Just Cause 3 Review

Few games out there manage to get sandbox right as well as Just Cause 3. The game hands you a variety of awesome weapons, gadgets, vehicles and explosives, puts you in a living breathing world and lets you loose. What you do from there is really up to you.

There is a story in Just Cause 3, it just isn’t a particularly good one. You play as suave dictator removal specialist Rico Rodriguez, on a mission to free his homeland from the tyrant General Di Ravello.
The story itself is somewhat forgettable, though it delivers plenty of entertaining, over-the-top action sequences without ever taking itself too seriously. You’ll find yourself doing everything from riding a missile to kissing a cow. The characters along the way are entertaining without tipping into ridiculous, and they bring a steady stream of humour to the situation.

What makes Just Cause 3 stand out is some superb gameplay mechanics that encourages creativity from the player. The mechanics feel like a mix between the action of James Bond, the web slinging of Spiderman, Superman’s flying and Batman’s cool gadgets. Despite having a fairly decent selection of weapons and shooting mechanics, I found myself resorting to non-lethal means where I could.
The grappling hook is the mechanic that defines the game, and it has three basic uses. First, it hooks onto anything in the world, whether that’s the environment, a person or a vehicle, and pulls you towards it. Second, it lets you hang off or underneath something while still firing bullets. Third, it tethers objects together and drags them towards each other.

There are a great selection of land, air and sea vehicles in Just Cause 3 to get around in. The actual driving mechanics aren’t great, feeling a bit awkward at times.

Getting around, I found myself taking to the skies more often than not, though not through helicopters and planes as you might expect. Rico carries a wingsuit and a parachute, a combination that turns out both fun and practical. Pulling yourself along with the grappling hook every now and again, you can stay airborne with these two gadgets more or less indefinitely.

Just Cause 3 boasts some pretty impressive physics. The most telltale example of this is blowing up a bridge which reacts to how and where you destroy it. While it doesn’t always work perfectly, being able to pull apart a few aspects of the world such as towers does open up various gameplay opportunities.
One area where the game shines is the gadget modification system, tucked inside the broader character upgrade setup. Completing challenges, which I’ll get into shortly, unlocks various mods for your gear, and they’re surprisingly useful and fun to use. Highlights for me included a rocket propulsion system for an unlimited supply of explosives, a jump button for rebel dropped vehicles, and a homing grenade.

Just Cause 3 is at its best when it pushes you to get creative with its gameplay mechanics. The storyline leaves much to be desired, as mentioned, but the missions themselves reward improvisation in how you tackle them. You’re dropped into a situation, given an objective, and left to figure out the rest. Hijack a plane, boat or tank from the enemy. Use the grappling hook to slam enemies into each other. Wire up explosives on your targets, or just go in with guns blazing.
Outside the main story, there are only two major objective based activities: liberating towns and outposts, and completing challenges. Liberations mostly mean travelling to a location and destroying a set list of infrastructure. It’s entertaining at first, but the sheer number of them, and how similar each one feels, wears the novelty down fast.
Challenges task you with completing set objectives for the highest score possible. Usually that means an obstacle course tackled by vehicle, wingsuit, boat or plane. Your performance determines whether you unlock a new mod for your gear. The challenges themselves get repetitive fast, but a shiny new mod waiting at the end makes up for it.

Set objectives run thin on variety, but the game comes alive once you start inventing your own goals. Blow up a bridge, go on a rampage, fling a civilian into the distance: whatever the idea, it’s easy to lose hours chasing it just for the fun of doing it.
On the beefed up PC I played on, the game ran near flawlessly and looked great. Consoles and other PCs have seen numerous reports of performance issues though. Given the sheer volume of explosions, bullets, physics and open world packed into every scene, that’s not hard to understand.
Just Cause 3 is a great sandbox game that performs best when it lets creativity take over. Storyline and challenges are where it falls short, but handing you the freedom to do whatever you want is where it earns its keep.