Just Cause 3 Review (PC)

very good
key review info
  • Game: Just Cause 3
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: Yes  
  • Reviewed on:
Just Cause 3 mayhem

Just Cause 3 is a game about style and violence, a physics-driven open-world experience that gives players a wide range of tools that actively challenge him to find new and interesting ways to deal with situations that the shooter genre has made familiar and even uninteresting.

Tethering, grappling and air travel via the wingsuit all work well when taken separately and superbly when combined, although the entire system requires a little bit of trial and error.

Just Cause 3 is developed by Avalanche Studios and is available on the PC, the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony, with publishing duties handled by Square Enix.

The only issue with the game is that it has problems on all the platforms and that the studio has said it will need time to deal with them all, with no estimated time of arrival for the first patch.

Story

Just Cause 3 is, on the surface, a game about freedom and about the way a long lost son can return to his homeland to take out a tyrant and his forces and create a better home for its inhabitants.

But Rico Rodriguez is too self-aware to care about the thin narrative thread created by the developers and any concern for human life and about the future of the island of Medici flies out the window the first time that civilians are killed along with military forces and the characters joke about the events.

There are cutscenes and story missions in Just Cause 3, but they feel pointless given the amount of freedom that the player quickly obtains and how much the game encourages gamers to do almost whatever they want with the locations, weapons and items provided.

For some, the violence perpetrated against innocents will raise some question marks, and the humor created by Avalanche Studios can be hit or miss, but the game is so clearly concerned with action and mechanics rather than story that it is easy to overlook these elements and just have fun while simply ignoring Rico and the other characters.

Gameplay

Just Cause 3 is an open-world third-person shooter that aims to give players as much freedom as possible to move around and approach objectives any way they see fit, giving them hundreds of ways to mix and match the three core mechanics.

The grappling hook is such an effective way to move around the world, especially given its hilly nature and moderately tall buildings, that I almost never bothered to use other vehicles when I was not forced to do so.

The parachute, other than offering survivability when flying goes horribly wrong, adds the option of moving more slowly and surveying a possible target from a medium distance, creating plans and getting ready for the coming mayhem.

The tethering might be the most important concept in Just Cause 3, with gamers able to link any two objects while allowing them to keep speed and direction, which in itself can create plenty of chaos.

Just Cause 3 wingsuit time
Just Cause 3 wingsuit time

The option to bring them together at speed, which tends to cause explosions or hilarious moments, is also present and will quickly become one of the most used moves in Just Cause 3.

Avalanche Studios is also introducing a wingsuit that makes it easier to move between points of interest and to execute some impressive stunts involving rapidly approaching obstacles.

Players can play Just Cause 3 as any other third-person shooter, using the extensive array of weapons and explosives to take out fortified positions and slowly extract all of Medici from the grasp of Di Ravello.

This can be moderately engaging but the fun really starts when the player discovers that he can jump off a cliff, use the wingsuit to track an enemy vehicle from afar, use the tether to bring it to a stop, blow it up, use the grapple to gain some altitude and then snipe the enemy forces while using the parachute to glide back to Earth.

The stunt position, which allows Rico to get on top of any vehicle while someone else drives, is a great way to cause mayhem around and once again using tethering and explosives is more fun than simply firing weapons is.

The most powerful weapons can be called via a drop at certain intervals, giving gamers plenty of options for all situations, but I found myself ignoring most of them, including the mini-nuke, to focus on how I can use the environment and my bag of tricks to take out enemy forces.

Opponents do not pose too much of a challenge and Rico recovers health quickly, which means that the only real failures in Just Cause 3 are ones of style, the face plants when using the wingsuit and the tether explosions that are not triggered at the best possible moment.

Taking over towns and villages can become a little repetitive over time, and it's the responsibility of the player to try out new ideas and new ways to achieve his objectives, with the bigger military bases offering more of a challenge and cooler moments.

Just Cause 3 starts off a little slow, but once players can combine the grapple, the tethering, the wingsuit and the parachute however they see fit, it turns into a big and beautiful sandbox where anyone can test the limits of the world and its explosion and physics systems.

Graphics and audio

Just Cause 3 can be a great-looking game, for those players who have the required hardware and are not affected by the widespread problems with the graphics that are currently affecting the game regardless of platform.

When standing in stunt position on the wing of a fighter jet, surveying the scene and thinking about how to best deploy the wingsuit to assault a base that's somewhere below the world created by Avalanche manages to impress with both its level of details and its bold use of color.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of gamers, myself included, for whom the world is good looking just up close, and distance, especially the mountains - a series of triangles, creates an interesting post-modern effect but is also a sign that the game has not been well optimized before launch.

Just Cause 3 tethering
Just Cause 3 tethering

I was unable to get clean images and video for this review, which is why the gallery attached is made up of official screenshots that show some of the main concepts featured in the shooter.

Reports from gamers playing Just Cause 3 on the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One are also mentioning drops in the frame rate that make some moments all but impossible to enjoy or even actively play.

The title can deliver some impressive action sequences when it works as designed, and in the future patches and graphics drivers, updates will probably eliminate all these issues, but at the moment the visual spectacle of Just Cause 3 is marred by its problems.

When it comes to voice acting and soundtrack, the game does not impress in any way, and I soon found myself playing a rock playlist of classics to provide the proper background for Rico's attempts to cause as much mayhem as possible.

Multiplayer

Just Cause 3 does not feature an actual multiplayer mode, despite the fact that many fans of the series enjoyed the mod that enabled it for the previous installment in the series and the team behind it got to meet with Avalanche and learn about their plans.

The official line is that technical difficulties mean that the studio is not planning to deliver the functionality via an update but will make it as easy as possible for the community to create its ways for players to interact with each other.


The Good

  • Sense of freedom
  • Combination of grapple, tethering, wingsuit and parachute mechanics
  • Stunt stance

The Bad

  • Can become repetitive
  • Limited story appeal
  • Graphics and performance issues

Conclusion

Just Cause 3 delivers a series of systems that are solid on their own, from the ability to grapple around without any limits to the new options opened up by the wingsuit, and manages to mix them to deliver impressive results.

The combat becomes a little repetitive, the driving and flying feel incomplete, and the story has almost no hooks for the player but the feelings of freedom and empowerment that the title offers are great, especially for gamers who have an active imagination and find new ways to exploit the offered world.

Avalanche Studios needs to work with partners and with Square Enix to make sure that the performance and graphics problems that plague the experience are eliminated as soon as possible.

Right now I would hold off on buying Just Cause 3 because it still requires some fixing, but once the issues subside, this is a great way to spend time causing chaos, crafting complex scenarios, and finding ways to create stories about physics, tethers, and explosives.

story 6
gameplay 9
concept 10
graphics 7
audio 7
multiplayer 0
final rating 8
Editor's review
very good
 
NEXT REVIEW: Valhalla Hills

Photo Gallery (10 Images)

Just Cause 3 mayhemJust Cause 3 chopperJust Cause 3 is dropping inJust Cause 3 car timeJust Cause 3 assault
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