The only real change to the formula is a new grappling hook system that allows yous to assign what happens when you connect two points, y'all can either try to lift it, launch information technology, or bring the points together, or potentially all three of them at the aforementioned time.

While this sounds like a major change, the retraction became the primary feature I looked for and the other 2 only added to the full general silliness, I suppose it worked to keep the physics on edge and give players more to play with. But as it was entertaining to tether flying vehicles to the ground or each other, hither it'south fun to elevator a tank, auto, or boat off the ground during a pursuit.


The destruction looks great when yous can find something to blow upwards.

Earlier I praise parts of Merely Cause 4, the commencement couple of hours highlights some of the biggest problems of Merely Cause 4. In previous games, you would parachute or wingsuit into a town, notice a number of the enemies structures, destroy them and "capture the city" then slingshot yourself into the air to rain decease on the adjacent town. Information technology's a simple setup that promotes a grinding mentality, only the biggest benefit for it was how enjoyable the grind felt from the random destruction.

This gameplay loop worked extremely well for Simply Cause 2 and Just Cause iii, and it seemed that developers at Barrage Studios had understood that destruction is enjoyable due to information technology beingness destroyed. Information technology's a simple fact that many developers overcomplicate and forget that players just similar to blow stuff up.

Just Cause iv seems to retrieve the devastation could stand up on its own, and rather than making information technology a progressive goal to take over areas, even with footling purpose, instead players are awarded generic Chaos points that piece of work like an Experience point arrangement where they can level up and earn "Troops." That becomes the only reason for destruction but beyond that, Just Cause 4 removes a lot of it.

In Only Crusade three players went to major areas and had numerous targets to take out all over the bases and cities. While almost every location felt duplicated, it withal had a lot of enjoyable destruction to exist had.


In that location doesn't fifty-fifty seem to exist a purpose to areas like this arena, just information technology's yet fun to explore.

Just Crusade four, actually fixes the duplication result by giving locations a huge amount of diverseness. Just Crusade 4 feels a piffling smaller than Only Cause 3's expanse, but at the same time, every surface area, location, city, and base feel unique and dissimilar, and that'south what makes Just Cause 4 stand out. There were fifty-fifty locations I noticed such as a huge arena in ane boondocks that had very petty purpose rather than just existence an interesting location to bulldoze by, and in that it works.

This might have worked for the better, but without the destruction having a major reason for existing, information technology just feels like the actor is blowing up things to earn simulated points. While this is what every game is ultimately virtually, here it feels more than blatant. Information technology doesn't help that almost of the locations here have very few destructible objects. Many cities have two or three ruddy targets marked for destruction.

At the same time, completionists can still take over towns, bases and more, merely this time it's done past completing mini objectives. This tin be anything from finding a specific vehicle and making it hitting a target, or flying through a target at a certain speed. It's a overnice improver to the take over mechanic, just when it becomes a choice between Just Cause 3's organisation of causing havoc and Just Cause iv'southward system of driving fast, Merely Cause 4 feels more out of place.

So really, what could have entertained me. Well, I can but say the mission designers earned a lot of credit in my heed. At that place'due south a new Risk style meta-game, that requires players to capture areas of the map with the player moving units into other areas. Earlier players tin can do that, they take to consummate missions in each area. These missions become rather entertaining.

As mentioned before, the world is well designed and every surface area feels different and unique, and similarly, every mission feels unique. While there are a couple of themes of the missions, the game seems to just visit them a couple of times, three at the most, throughout the game, and the locations of these missions are dissimilar and that solitary makes it feel unique.


Taking over cities is as unproblematic every bit beating these mini mission. Literally drive through a target at a speed or with a specific auto/wingsuit.

These missions are what I looked forward to in the game, and I remember at least three that I had to stop playing and restart merely so I could record part of the crawly gameplay. One of my favorite involved taking over little sites for a hacker on the radio and opening something up. So the second phase of the mission had me pick up the hacker and of a sudden I was driving through the same base with him in the rider seat, going off mega jumps and scoring huge air, then a tertiary department happened where the role player had to "protect" the friendly. The thing is while that 3rd part of the mission sounds slow, the entire mission was exciting.

So many missions were amazing and offered interesting and active gameplay that never seemed to stop. Then in that location were the story missions mentioned to a higher place and every major story mission, the x or so that were in the game, were even amend than the other missions.

That'due south not to say the missions were perfect, there were at least 2 missions where the player defended a not-moving antenna and had to try to figure out what was damaging it without a good indicator. But these were the exceptions for the missions.

Information technology's these missions that somehow fabricated Simply Cause 4 palpable to me. I tin't say I loved information technology, considering But Cause four has then many problems that information technology'south not a great game, and yet, I enjoyed playing it to the point that I invested over 20 hours into the game without thinking about the time I spent.


The big prepare pieces though can be fun, I just wanted more from this game.

I would even say the missions give the player an enjoyable enough experience that they might be able to ignore all the other parts of the game, merely to enjoy these moments of gameplay that are done so brazenly that players will focus on them more everything else Only Cause 4 seems to practice wrong.

Determination

It's of import to besides mention that I paid twenty dollars for Just Crusade 4. The total price of 60 dollars would have been a very different story, and I call up that however is entirely too much, only I got a decent value out of the game.

While in that location are so many issues, and the fact is I can't telephone call Just Cause four a great game, the graphics are so bad, I nearly stopped the game because I felt personally insulted past the quality, the story is lacking, and what really fabricated me bask Just Cause 3 is missing this time around with the lack of destructibility. Withal, the missions somehow made Just Cause a bare recommendation.

It's non a strong recommendation but at 20 bucks I recall information technology's still a fun game to play through, and while I fully empathise the complaints, and they are valid, I can't deny there's a decent amount of fun in Simply Cause 4.

I give Just Cause 4 a

3/5

This is a Bare recommendation, I almost want to requite this game a 2.five/5 or a 2/5 only if I had to play But Cause 4 a 2d time, I think I would enjoy myself. At the same time, I'd choice up Simply Cause three, or possibly Just Cause 2 earlier I picked upwardly Just Cause four.

Final Thoughts: Just Cause 4 has and then many problems. Bad graphics, bad story, and weaker gameplay. Just the missions are enjoyable to the bespeak that you lot might accept information technology all. Weak Recommend

Stats: 24.7 hours, 12/61 achievements earned.