[rwp-review id=”0″]
There used to be a time when the premise of a videogame was more about aimless fun rather than goal-oriented pacing. Now, it isn’t to say the latter did not have its own share of inducing excitement but sometimes mindless mayhem makes for good fun. Personally, I prefer paced story-based immersion over do-random-things gameplay; this is why my past experiences with games such as ‘Crackdown’ have been less than memorable. It’s all fun and cheer for the first two hours but after a while I felt as though I was playing those two hours on repeat for the subsequent 5 hours. So, one would believe that such a game mechanic would not garner much attention from the public; that games which have this as a core mechanic would sort of fly under the radar and become something that you play to pass the time. This was the case seen with games such as ‘Crackdown’ but juxtapose to this is the ‘Just Cause’ series. So, imagine my curiosity when I found out that a third installment was being released after four years of radio silence from Avalanche Studios. I was quite excited to try my hands at this genre of gaming again; I like to believe that my gaming preferences had grown since the last time I played a game from this genre. Before I continue any further, it should be noted that I’ve only lightly dabbled in the previous titles of this series and that very few comparisons will be made to the predecessors – if anything this review will address this game from a stand-alone perspective.
The story is quite straightforward – you reprise your role as Rico Rodriguez, and you return to your homeland of Medici in order to liberate it from the vice grip of the dictator General Sebastiano Di Ravello. To those of you who are new to the Just Cause series, this synopsis may stir up imagery of espionage-esque story lines, noire themes, and strategic gameplay; for how else would you subvert a despotic regime? Well, Rico Rodriguez is anything but a man of subtlety; he doesn’t use silencer pistols and stealth takedowns to liberate a base, he uses C4 and rockets to blow up that base to freedom. The game is extreme in every aspect – be it from the sheer scale of the map to how you traverse the lands, the game pushes the limits.
The moment the game begins will notice how vast the lands of Medici spread – an unerring mix of dense foliage, phenomenal massifs, and foaming oceans, all connected by networks of towns, cities, and bases. It is both breathtaking and hair-raising, for it is a petrifying thought to imagine travelling across all of this land. To give you an idea of the sheer scale of the map – according to the YouTube channel ‘TheyCallMeConor’, it takes roughly two and a half hours to walk across the GTA V map, this pales in comparison to eight and a half hour walk it takes to cross Just Cause 3’s map. Thankfully your mode of commuting across Medici is not just limited to traditional methods of transport – planes, cars, boats, and tanks (Yes, in this game tanks are a traditional form of transport) – but you’re given the assistance of your trusty grappling hook and your parachute. Coupled with these two is the all-new wingsuit – thus, giving the player faster mobility this time around. There is a bit of a learning curve when trying to reach maximum efficiency with the grapple-parachute-wingsuit dynamic but it’s one that pays off, in no time you’ll feel like Batman as soar across crops and whizz through the crevices of mountains and buildings.
Now onto the main USP of the game – explosions, explosions, explosions. It is exhilarating in the way the game allows you to go about causing mayhem to Medici – from strategically planting C4 across gas tanks in bases to create chain explosions, to using the grapple hook to reel yourself into an enemy helicopter and turning it against them, this game emphasizes the concept of DIY. Along with this is the tether mechanic which allows you to attach upto 4 objects (living or non-living) by a tether. The real fun lies in how you use that tether – such as tethering an enemy to a nearby gas cylinder and letting that gas cylinder shoot off into the sky as that hapless solider flails into the horizon before being blown to smithereens; and this is just a basic use of it. There are also a vast artillery at Rico’s disposal and each of them cater to a specific play-style, you can use snipers and long range rifles if you like to keep your distance from the action or you can switch up to RPGs and shotguns if you’re not the quiet-chaotic type.
The game also offers a ‘MOD’ system which is essentially for upgrading your artillery and abilities. However, you don’t purchase the MODs, you earn them by completing challenges that open up every time a base is liberated. Initially, some of the challenges felt a little overwhelming in terms of difficulty but not so much so that it became demotivating. The weird part about this system though is that few of the modifications it offers you are those that would normally be seen as a mandatory feature – such as earning the ability to aim down the sights; somehow Avalanche studios felt that it made logical sense that Rico, through all his years of anarchy, picked up all the tools of the trade except for knowing how to look down the sights of his gun, of course.
For a game that offers an almost endless array of creative possibilities to bringing forth ruination to your foes, it is hindered by simplistic problems; one of these being frame rate issues. Imagine for a moment that you’re in the center of a tempestuous fire fight, a barrage of bullets break across your line of sight, and buildings are engulfed in fiery smoke, and just as you turn around to throw a grenade onto an unsuspecting enemy, the whole screen turns into a blurry windstorm of staggered frame rates. Now, imagine this happening every ten seconds in a battle.
The game also has this annoying habit of having a storyline – yes, you read that correctly. I’m not saying storylines are bad, as mentioned earlier I prefer games with story immersion but the problem with Just Cause 3 is that it has a story for the sake of having a story. Essentially each story mission is just an excuse to go to a base, or a particular area, and destroy everything there. At times it spices things up by asking you to find certain items but in the process of scavenging for those items you end up levelling that whole area into the ground; one can only ponder as to how Rico Rodriguez does his grocery shopping. At the end of the day the story is redundant and trite, each mission feels more like a check-list rather than a narrative progression. Lastly, Rico Rodriguez runs like a geriatric 80-year old who recently had a triple hip replacement – it’s a minor qualm but one that needs to be stated.
At the end of the day, Just cause 3 has a lot going for it – be it from its vast prepossessing landscapes to its invigorating game mechanics, this game truly brings the best out of the ‘sandbox’ genre. I will admit that after a while the chaotic gameplay does get stodgy but till then, it is wonderful. This game gives the player total freedom in executing mission success – it gives you objectives but lets you decide as to how to achieve them; very few games truly let you do that. If you can look past the horrid frame rate issues and superfluous storyline, a lot fun can be achieved in tethering gas cylinders and a cow onto a race car, and proceeding to ride that car off a cliff and onto an enemy’s face. Ah, glorious overkill.
