➤ Just Cause 4, the review 🎮

Just Cause 4 is a toy for gamers, a real virtual amusement park made of vehicles, explosions e chaos extreme. From this point of view the developers have not denied themselves, delivering fans of the series exactly what they expected: a large sandbox in which to indulge yourself by blowing up anything, launching from incredible heights, gliding in a vertiginous way among the mountains and facing for the first time a scenario, the South American but fictional one of the island of Solis, characterized by four different biomes that present very peculiar weather conditions. The wide map in fact, the game alternates zones from climate mild and places subject to sudden tropical storms with thunder and lightning, desert lands where strong winds raise the sand and valleys where the power of gigantic tornadoes is unleashed.

The unusual presence of such variable situations is somehow linked to the (not exactly irresistible) plot of Just Cause 4, which sees the protagonist Rico Rodriguez busy investigating his family's past and his father's work in relation to devices designed to control the weather. After a first impact that was anything but friendly with the bizarre climate of Solis and with the troops of the Black Hand, the private army that controls the territory, Rico manages to prevent his friend Mira and his companions are killed, giving life to yet another liberation front: The Army of Chaos. The contribution of the rebel forces towards the completion of the campaign will be fundamental, since to follow the main missions of the story, linked to four specific operations, we will first have to advance our army by conquering the various regions of the map after liberating the relative bases.

Gameplay

It takes just a few minutes to get familiar with the gameplay of Just Cause 4, which does not differ from what was seen in the previous episodes of the series if not for the addition of some elements, in this case the new ones gadgets for the grapple and the secondary fire function of the many weaponry that we will happen to wield during the adventure, with a view to a gunplay that we found light-hearted but fun. Rico immediately sets off with complete equipment, which allows him to move quickly using the aforementioned grappling hook, parachute and wingsuit together; and, in the same way, the new grafts are introduced during the first hours: the Lifter, the Rewinder and the Booster.

The first device works in a similar way to the system Fulton of Metal Gear Solid V, allowing you to place balls that can lift any object or person with more or less energy, operating automatically or on command. The Rewinder allows you to use the hooks of the grapple to pull off a panel or to open a crushing door, while the Booster is a propeller that also provides a variable thrust. It is possible to imaginatively combine up to ten of these gadgets at the same time, and we're sure we'll see them shortly YouTube crazy sequences, with people lifting large tankers into the air to drop them on the head of a group of enemies, unleashing a hell of flames.

Indeed, the doubt arises that these innovations have been introduced with the implications in mind social: an intelligent move by Avalanche Studios, which however collides with a reality in which many of these possibilities are not really exploited during the in-game action, simply because it is more practical to resort to traditional maneuvers between weapons, grappling hook and any reinforcements. The quests in which the exploitation of the new mechanics is compulsorily placed, moreover, often prove to be inconsistent and hasty. In any case, our character has three setups that can be recalled via the d-pad, with adjustable settings for each appendage in terms of power and activation system.

By completing the missions related to the characters of S argento, Javi and Garland, additional functions can be added to the equipment, therefore it becomes possible to modify the maximum altitude of the lifter and its behavior in various situations, change the speed of the rewinder and the length of the cable, add directionality, duration and acceleration to the boosters, and so on. In short, many facets that are combined with the sandbox vocation of Just Cause 4 and with the desire to indulge any whim users want to take off by using the tools that the game makes available to them. Much publicized aspects such as the highly variable weather, however, turn out to be simple gimmicks, found a bit 'ends in themselves, linked to specific situations and subsequently adjustable with a limited degree of freedom.

Missions and structure

The map of Just Cause 4 is very large and there is no doubt that observing it from above represents a suggestive spectacle, especially during certain hours of the day, but besides the wild nature of Solis there is actually not much to explore. The bases that we will have the task of freeing and the urban areas of the scenario have in fact a generic aspect, with an obsessive repetition of the assets that goes hand in hand with gameplay mechanics in which the same situations always alternate: activate consoles and wait for the hacking the system, reaching a series of devices within a time limit, freeing prisoners and escorting them to the exit, destroying or deactivating generators, or defending positions from attack by hostile troops for a certain period of time.

In all cases the variable is represented only by the quantity and types of enemies sent to stop us, and this can only create very repetitive situations, which artificially increase the duration of a campaign that is completed in about twenty hours, proceeding straight ahead and therefore leaving aside the challenges and secondary quests. Although the latter try to introduce a minimum of experimentation, they cannot divert attention from the fact that the narrative-type missions are in fact few for such a title. dimensions and with the ambition to push the franchise to new heights: a task that Avalanche Studios fails to complete successfully, contenting itself with remaining in the wake of an experience that nevertheless boasts a certain following.

Those aspects that could have changed things but which unfortunately do not reside in aartificial intelligence often basic, which leads enemies to unreasonably expose themselves to our bursts, with very few exceptions (see soldiers equipped with a camouflage system, who jump here and there as we try to center them). At the end of the day it is more than anything else the exorbitant number of opponents, between units on foot and vehicles, that makes the difference as we proceed to the liberation of Solis, but the progression itself manifests itself in a controversial way, giving the feeling to already be in possession of all the necessary requirements to be able to complete the game and adding advantages (the seven unlockable pilots who quickly transport us to the areas already visited, or download weapons, vehicles and so on) that do nothing but cut the legs to a slower and more reasoned exploration of the locations. After all, why travel by car if it is immediately possible to use a helicopter or a plane?

Problems on PC?

Our Just Cause 4 test on PC was plagued by a long series of frustrating crashes, with or without error messages, which inevitably affected the experience with the game. Since we had never experienced anything like this with the many other titles we tried recently, we talked to some colleagues and found that the phenomenon was quite widespread. Disabling the motion blur and bokeh effect from the graphics options seems to make the software more stable, but the problematic state of the Avalanche Studios production is clear and evident: the day one patch will imperatively have to fix things.

Graphics and sound

Even from the point of view of technical implementation Just Cause 4 focuses on the performance and implementation of one physics complex, although unlikely to say the least in many of its facets, that the Apex graphics engine seems to manage without particular problems. Boasting surprisingly fast loading on PC, especially when you consider the extent of the map, the game offers breathtaking views and a convincing rendition of the elements, but looking a little closer there are plenty of concessions to an older generation design between textures. blurred, materials arranged a bit haphazardly and, in general, an artistic direction not exactly in step with the times, very far from the most noble productions. The fact that some elements of the review build were still work in progress, and of which it therefore seems right not to speak, unfortunately suggests a very hasty development in the final stages, which would have needed a few more weeks to be able to present itself at its best. That said, for practical purposes everything works well: the explosions are spectacular and challenging effects such as screen space reflection have not been spared, both for the sea and for simple puddles.

On the configuration test, Just Cause 4 runs at 40-45 frames per second with all settings at maximum and at resolution 2160p, while remaining consistent even in the most chaotic situations, with many enemies and large-scale climatic effects. To get 60 fps stable you have to go down to 1440p or give up some adjustments, even if from this point of view the options are not very many: resolution, only two types of anti-aliasing (FXAA and MSAA), texture and water quality, ocean tessellation, quality of detail and shadows, ambient occlusion, motion blur, edge blending, global illumination, screen space reflections, bokeh depth of field, anisotropic filtering, and vertical sync. Good news regarding the audio sector: the Just Cause 4 soundtrack does not boast a huge personality but lets itself be heard, the effects seemed good to us and the dubbing in Spanish it is excellent, entrusted to highly experienced actors.

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Processor: Intel Core i5 6600K
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Memory: 16 GB of RAM
Operating system: Windows 10

Minimum requirements

Processore: Intel Core i5 2400, AMD FX 6300
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760, AMD R9 270
Memory: 8 GB of RAM
Hard disk: 59 GB of space required
Sistema operativo: Windows 7 SP1 a 64 bit

Recommended Requirements

Processor: Intel Core i7 4770, AMD Ryzen 5 1600
Scheda video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, AMD Vega 56
Memory: 16 GB of RAM
Hard disk: 59 GB of space required
Operating system: Windows 10 64-bit

Comment

Tested version PC Windows Price 57,90 € Resources4Gaming.com

7.5

Readers (29)

7.4

Your vote

Just Cause 4 tries to take the series to a further evolutionary step, but without success. It must therefore be satisfied with offering an enjoyable more of the same, with some interesting innovations that, however, affect the concrete less than expected. For the rest, the game is the usual, large and fun sandbox in which to indulge themselves with vehicles, weapons, gadgets and thunderous explosions: fans of the franchise may not have expected anything else, but they too will inevitably have to deal with a rather repetitive structure and with a progression that is articulated in a controversial way, perhaps due to the desire to immediately show the potential of this virtual playground.