I was super pumped for this game. The previous entry in the series, Just Cause 2, was exactly the right kind of high-octane open-world shooter I live for. When I finally got into it the experience was like nothing before. And I think part of that novelty is what made the game seem so good. That, and some meticulous level design combined with weapon balancing and a reasonable default difficulty level.
Just Cause 3, on the other hand, doesn't seem nearly as revolutionary an experience. It's a good game, but it doesn't feel as good. The elements are all still there, but the ratio in the mix wrong just enough to throw it off.
First, let's talk about the positives. The wingsuit. OMG. The wingsuit. It's probably the closest I've felt to nirvana in a video game. When the (admittedly repetitive) music hits the melody at that exact second when you pull off a harrowing inches-from-the-ground turn it's like nothing else. The sense of wonder and excitement something like that can generate made me feel like a little kid again. It was in those fleeting moments when the game shined and I was transported to another realm where all my daily worries and cares didn't exist. I was flying.
But sadly there's little else that even comes close to how the wingsuit made me feel. The problems begin with the fact that there's only a single difficulty, and only a single save slot. Why these features that existed in 2 were dropped from 3 boggles my mind, as I see both as necessities for a game like this. Although my leading theory is that it was an attempt to make Just Cause more GTA like. Which is obviously a mistake. The reason 2 was so successful is precisely because it had sufficiently differentiated itself from that behemoth of the third person shooter free roam genre.
The difficulty falls apart in both directions. Combat by itself is usually too easy to be interesting in Just Cause simply because Rico is such a bullet sponge compared to his enemies. But when things are hard they are frustratingly so.
Part of what made 2 so incredibly fun was how overpowered the helicopters were. Flying around and destroying base after base was such an addictive waste of time that I lost many hours to it. But in 3 the SAM sites being vastly improved combined with way less manueverable helos means that you can either try to snipe from an extreme distance (which isn't always possible given lines of sight) or risk only getting a few shots off before you're grounded. This ultimately results in having to assault bases on land, which when examining the game design as a whole seems to be exactly what the developers were pushing towards. Why is baffling. Perhaps they were trying to extend the life of the game by making destroying a base take longer. If they were consciously trying to increase the difficulty of air assaults then they entirely missed what made 2 so good: that sense of power and invincibility.
Some of the challenges - particularly with the wingsuit - did get me to the point of rage quitting a few times. But that's where the game should be difficult: the optional challenges. Alas, the number and difficulty of both the car and plane races were disappointingly low when compared to the many wingsuit courses.
The world as a whole was also too sparse. It's one thing to have a huge, massive island nation to explore, but when the distance between anything important is so extreme that traveling becomes a chore, something is wrong. In 2 I never felt like I was waiting for very long to get somewhere new and exciting. But here in 3 I could sometimes drink an entire coffee while holding down the throttle and still be nowhere near my objective. This is one area where the developers should take a lesson from Fallout 4: density matters more than actual size. It's all relative to how far away in time the fun things to do are.
Finally, 3 has not improved upon the story, writing, or voice acting in any meaningful way. This is a more serious Just Cause, accompanied by a more serious cast. And that's generally worse, as it takes away from the silly antics and tone of what's happening outside the cutscenes. De-emphasizing Sheldon and instead including a couple diverse, joyless mercenaries only hurt things further. Going back to Rico's home - where he has more to lose and should care about the outcomes more - was a bold move, but it fell flat.
Just Cause 3 still has a ton to do. And it's mostly fun. There's explosions galore. Just the right amount of collectibles. Some zany stunts and a few challenging challenges. It doesn't quite live up to what came before, but if you've already experienced 2 and liked it then you could do worse than continuing the adventure here.
Minimum Requirements of Just Cause 3:
OS: Vista SP2 / Windows 7.1 SP1 / Windows 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500k, 3.3GHz / AMD Phenom II X6 1075T 3GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (2GB) / AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB)
Storage: 54 GB available space
Recommended Requirements of Just Cause 3:
OS: Vista SP2 / Windows 7.1 SP1 / Windows 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz / AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (3GB) / AMD R9 290 (4GB)
Storage: 54 GB available space
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