081REVIEW
impact how easy it is to slingshot around the
South American state of Solís with Rico’s
returning grappling hook and wingsuit. While
general traversal is a breeze in fair weather,
get caught in the bellowing, blinding gusts of
a sandstorm and you’ll be tossed about like a
pound coin in a washing machine.
These forces of nature are also a weapon that
can be manipulated by the game’s opposing
factions. As the story plays out, both the Army
Of Chaos the dreamy despot-killer is building
and the nefarious Black Hand militia group Rico
is trying to topple vie for control of the elements
thanks to various sci-fi doodads.
As you blitz your way through the overly
repetitive campaign, tornados, sandstorms,
and bolts of lightning can all eventually be
summoned with a few button presses at consoles
in select bases you liberate. Turns out snow-
haired X-Men aren’t the only ones who can
control the weather like a little
(tree-flattening) lapdog. Eat your
heart out, Storm.
WIND-WIND
The game’s headline missions
all centre around the battle to
control Solís’ climate. Operation
Windwalker sees Rico and
chums attempting to harness
the power of a tornado, as the Black Hand does
its best to blow your fun with special wind
turbines that can knock your precious twister off
course. Then there’s the Sandstinger campaign
trail, which whisks the action to the desert
with the gravity-defying Latin hunk using a
heavily armoured train to negotiate the fury
of an all-encompassing sandstorm. Rounding
off the climate carnage is Thunderbarge: a set
of missions that culminate in Rico harnessing
lightning like a less beardy Zeus. Just make sure
you keep close to that specially insulated boat
or Rodriguez will end up with a frizzy new ’do
courtesy of a 10,000-volt strike.
These showy story quests have
ludicrous set-piece spectacle to burn, so
it’s a pity the vast majority of objectives
Rico is saddled with outside of these
missions are so humdrum. Feeling like a
demigod while swirling around a colossal
tornado in your wingsuit is swell and all,
but when so much of your time is taken
up with samey region strikes, the appeal
of all that fancy weather ultimately
proves fleeting.
I’ll get to the relentless repetition
of flipping switches to conquer
enemy bases in a little while, though.
In the meantime, let’s celebrate Just
Cause 4’s other big new addition: the
freshly spruced-up tether. Now, while
in previous games Rico could string
enemies together by holding o to tie
them up with his grapple hook, the
bad guy-roping possibilities have
blossomed this time out.
Unlike Just Cause 3, Rico’s
tether now comes with a set of
wonderfully goofy attachments.
The default retractor setting
works much the same as before
- point your grap-happy tool
at two targets, then let the
physics fun commence. It’s the
addition of boosters and the
Air Lifter that really mix up
the mayhem. The former add
mini-rockets to your tethers- useful for when you want
to, say, send a jeep or APC
flying into a posse of goons.
As for the latter, picture Metal
Gear Solid V’s Fulton recovery
system... only less kidnappy
and with more suspended
goons flapping around
helplessly in the air.
GOD’S LIFT
The Air Lifter is a gloriously
stupid tool of destruction.
Master its enemy-launching
ways and you
can whizz
through entire
battles without
ever firing a
bullet. Watching
as Black Hand
goons sway in
the air, usually
plastered to the
side of a crate or vehicle, is a
guilty pleasure that never gets
old. Even after 30 hours the
joys of tethering dudes to bits
of scenery and watching them
float away raises a smirk.
There’s actually some
depth to the tethering system
too, though you could argue
Avalanche has slightly over-
egged the grappling pudding.
Just Cause 4 gives you three
different grappling hook
loadouts, and as you build up
your Chaos level – we’ll talk
more about that shortly – and
amass perks, you can stack
different tether modifiers on
top of each other.
Mixing and matching
boosters and Air Lifter powers
gives plenty of scope for
bespokely tailored slaughter,
and there are a wealth of
parameters to mess with.
Example? You can give the
Lifter’s balloons armour, tweak
how they float, and even attach
a skill called Peak Effect that
lets Rico hover on top of a
tethered object indefinitely. The
menus are confusing, though,
and you’ll likely have just as
much fun with the default
tether settings if all you’re after
is unfussy balloon buffoonery.
If you really need a story to
justify all that tethering, you’d
better set your expectations
low. ‘Leisure Suit Larry’ low.
Just Cause 4’s story is so
thin, it could comfortablybe summarised on a Post-it
note... a Post-it note designed
for ants. The plot is utter
nonsense. Every previous entry
in the series had throwaway
narratives, and that’s exactly
the case here. Rico wants to
liberate Solís from the clutches
of the Black Hand, there’s a bad
lady called Gabriella Morales,
and every now and then
someone mentions Rodriguez’
dearly departed pop. Fin.
Lawrence Of Arabia this ain’t.
Of course, going into a Just
Cause game expecting narrative
finesse and multi-layered
characters is the equivalent of
stumbling into a kebab joint at
3am and demanding Michelin-
star foie gras. Chopping Rico
down to size because he can’t
tell a Last-Of-Us-rivalling
tale feels uncharitable in the
extreme. This is a game where
you create your own stories
in the minute-to-minute
chaos of constant explosions,
helicopter raids, and
parachuting out of a fighter jet
milliseconds before it crashes
into the side of a mountain.IT’S SOL OVER
As an open-world map, Solís
is pretty hard to pigeonhole.
Pieced together from humid
forests, stretches of dusty
desert, and chilly mountain
ranges, it’s less cohesive than
Just Cause 3’s Medici. The
flipside is this more scattershot
approach to world building
leaves you with a sandbox
that’s more varied than any
of its predecessors. Yet while
Solís’ hodgepodge topography
makes it a diverting enough
space to lose yourself in, it
feels generic and lifeless next
to the sprawling world of
The Witcher 3, or Red Dead
Redemption 2’s effortlessly
alive New Heartlands.
The tech that brings this
chunk of South American
real estate to the screen isn’t
exactly stellar, either. While
Just Cause 4 is a smudgy,
distinctly plain-looking game at
the best of times, its cutscenes
and character models really
take the vomit-worthy cake.
Most cinematics seem to be
pre-rendered, running at sub-
par resolutions with a tonne of
unpleasant artifacting. As for
the cast? Talk about falling out
of the Ugly Tree and hitting
27 branches on your way back
to terra firma. Rico himself
looks just about passable, but“THE SHOWY STORY
QUESTS HAVE
LUDICROUS SET-PIECE
SPECTACLE TO BURN.”
Below Rico
Rodriguez is as
happy in the air
as he is on good
old terra firma.