The Just Cause franchise has gotten a raw deal. Not because the games have declined in quality, JC3 and 4 are both tons of fun, but rather because a very vocal minority has done their darnedest to convince everyone that they're bad now. This is nonsense and it's incredibly frustrating to see people missing out on games they would enjoy if it weren't for some Internet loudmouth crapping up every discussion about the franchise. Today's video for Eric Vs. 365 day 16 demonstrates just some of the fun you're missing out on if you skipped Just Cause 4. Keep reading for more details.
According to the Internet hive mind, Just Cause 2 is the only good game in the series and everything else sucks. The truth is that compared to JC 3 and 4, Just Cause 2 is really stiff and clunky and kind of hard to play these days unless you're playing on PC and have modded the hell out of it to bring the game up to modern standards. That's kind of the problem with this whole discussion - the folks championing Just Cause 2 are most likely PC players preaching to mostly console players who will never have the same experience. That's my theory, at least.
Read our Just Cause 3 XL Edition review
Read our Just Cause 3 XL Edition review
I'll admit, Just Cause 3 does have issues that were never fully fixed - long load times, horrendous performance - but the core gameplay is incredibly fun even when it is chugging along at 12-FPS. A big part of the reason why the game performs so poorly is because it is freaking beautiful looking and massive in scale and has a million things flying around and driving by and blowing up at all times. It was just way too ambitious for the hardware at the time. At launch it was a total mess, but it did get patches and updates and is better than it was - still far from perfect - so I would recommend playing it. I played a ton of it on PS4 and Andrew played through it on Xbox One and we'd both agree it is fine. Play it.
While Just Cause 3 probably deserved the criticism it got at launch, Just Cause 4 was totally unfairly trashed and forgotten far too quickly considering how solid of an experience it is. The visuals were toned down a bit so the framerate would be better, so people just complained it was ugly (it has been patched with graphical upgrades and looks better now, by the way). People complained that it was repetitive and more of the same even though all of the "blow up all the red things" missions were taken out in favor of having actual real mission designs.
The progression and unlock system was also changed in order to give you access to all of the fun toys as quickly as possible. The game gives you more control than ever over your grappling hook so you can attach rocket boosters or balloons to stuff with tons of options for how they behave on top of being able to tether things together. You can combine tethers and balloons and rockets all at the same time to tackle missions and combat situations in truly innovative ways. Oh, and there is extreme weather with freaking tornadoes wreaking havoc all over that you can play with in unique ways.
If you can't figure out how to have fun with Just Cause 4, that's your fault, not the game. On top of giving you the easiest access to having the most fun possible as early as possible, Just Cause 4 is by far the smoothest playing, best feeling Just Cause yet.
A note on today's video - I didn't have quite enough footage with Andrew and I once it was all edited so I recorded some extra goofy stuff and (sort of) synced it to a dubstep track. I think it turned out pretty good and the ending is spectacular, so stay tuned until the end.
A note on today's video - I didn't have quite enough footage with Andrew and I once it was all edited so I recorded some extra goofy stuff and (sort of) synced it to a dubstep track. I think it turned out pretty good and the ending is spectacular, so stay tuned until the end.
Just Cause 3 and 4 are both on GamePass on Xbox One and are dirt cheap on other platforms. I highly recommend playing them.
