Thus, we come to the third installment of the Just Cause franchise. Or, as it's fans like to call it: "KABOOM!!"
This wouldn't work with any other series, apart from maybe Grand Theft Auto. Imagine if Half Life 3 was advertised with: "It's exactly the same as the previous game; except you now have unlimited bombs, you can tie things together and launch things into the air, plus you have a wingsuit meaning you can fly whenever you like." In any other occasion, I would be opposed to the idea that something I like was being re-done except with more stuff thrown in. It didn't work with Portal 2. It didn't work with Arkham City. It didn't work with Hotline Miami 2. It didn't work with the Assasin's Creed games. In fact, the reverse worked for Far Cry: Blood Dragon in that it streamlined the Far Cry formula into a tight whole.
But Just Cause 3 was one of my most anticipated games of this year. It's a third-person sandbox game where you're given a hookshot that enables you to whizz around an entire country creating all kinds of havoc. Just Cause 1 stands out as an interesting eccentricity from the PS2-era, but Just Cause 2 is one of the most fun games out there. It asked a bold question that gamers have mused for may years. Can a game have a pretty terrible plot, uninteresting characters, and a bland story mode - yet still be classified as 'art' because you can hookshot onto an aeroplane flying a mile above you, surf it into a mountain, hookshot onto another plane, attach bombs to it, ride it into an enemy base, then parachute out before detonating the bombs just as the plane crashes. The answer is of course: Yes.
And now Just Cause 3 is the same game, but there's even more stuff to blow up and even more tools to blow stuff up with. So I was dissapointed when my copy from Amazon came late because I stupidly pre-ordered it during Black Friday weekend. Thus, whilst I was able to play a solid chunk of the game - expect a re-review of this down the line somewhere once I've managed to experience at least 80% of all the content available. Because there is a lot of content available.
 |
| OH SOD OFF |
The great news is that the whole game was actually on the disc. I let out a little scream when I discovered there were five discs (90's Full Motion Video games didn't have this many) but the installation was still only a painless one hour process during which I was able to still use my computer like nothing was happening. My internet connection wasn't bought to a standstill, and in fact my PC hardly experienced any slowdown whilst 51.5GB was loaded onto my harddrive. Impressive.
The reason why this comes on a whole five discs is because this is by far the largest sandbox I've ever played, unless you count games like Minecraft where the enviroments are procedurally generated. Whatever you do, don't look at the map screen as soon as you start the game. Not much has changed in terms of aesthetics. When I was first allowed to roam the enviroment, I accidentally shot a barrel, which caused an entire row of objects to explode. Everything explodes, and everything can be hook-shotted onto. The enviroment, whilst more detailed, is still ultimately shallow. You can only ever go outside, and several towns and bases feel like re-skins and clones. And there's still no in-car radio.
Of course, as with any game packed full of content, many are reporting bugs and performance issues. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy the installation was, but when I actually tried launching the game it immediately crashed. This continued for about another 30 mins whilst I went through the typical motions of checking my graphics driver was updated, validating the games catche, running as administrator, running in compatibility mode, tinkering with the NVIDIA control panel, and just restarting my PC. Eventually I was somehow able to get the game running. I should mention that Square Enix is working on patching the game, and at least their advice in the meantime is much more comprehensive then: "Try turning it off and on again." This is still a better PC port than Arkham Knight...though that's not hard. You could probably program the game so it hits you over the head with a frying pan whilst singing 'Afternoon Delight,' and it would still be better than Arkham Knight.
This is good, because the worst thing about this game is something that can easily be patched out: the online content. Despite having no multiplayer elements, or even Steam Cloud support (which is a bit bad) Just Cause 3 requires a constant connection to a server. The games justification is that . However, this means that not only do you get a scoreboard pop up telling you that you're the 47th best parachuter in the world every. Single. Time. You. Use. The. Parachute, but also the game runs much slower. Oh, and if your internet loses connection then the game will pause itself for a moment whilst it tries to reconnect.
I'm sorry, but I don't care about scoreboards. The Stanley Parable made a joke about the redundancy of having them in a singleplayer game almost three years ago! Thank god there's an 'offline mode,' but currently the only way to get this is by going into 'Control Panel' and fiddling around with the application settings. All Square Enix needs to do is add an 'offline mode' button in the options menu and this won't be a problem.
So once I'd managed to actually get the game working, get the screen resolution right, and turn off the online content, then I hardly ran into anymore problems. It's in general much better than Fallout 4. No more randomly losing companions, breaking sidequests, or enemies getting stuck on rocks. I suppose the AI is a bit off, but I just found that this added to the game's charm. I blew up a bridge (because I'd managed to go a whole 30 seconds without destroying anything) yet the cars still thought it was there and thus proceeded to idly drive off the road to their deaths like Lemmings. I think their Sat-Nav's need updating...
The story makes more of an effort to be involving this time, but it still feels like an afterthought. The characters are in general much more well-rounded. Rico has more of a personality than: "ultra-serious dude who makes bad puns" this time. Throughout the game he interacts with a series of colourful people who manage to get some good lines out before vanishing. There's even an antagonist this time, who actually has a name, face, and soul. I felt bad about destroying the loudpeakers because I actualy kind of wanted to hear what he had to say. But then the loudspeakers would explode like they were loaded with nitro-crates from Crash Bandicoot and I stopped caring.
That's really the problem with the story. You start off with some nice cutscenes, but then the mission asks you to go to a town and smash things up. So you do this. Then you go to another town and smash things up. All context is immediately forgotten as you run around attaching C-4 to anything red. The missions deliberately encourage you to destroy everything because that's what you would do anyway...but if that's what I'm going to do anyway then what's the point? Why not be more scripted by, say, giving us a new piece of hardware to blow stuff up with? Or why not give us more of an objective instead of the same motions again and again?
Oh yeah - destroying a city and murdering it's people somehow counts as 'liberating.' This is known as the: 'Iraq/Syria Technique.'
Just like in the previous games, the sandbox works so well because of how straight it's played. Rico remains deadly serious as he surfs a plane into a mountain, then hookshots down to the rebel base and no-one bats as the plane explodes dramatically behind him and Rico says "Morning." It's the exact same tone that made Deus Ex such fun, as JC Denton walks around speaking in that monotone gravel-voice whilst hopping around on one leg with a rocket launcher and an inventory filled with candy bars.
This being said, there is a more playful nature to the story. There's no way you could get offended at this games unfortunate similarities to the current events in Iraq and Syria because there's hardly any context. The story is immediately forgotten and everything feels so delightfully fake that there is no way you can take this seriously. The game verges on self-pardoy in how Rico is introduced as 'Proffesional Dictator Overthrower.' It's just too detached from reality to get angry about.
In fact, you could perhaps argue that this is a satire of interventionism. The rebels are all incredibly 'gun-ho' about liberating the country, but they don't really have any aims or ideologies aside from blowing things up. They think they're bringing peace by wantonly destroying everything in sight. If this was a Call Of Duty game they would probably be the antagonists, and if this was Spec Ops: The Line then everyone would be antagonists.
But enough about politics. Let's talk about weapons.
The most important new feature is the ability to attach two objects to each-other, then reel them both in. I would always squeal with delight when I saw explosive barrels as I could attach them to cars and people. You can also tear down towers and other such buildings by tethering them. You could also tether people to rocket-barrels and send them up into space. My favourite thing to do, however, was to attach people to wind turbines and watch them be launched high into the air. It's strange how the more cartoonishly violent this game becomes, the more like a schoolgirl I become.
The only downside is that this effectively makes weapons useless. You can kill people by attaching them to a building, you can attach cars to buildings which makes them both explode, and you can attach helicopers to either the ground or other helicopters. It suddenly felt boring to be using such ordinary things as rocket-launchers and grenades. Once I'd got used to using the tethering ability then my guns lay cold and unloved. It's like if Half Life 2 gave you the overcharged Gravity Gun right away instead of waiting for the climax.
Another new ability is the wingsuit. This allows you to glide in the air, riding the wind. It's supposed to make you fly - however I can never seem to master it. You see: the wingsuit ultimately fails as a game mechanic because it obeys the laws of gravity.
I know how odd this sounds, but you see: the hookshot completely ignores physics - which is why it's so fun. When you fall from a great height, you can use the hookshot to attach to the ground and zip down. Using the hookshot makes you careen towards the ground about ten times quicker than falling....yet you take absolutely no damage from it. Meanwhile, when you hookshot whilst using the wingsuit then you will die from smacking into the ground unless you either put the suit away or use the parachute. The very first time I used the wingsuit, I glided off of a cliff with the 'Superman' theme playing in my head only to collide head-first with the pavement - resulting in a sickening crunch and the most cringe-inducing ragdoll I've ever encountered in my life. The wingsuit really is just a downgrade to the parachute - which thankfully disobeys the laws of physics and therefore allows you to manuver easier and safer.
But that's the only part that feels like the game's adding content for contents sake. The tethering ability, the improvement in characters, the unlimited C-4, and the larger enviroment all improve the game. So overall Just Cause 3 is just like Just Cause 2 only better. And me endorsing such a game feels like I've gone against all my principles as a reviewer. I'm supposed to criticise this for unoriginality. I'm supposed to say that Just Cause 2 was the more streamlined experience and thus the superior game. This isn't a deep exploration of the human condition. This isn't a shifting of the meta, a twist on what we know gaming to be. This isn't art.
But god-damn, it's fun.
