Just Cause a series of your time has shown how to look destructive sandboxing. After the introductory unit, a brilliant two followed by an explosive three came. Each game offered a great upgrade ahead of each page, up to the fourth. It comes relatively shortly after three, though with some improvements, but not so much leap forward. Maybe it's such a jump with the handbrake pulled down.
If you do not play the series, you should know that Rico Rodrigez, a CIA agent with a focus on liquidation of dictatorial regimes, is the main character in all the games. In each game he gives one dictator and literally breaks his landscape into pieces. While he was in his home country on a Mediterranean island, he is now heading to South America where the dictatorial regime is preparing something big. He is preparing a weapon in the form of a weather machine and this time it will be more personal to Rica than he did last time. The weather machine is his father's project. This is a new expedition, the story of which will be the deepest in Just Cause games so far.
But, of course, if we talk about the deepest story of Just Cause, it will still be a minimalist narrative outlined during the main narrative mission compared to such a GTA V. So do not wait for him a lot. It is hard to see that the authors have been more focused on pre-scene scenes, expanding interviews and revealing backgrounds and Rica, but that's all. It will still be a primary game aimed at sandboxing all over. Instead, this time with other goals and procedures as in Just Cause 3, but there is the basis of gameplay based on destruction, the use of multiple weapons and vehicles ranging from motorbikes to transport aircraft.
Rico now adds to Solis' rebel forces on the dictatorial regime, but they will not be small isolated groups of resistance but will add to the rebel army. It also fights against the biggest enemy Rico, the rented Black Hand Army and its commander, Gabriele Morales. It has an island under control, and as you want to gain control of the weather, you'll be pushing the soldiers with the rebels and gradually expanding your occupied territory. And literally you will see the war. At the rebel borders, they really fight with the enemies, while we and Ric will go straight for the enemy lines to weaken them and move the boundaries of our territory again a little bit forward.
So Rico will receive various missions to help the rebels, for example, the task of destroying a facility, rescuing prisoners, decommissioning various towers, destroying generators, or getting a vehicle. These missions will be exactly in the simple Just Cause series. You will move them forward and open up another territory to fulfill the story mission. These storytelling missions are slightly more complex, complemented by cut scenes and interviews, are more sketched, but are not based on simple series standards. Often you will defend someone and help him, carry him and attack enemies.
Story missions will keep you moving forward to the weather machine, while side-by-side will aim to free the island, as well as discerning new possibilities. Each liberated territory adds new bonus tasks, some have Sniper missions, other simple mission missions, complement the airship destruction, all have acrobatic jumps, wingsuit challenges or reaching the fastest speeds of vehicles. There is a lot, even if the inputs are more or less monotonous. If you do, however, you will be awarded other weapons or vehicles that you can instantly order through the air drops on the battlefield.
An important parameter here is the Chaos level, which causes you to destroy enemies. The more buildings, tanks, vehicles you destroy the enemy, the faster you get points. By adding a number of rebel armies to each level, you can move them to other territories and occupy them. These territories then provide you with additional missions and opportunities. It's surprisingly well-played in terms of playability, as the active play area is constantly expanding.
This is the island once again massive, offering over 1,000 square kilometers of squares, where you can find green forests, snowy mountains and deserts. There is everything and gradually the environment changes to avoid stereotyping. At the same time, the disasters that the weather machine sends you, ranging from a great tornado, through dangerous storms to lightning, to a sandy storm where you do not see anything, are gradually changing. With this, the authors actually played.
Likewise, the world is now alive, there are more people, more cars and along with the struggles to see it lives there. It's a nice massive world. Authors have now improved the driving model for cars that are more natural and better to move around in the world if you like cars - if not, helicopters are so. Although, of course, the foundation here is still in the use of a hook and a parachute, that's a great combination of moving world. You will be drawn back to everything possible, stretching the parachute, or changing it to a wingsuit for rapid descent.
These basic elements of the series are also complemented by pulling ropes, firing boosters, and this time also new ones, namely balloons that can pick up things and let them get out of hand. It's a nice thing for fun and creative destruction. You can attach someone to the wall, hang up behind the car and let them get out or pinch to the exploding tank.
If you know the game of Just Cause series and you like it, you will not complain here. It will offer open options and even over 50 or even 100 hours of playability. It depends only on you how you will realize it and whether you want to clean it all up. The possibilities here are and discovering the world can really be enjoyed, it offers a lot of interesting sites and Easter Eggs, of course, if you enjoy this style. Easter Eggs include, for example, a weapon that turns everyone into a cow, links to Jurassic Park, a retro cartoon clip, a miniatur and much more.
What you will probably complain about is the technical site as well as the entire UI menu system. In the PC version, the opening menu is already blurred. It does not work properly and badly responds to keyboard and mouse controls (the authors promised fix) and continues in the map menu in the game. It's the only screen when playing, and you've got everything in it, and it's going to take about 10 hours to get it. It's like a retro menu from 15 years old old game. There are the same items with poorly designed subgroups. The whole is completed with a large font, a map you do not, with massively marked borders and missions. It is obvious that the authors did the consoles, but it will not be twice as clear. It gets used to it, but it's all bad. In Just Cause 3, it was all much better, simpler and more transparent. This does not even mention the setting of keys in the PC version of the game, as if straightforwardly ported from consoles. The game does not help.
But not only that, the technical side itself is debatable. This is, on the one hand, great, on the other hand, to see that the authors did not have time to finish the details. There is a very nice world with impressive weather effects, dense vegetation, diverse buildings and small towns, but it is changing a special shabby look for change. For each movement, as if the pixels in the background on the vegetation flickered, skipped and acted badly. Similarly, skipping pixels can be seen on the details of the characters or hair, as if shaders have been sharply set. Not to mention water that has a similar problem, but it is often too blurry and static. Dynamic waves are missing behind three-ship ships and some waves are missing in some areas. There is only a blurred reflection of the environment. At the same time, he could see how the authors tried to make real-time reflexes. But maybe too expensive.
Perhaps this is the optimization prize, which is now very good on consoles, and 30 fps is the basic framerate, even in large explosions. In Just Cause 3, framerate also fell below 20 fps. PCs are also played on the PC and the GTX 970 is at a maximum of 50-60 at 1080p. There is surprisingly good, though what is not good is the crash of the game. I do not know if this happens to everyone, but the game fell personally at least once in an hour.
But the technical side also boasts, physics is well-engineered for weather effects, tornadoes, and explosions where it has a very good dynamics. You can even destroy a massive wooden bridge or drive trees that have their own physics and gradually fall downhill and take with them another. In addition, they can be dragged into the tornado as much as the objects on the map and offer a great experience. Interesting minority is, for example, that smaller stones can be crushed by tanks. Some things are really surprising, a pity that they can not really stand out for many other untapped things. However, if you become accustomed to the problematic parts, you can enjoy the fun.
Just Cause 4 is a special mix of relaxation gameplay that has been dragged down by inaccessibility. The fans of the series can look forward to improved gaming style, ultimately good vehicle control, better AI, massive map and well-designed approach to occupying the game environment and ten to hundreds of hours of play. At the same time, they will see a lot of things worse than in the past, especially graphic problems, trimming, specially processed water, or poorly designed and unclear maps as well as tasks. Players who do not play Just Cause, however, do not have the game because of the absence of a story or the depth of the mission. It's still an arcade explosive fun on a massive playground.