REVIEW : Just Cause 4 (PC)
Just Cause series has always been over the top sandbox game and has kept improving with each iteration. There was big difference when going from 1 to 2 or 3 but 4 seems very familiar to 3, feels more like a refinement of what 3 did. Plus, Just Cause series has always faced the problem of keeping the momentum going, which is still present.
Just Cause 4 adds more tools to your arsenal to cause as much mayhem as possible which makes it even more enjoyable. Just Cause 4 code was written entirely from scratch to mitigate slow performance on consoles due to their weak CPU and prevent memory leak issue on PCs. I must say that has worked and till now it is working well on my PC.
Rico Rodriguez returns and this time is liberating the South American island Solis who are oppressed by the leader Oscar Espinosa and Black Hand Army. Plus, the plot thickens when Rico’s Father helped the Oscar to harness the power of elements and weaponize them.
Taking control of region is different compared to previous game, each region has a mission which you must complete to enable rebellion army to come in. The whole map is free to traverse but you can only move the army in those regions or neighboring to in which you have control. There are fight brewing between rebellions and the enemy in the areas you control, but that’s all for nothing as enemies cannot take back.
Weapons range from weather controlling guns to drone firing rail gun. The wind cannon blows off entire squad of enemies away, plus the lightning gun will zap enemies and everything around in the perimeter. Plus, you can ask several planes to drop large number of weapons anytime during the game. Further, the tether mechanism has seen an upgrade as well with tether balloons available now to float anything they are attached to. Tether also has different loadouts like rockets and god old retracting tether.
The upgrade path is still there and you can even upgrade your tether, like you can upgrade your balloons to explode on trigger or power tether to retract even heavy machines together.
Traversing through the environment feels as smooth as ever. Combination of parachuting, wing suiting and grappling still work like a charm but with boots on the ground, the motion is stiff with no option to dodge or roll to avoid attacks. Plus, ragdoll physics have taking a downgrade compared to previous games.
On GTX 970 and Core i7 4790K we get around 45 to 65 FPS playing on highest setting at 2560×1080 resolution. The FPS drops are mostly due to 4GB VRAM of GTX 970. Capping the game at 30FPS resulted in a smooth performance. Graphically speaking the game is not impressive and Just Cause 3 vibrant colors suited the game much more than the dull tone of the 4th game.
The progression is enabled through territory capturing missions which involve console override, killing waves of enemies or overloading the core. These missions are off putting as they slow down the pacing of the game and the game mechanics don’t fit well in small spaced missions.
The story missions have some of the most mind blowing set pieces, be it chasing a tornado or escaping a desert storm, these are the highlights of the game. There are so many destructible environments but they are also significantly cut back from previous games. The throwable C4 has also been removed in favor of mine launcher which does not allow for controlled destruction. Even though the destruction is less compared to previous entries, it is done to accommodate for much powerful weather destruction which takes place throughout the game.
