Review for Just Cause 4. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 04/12/2018
Three years after the release of Just Cause 3, Avalanche Studios puts us back in the shoes of Rico Rodriguez, in what promises to be an adventure to the sound of bullets and explosions. With Just Cause 4 the developers wanted to create something new, improving every single aspect of the previous chapters and adding new features to entertain new and old fans of the series. Already during our first contact with the game at E3 2018 we had noticed great improvements compared to the previous chapter, although there were a huge amount of bugs, which were then solved with subsequent builds.
Welcome to Solìs
Abandoned Doctors, Rico continues his mission by reaching Solis, where he comes across what is called the Illapa project. The project, financed by the Black Hand and by our enemy Gabriela Morales, threatens the city of Solìs, which after Rico's arrival agrees to rebel and, after having given way to resistance, is preparing to reconquer every corner of the island. As in the previous chapter, we will be the ones to manage any type of attack or move, all through a completely different system of conquests from what we were used to in Just Cause 3.
Just Cause 4 is in fact based on what are called the squads of the Army of Chaos, which you can use to advance and occupy a certain region. These teams are obviously limited and you can unlock new ones every time you fill the chaos bar, which therefore acquires a different function than in the past. By destroying structures, fuel depots, antennas, and anything marked with the red / white color pairing, you will earn Chaos points, which will further increase if destructions are carried out while enemies are alerted. When the bar is filled you will receive armed teams, and in each of these there may also be pilots, which will allow you to make quick trips to the various outposts.
Conquering a new region will therefore not require you, as in Just Cause 3, to destroy every single enemy structure present, but will allow you to occupy it with armed teams, which can be moved only after having cleared particular strategic points, thus obtaining important data and information to improve even the armaments of the resistance. Each conquered area will be delimited on the map with a blue color, while those occupied by the Black Hand will be red and, another important factor, the front line that divides the territories is always alive and in combat: you can in fact intervene to help your companions and at the same time restock at the available crates.
Password: Destruction!
Just Cause has become particularly famous in recent years for its infinite possibilities of destruction, which combined with environmental interactions give us a product that makes epicness one of its main ingredients. In Just Cause 4 everything is raised to the nth degree, thanks to the notable improvements in gunplay and the physics of the explosions, now more realistic and fun.
The real protagonist of this Just Cause 4, however, is the grappling hook, which now allows you to do even more incredible things thanks to possibility of using ten active hooks, unlike the five of Just Cause 3. In addition to being able to use it to move in speed, in the options menu you can change it for integrate retraction or boost systems, as well as the new lifter system. The lifters are always attached by the grapple and are made up of small balloons that will allow you to fly cars, enemies or whatever comes to mind. All these systems are fully customizable: you can choose the speed with which they act, or choose their function. For example, the lifts can be set to follow you, fly to infinity or fly up to a preset height.
There are no limits to the possibilities: there are millions of combinations, and you decide how to deal with each situation, for example by throwing fuel barrels, putting boosters under a car to fly off a mountain or blasting containers against enemy helicopters. Obviously there is no shortage of missions to guide you on your way to Illapa. These are always divided into main and secondary: as you can imagine the former will guide you towards the credits, while the latter will make you get points to unlock new mods. To reach the final goal, however, you will have to complete each biome, activating and completing the three main operations: Thunderbarge, Windwalker and Sandstinger.
Improvements to physics and graphics
Thanks to the introduction of the new Apex Engine, Avalanche Studios has improved virtually every aspect of the game, including physics and graphics, completely revised. From the point of view of optimization we have not encountered any problems: the game is always fluid, even during large explosions or when the load increases considerably, also thanks to an excellent job carried out from the point of view of the Engine, which does not burden too much on the memory and still allows a truly remarkable visual rendering. The only aspect that has not improved in our opinion is the Artificial Intelligence of the enemies, which in Just Cause 4 is still very rough and easy to evade.
The improvements to the physics of the game we mentioned earlier refer above all to the explosions, which are more realistic, both from the point of view of the interaction with the surrounding objects, and for the various pieces of structures remaining after the explosion. After the explosion, in fact, the various fragments that fall to the ground seem to have their real weight, unlike the previous chapter where they looked like pieces of plastic. The experience with wingsuit and parachute has also been improved, which now responds better to environmental conditions with more realistic movements, albeit always linked to the fast and frenetic experience of Just Cause, which allows us to switch between grappling hook, suit and parachute in one fraction of a second, creating evolutions to the limit of the impossible.
From the graphic point of view we have noticed significant improvements in the characterization of environments, which are now richer in vegetation and objects to be destroyed. Thanks to the huge map that hosts four different biomes, we then have a definitely better variety than Just Cause 3, which at times seemed to repeat the same polygonal models. Having tested the PC version of the game, and having used the maximum settings offered, we noticed how, although improved, the technical sector still has some problems, including a management of aliasing that is not very convincing and a pop up that often becomes particularly visible while using a wingsuit or parachute.
Just Cause 4 brings significant improvements over the previous chapter, including a more frenetic and fun gameplay, a grappling system with infinite combinations, an all new graphics engine and a map with four biomes. The news are many and all interesting, going to make the game experience much more fun, albeit with a mission sector and a plot that have lagged slightly behind, often arriving at monotonous and repetitive missions. From a technical point of view we have found big improvements in the graphics sector, albeit with some flaws in the management of the pop up and aliasing. The physics has been rethought and offers the player a more realistic system, which goes perfectly with the new graphics, although the artificial intelligence of the enemies has not improved significantly, remaining rather disappointing. In conclusion, Just Cause 4 is a title that fans of the series cannot miss, but at the same time it can be a product that can attract new players, given the large amount of tools and content that can entertain practically anyone.
► Just Cause 4 is an Action-Shooter type game developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Square Enix for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 04/12/2018
