If ever at some point in your life you’ve thought to yourself, ‘How much mayhem can one cause with just a grappling hook?’, then the Just Cause series is the answer to that. Combine all the elements of every Rajinikanth movie, with the feel of an action Tele Novella, add in a tether grappling hook that breaks all laws of technology or physics, then add physics to that, and you have a recipe for mayhem and destruction in the most fun and unpredictable way possible. That is exactly the only thing Just Cause 4 excels in.
What’s it about?
Rico Rodriguez, the protagonist of Just Cause, has made quite a name for himself on the Latin American dictator scene — what with all the going around overthrowing them, making way for democracy to take over. Now Rico finds himself in Solis, a beautiful country, ruled by a bored dictator Oscar Espinosa, as Rico takes on the evil private army known as the Black Hand led by a ruthless villain Gabriela Morales, in the hope of finding what Rico’s father was working on when he was part of the Black Hand.
Solis is a country that’s a paradise on earth, with little mountains separated by beautiful waterfalls and rivers. However, apart from murderous Black Hand troops armed to the teeth with the latest in weaponry tech, Solis has raging tornadoes that roam free, as well as massive electrical storms. A perfect playground for Rico and his faithful grappling hook. The story is your normal action movie fare, as Rico stirs up a rebellion, pushing the common, oppressed folk to take up arms and fight for freedom. Rico must help the Army of Chaos to grow across Solis, if he has any hope of defeating the Black Hand and prying open its secrets.
How does it play?
The sheer act of tethering your grappling hook to two or more objects and watching them implode is extremely satisfying. Add to that the ability to make one end into a booster jet to send objects flying in all directions and it’s even better. It’s like being a kid with a matchbox, in a controlled environment, with an unpredictable physics engine to fool around with. Tag a booster on one soldier and then tether him to other soldiers, set off that booster to watch him fly comically around the place, dragging everyone else with him.
In addition to the boosters and the ultra-strong retractable tether, you also get a balloon-like system, that lets you make objects float up. You can technically fly a tank with enough helium balloons, that you have to hold the tether button to fill, and then you can connect that to other objects. Using the booster creatively with the balloons makes it so much fun getting into conflict. Add to that the unpredictable weather patterns of Solis and the fun just amps up.
In addition to the grappling hook, you can base-jump with a parachute or deploy your wingsuit and soar through the air, admiring Solis from above. It’s a lot of fun to get into and soon you’ll be combining all three to traverse the vast open world easily. The game largely ignores fall damage and lets you just sit back and enjoy, which is what the game does best. Where it falters is the rough, rushed feel that seems to bog everything else down.
Starting with the Far Cry-like way you take over enemy territory, that feels half-baked and often hard to understand. While a lot of the physics glitches are fun, the game feels unfinished and rough, with constant flashing textures and an annoying motion blur that keeps flickering. The worst is evident when you’re swimming, as the reflections are like a carpet of blur. All of these rough edges should have been ironed out and not baked into the final product. While it can be ignored at some points, there are parts where it just gets in the way.
Should you get it?
Tech issues aside, Just Cause 4 is a solid action game, complete with a hammy storyline, a large, beautiful open world with a multitude of natural disasters and excellent action. That will have you spending hours in the game, just tethering things together to see what will happen, then laugh maniacally as the explosions bloom.
The writer is a tech and gaming enthusiast who hopes to one day finish his sci-fi novel
