Review cover Just Cause 4 (PlayStation 4)
Official GBAtemp Review

Product Information:

  • Release Date (NA): December 4, 2018
  • Release Date (EU): December 4, 2018
  • Publisher: Square Enix
  • Developer: Avalanche Studios
  • Genres: Action, Open World
  • Also For: Computer, Xbox One

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
Do you like Spider-Man? How about guns? Would you like to be Spider-Man with guns?!

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Action-Packed Adventure

Jump into the comfortable dad-shoes of Rico Rodriguez as you grapple, parachute, and glide across a huge island full of trees (mostly), natives, and an evil army just begging for an ass-kicking. Mow down waves of endlessly spawning baddies and turn their limited ammo weapons against them as you turn the tide of battle and grow your resistance group one arbitrary section of the map at a time. Welcome to the regionally unspecific Hispanic country of Solís.

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Let me ask you something: Do you like outdated character models? What about scenery in constant fluctuation due to poor billboarding optimization? "Hell yeah" I hear millions of people cry out in unison, "But what we really want is excessive motion-blur with no option to toggle it off on top of all of that". Well, my friend, the devs at Avalanche Studios hear you! In fact, they are such crowd pleasing fanatics that they went ahead and included it in the cut-scenes! Why, simply hone your gaze directly at this marvelous example of how to cater to fans of all ages and it will be easy to understand why they feel they can charge AAA prices with 3 different base game packages to choose from and not one, but THREE expansions already planned at launch:

 

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If that doesn't have your DX Racer creaking as you lean to one side to pull your wallet out of your pocket, let me hit you with some knowledge about Rico and his amazing arm... gizmo... thing. With just a #2 screwdriver (bonus running gag throughout the game) he can add all KINDS of zany attachments to it, allowing you to hook rocket-thrusters and air-lift balloons to anything your heart desires!

  • Sick of enemy tanks blasting you back to your previous checkpoint over and over? Attach some high powered thrusters to it and watch it harmlessly spin away from you like a dreidel. L'chaim!
  • Looking for a love connection? Play matchmaker by tethering two love-birds together with zip-line and send them on an early honeymoon in Hell via an "airlift balloon and rocket" combo as their corpses float away in an enchanting aerial ballet. Have fun, you crazy kids!

Real Talk: With so much testosterone pumping action in one handsome Hispanic dad hero, who would want to do anything on missions except race between computer consoles with absurdly short timers? In what world would complete three-hundred-and-60-mother-f***ing degree freedom of movement merit any type of gameplay besides rushing to press buttons before you run out of time? That's right: none. Of course, they sprinkled in a handful of exceptionally pointless "dive through the rings" or "drive the car to this location" mini-objectives for brownie points, but who wants those? You can rest your sweet head on your Purple brand pillow at night and sleep easy knowing that 90% of the very limited core game missions are all dull races against the clock, and since the time-to-complete is so close, the difficulty curve is steep enough to drive off casual players after just 3 whole missions.

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Take a sip of your mostly flat, room temperature canned beverage and ponder this quandary: When was the last time you were playing a triple-A game and a totally awesome boat just popped into existence out of nowhere and landed nearby? This is just one of many crazy-cool and tOtAlLy RanDoM things you can expect while playing Just Cause 4. If the object of your desire doesn't will itself into the realms of mortal men on its own, you can always call in an airdrop for literally any usable asset in the game! Tanks, guns, boats, and much more are all at your fingertips with instant delivery thanks to the members of your resistance group and a needlessly complex menu system where you have to equip the objects to the people (for some reason?) before you can call it in.

Since everybody knows that people who play video games are just button-smashing apes, the writers decided to keep the plot simple-- Bad guy with evil army must be stopped. With nearly every plot twist boiling down to "oh, those two were related" (since that tested the highest in peer review groups), you wont need to strain your overly-burdened brain too hard between making gas tanks go boom and launching innocent bystanders off into the sunset.

If it's not clear by now, I was being facetious. By the time you conquer half of the island, you'll be so bored that the only enjoyment you'll get from this title is wandering around and messing with the locals in the handful of populated areas on the massive, empty island. Scouting out the lost relic chambers could have been interesting, but equates to no more of a challenge than "put ball in hole"-- it's glorified mini golf with grappeling hooks. Most of the popping graphics and stupid dialogue can almost be ignored because getting around as Rico is just so damn fun, but the absolutely repetitive 2 or 3 mission types and total lack of content will most likely see you putting the game down long before completion.

 

Gameplay Trailer

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • POW POW KERPOWWW
  • RATA-TA-TA-TA-TA
  • FWOOOSHHH---BOOOMMMM
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Objective Race Missions
  • Lack of Meaningful Content
  • Poor Graphical Choices
6.5
out of 10

Overall

Just Cause 4 suffers from having little to no meat on its bones and a very poor graphical presentation. The complete freedom of movement is exhilarating but ultimately not enough to keep your attention for more than a couple sessions.
If you don't mind a little feedback, this review was incredibly hard to understand. Read more like a blog than a review, and I came away with little knowledge of what the actual game is about. I can see you didn't like it, but I still haven't the slightest clue what Just Cause 4 is even supposed to be. Would do with toning down the sarcasm and talking more concretely about the game and its elements, with proper explanations to ground your criticisms. You do say you were being facetious on purpose, but it's too much and this article, I feel, ends up not working well as a review as a result.

These are just my thoughts.
 
Pity. I found 2 and 3 to be quite amusing in their own ways (while recognisable I found them different enough to note) but if it is going to be like this...

Are open world action games doomed to that difficult fourth (numbered) title a la difficult third album or difficult third season in TV? In this case the first is a bit ambitious but has potential to grab a niche, the second is far refined, the third should be awesome and mostly is but the "kitchen sink" approach is there if you go looking, by the time of the fourth though it is really weighing it all down.

Hopefully we get some nice expansions a la the GTA 4 ones to bring it up.
 
If you don't mind a little feedback, this review was incredibly hard to understand. Read more like a blog than a review, and I came away with little knowledge of what the actual game is about. I can see you didn't like it, but I still haven't the slightest clue what Just Cause 4 is even supposed to be. Would do with toning down the sarcasm and talking more concretely about the game and its elements, with proper explanations to ground your criticisms. You do say you were being facetious on purpose, but it's too much and this article, I feel, ends up not working well as a review as a result.

These are just my thoughts.

Badguy is evil, has an army, must stop him. That's literally it. Also blowing up gas tanks and parachuting around.
 
Review score x actual review does not check out. 6.5 seems like a copout... the review reads much closer to a 4 or similar.
 
Never multiply the review score by the actual review. Those two data types are incompatible. You're going to crash the whole website, you madman.
More like... this is the IGN philosophy of scores, in which 6 is the bottom minimum for anything that is not an actively bruning trash fire.
 
If you don't mind a little feedback, this review was incredibly hard to understand..
That's the beauty of Just Cause. It's an incredibly simple concept. You shoot. You para-shoot, and things explode. That's the game. That's ALL the Just Cause games.

Review score x actual review does not check out. 6.5 seems like a copout... the review reads much closer to a 4 or similar.
Review scores are arbitrary means to apply a quantifiable number to words. Though I do not speak for all of our staff, I would equate a 4 with something that is barely playable and has no redeeming merits. Though the review is entirely facetious, it merely seems to imply that the game is mediocre, which is, about a 6 going off most outlet's metrics.

Perhaps you have to be acquainted with the series to get the most out of this review, but it was a certainly fun read.
 
That's one huge rant. Too bad it was a poorly scaled writeup. Firing from all cylinders from the first paragraph, makes the rest of the text predictable, and unworthy if a read (I did read it).

Yeah the game seems trash.
 
More like... this is the IGN philosophy of scores, in which 6 is the bottom minimum for anything that is not an actively bruning trash fire.

The game is fun to goof around with and it plays fine, it's just -really- repetitive and gets dull fast. Kinda like how Assassin's Creed keeps getting crazy high scores despite it being the same couple missions recycled over and over... :D
 
I just want to say I totally disagree with @eyeliner and @HaloEliteLegend : I had no trouble distinguishing sarcasm from review points and thoroughly enjoyed reading the text. Thanks a lot for that! :D

(I do agree that 6.5 is perhaps a bit high for the text but meh... I take it that the three mentioned positive points are exactly that : it 's good for mindless fun shooting action)
 
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Badguy is evil, has an army, must stop him. That's literally it. Also blowing up gas tanks and parachuting around.
That honestly just sounds like every open-world AAA game these days. I actually thought this was a Ubisoft game for a second because it looks like a Ubisoft game, that's just how generic it looks.
 
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Just Cause, IS the original open world sandbox game. It is fine if you don't like it and the devs might have got it wrong this time, but i really enjoyed 3, even if repetitive, the action was top notch, the countless vehicles, ways to play as well as ghetto ways to outsmart the enemies and hijack stuff is just fun. This is a game of possibilities and endless combinations for a laugh. This is not meant to be a game where the script is king, but rather the action itself and the stupidly ridiculous combination of having an airwing, winch and parachute at the same time. It is closer to what BOTW is for the Zelda series than say any other open world game is for their genre.

Essentially it is a really arcade take on the open world games. Know any other games you can freefall from an F16, airwing on top of a B52, hijack it, then crash it on an enemy base? I don't :D

People just speak tear eyed about how physics in BOTW is fantastic and how you can do everything you want given the right amount of planning, but this series introduced all this shit more than 10 years ago. Credit where it is due.

The review is only scratching the surface. Unless you jump into the physics possibilities (check youtube for crazy videos on 3 and you will see what i mean), you will not understand why Just Cause is some fresh air to the otherwise (indeed) saturated open-world genre.
 
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I enjoyed reading this review because it is exactly what Just Cause is lol.
I would've liked to hear about the weather effects though as that was the new thing for 4 iirc.
Sounds like half the content will be behind the pass like JC3 so I won't bother with this for a while and will hold off for Rage 2.
 
Review cover
Product Information:
  • Release Date (NA): December 4, 2018
  • Release Date (EU): December 4, 2018
  • Publisher: Square Enix
  • Developer: Avalanche Studios
  • Genres: Action, Open World
  • Also For: Computer, Xbox One
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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