Review: Just Cause 4

At least the game’s big-picture effects play to the developer’s strengths, particularly those of its new, proprietary Apex engine.

Just Cause 4
Photo: Square Enix

As far as over-the-top action spectacles go, Just Cause 4 is a lot smarter than it probably needs to be. Like all of its predecessors in this semi-sandbox series, the game sees protagonist Rico Rodriguez dropping into a fictional country in the middle of a revolution, which he must liberate by causing chaos—or, rather, “creative destruction.” This time around, however, there’s a much stronger narrative purpose to each mission. You’re still given freedom to tackle them with a wide range of weapons, vehicles, and objects that you can airdrop at will into combat scenarios, but there’s a bit more nuance to the game than simply finding ways to blow things up.

Just Cause 4 doesn’t stint on any of its other content. For one, there are tons of aerial and speedy stunts to perform across the South American island nation of Solis. But in the end, the game is better at focusing players, as the objective-driven Region Strikes help to mask the more repetitious activities, just as three overarching, nonlinear extreme weather-themed main missions motivate you to slog through the Strikes, once those, too, grow tiresome.

If Just Cause 4 is good, it’s only in comparison to previous entries, and if it’s occasionally better than similar open-world liberation games like Ghost Recon: Wildlands or Far Cry 5, it’s only because it jettisons realism in the same way that Saints Row 4 did in an effort to appeal to those who find the Grand Theft Auto games to be too true to life. Just Cause 4 has a plot, just like its precursors, but in the end, it’s less about that and more about the many ways in which Rico can shift between using a parachute and wingsuit to dive into the heart of enemy bases, and how he can use a grappling gun to either fling himself toward foes or, more entertainingly, use a variety of turbo-charged or Fulton-esque balloon tethers to make other objects crash into enemies.

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Sadly, the game’s physics rarely hold up to serious scrutiny. In theory, it’d be cool to jump your motorboat into an enemy’s base and then parachute out, grappling to a nearby sniper tower for cover. But even assuming you can drive that oversensitive vehicle without getting stuck on debris, the boat might randomly detonate mid-air thanks to some mysterious collision detection. Should you manage to zip away, chances are you’ll end up stuck on the railing beneath the tower instead of safely tucked away within it, and as you attempt to disengage, you’ll probably be blown apart by at least three different grenade-launching foes that weren’t there a second ago.

Just Cause 4’s scripted moments tend to hold up just fine, as when Rico uses a raised missile silo as a ramp with which to launch his vehicle over a ravine. But the random events surrounding said moments get unintentionally silly, like when Rico’s vehicle lands on its front bumper and starts spinning, fixed in place, as if performing some sort of vehicular breakdance.

The prospect of getting to the bigger, badder missions with the cooler names—Operations Thunderbarge, Windwalker, and Sandslinger—shouldn’t be what inspires you to press on. And yet, those operations are to some degree worth the price of admission, as the extreme weather conditions you’ll encounter within them are not only an admittedly spectacular sight but a literal game-changer. The enemy AI is so lackluster that killing enemies, even with far-out weapons like lightning guns, often feels like gunning down ducks in a shooting gallery, but the extra complication of having to quickly grapple between targets so as to dodge lightning bolts in the middle of a camera-obscuring tropical storm livens things up. Gliding high above Solis in your wingsuit, as individual cities and villages and biomes blur together in the background, becomes a whole lot more exciting when a massive tornado is heading your way, forcing you to hustle. These epic flourishes, which can eventually be controlled by players, are a novel way to keep things interesting.

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These big-picture effects also play to the developer’s strengths, particularly those of its new, proprietary Apex engine. Just Cause 4 does a fine job of rendering large, far-off effects and contributing to the more cinematic moments, but the up-close graphics of people and environmental objects are dated. Clunky textures and their eerie, artificial lighting shouldn’t be the price paid for quick loading times. It doesn’t matter how cool an individual set piece looks if all the smaller scenes leading up to it are marred by unresponsive vehicles, dumb AI, and shoddy physics.

Score: 
 Developer: Avalanche Studios  Publisher: Square Enix  Platform: PlayStation 4  Release Date: December 4, 2018  ESRB: M  ESRB Descriptions: Blood, Intense Violence, Strong Language  Buy: Game

Aaron Riccio

Aaron has been playing games since the late ’80s and writing about them since the early ’00s. He also obsessively writes about crossword clues at The Crossword Scholar.

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