Just Cause 3

Just Cause 3 is a lot like Just Cause 2, but a host of additions including the wingsuit and gear mods make the game a joy to play. Add in some amazing graphics, stunning explosions, and a huge world and you have a nearly perfect title. One only brought low by online connection issues.

Just Cause 3 is a delightfully straightforward game. It gives players a whole lot of explosive tools and then just leans back, waiting to see what you are going to blow up next. While light on true innovations apart from the fantastic wingsuit, Just Cause 3 is an infinitely more finely-tuned version of the silly action blockbuster we've all come to expect from the series.

It boasts some great improvements over the previous game of the series, but does not evolve the formula in any significant way. It looks better and lets you glide in a wingsuit, but its scale is not surprising anymore. It lets you unleash wonderful chaos in unscripted skirmishes, but its story missions fail to enrich the experience. All the same it is my kind of game. I love playing with its systems, I appreciate the effort put into JC3 and I return to Medici from time to time for condensed doses of havoc. [01/2016, p.48]

2015 was a great year for big open world games and Just Cause 3 is the cherry on top of that cake. JC3 isn’t groundbreaking or revolutionary but it’s super enjoyable, pretty and huge. (Both console versions are plagued by technical issues.)

The most bombastic open-world title of the year is like a playground that works better, the more you lower your brain activity. Brain off, fun on.

Just Cause 3 is a monument to excess. It’s Hot Shots. It’s Charlie Chaplin in The Dictator, if Charlie Chaplin had rocket-powered C4 in his boots. It’s that scene in Dr. Strangelove where Slim Pickens rides the nuke into Russia, except...well, no, it’s pretty much exactly that scene on repeat for 25-30 hours.

Echoes of moral ambiguity are still noticeable: for example, supposedly democratic president is definitely disappointed to hear that dictator’s WMD research is getting destroyed. But it seems that Avalanche got scared at some point and tried to cut it all out, so now populace is universally enthusiastic about Rico raising hell in their country. Result is weird, and not exactly in tune with previous JC’s mood. [Issue#204, p.58]

Just Cause 3 taps the pleasure mechanism that derives so much joy from watching complex structures crumble. Because the game gives you so many ways to interact with the world and to tether anything, blowing things up never becomes a chore.

The combat becomes a little repetitive, the driving and flying feel incomplete, and the story has almost no hooks for the player but the feelings of freedom and empowerment that the title offers are great, especially for gamers who have an active imagination and find new ways to exploit the offered world.

Despite a few shortcomings and a less-than-stellar storyline, Just Cause 3 provides hours of hard-hitting action, exciting chaos and rewarding gameplay mechanics in wonderful open world.

With its insane and creative action and its big world, Just Cause 3 is more than an enjoyable sandbox.

Just Cause 3 is a chaotic, over the top action game where a simple grenade could level an entire military base from the domino effect alone. It is a beautiful action movie in video game form, with a cool protagonist and an incredible attention to detail.

Just Cause 3 is maybe the best game of the series thanks to the uber efficient combo of the grapple, the chute and the wingsuit that makes traveling a breeze. It only lacks a real multiplayer mode.

It’s impossible to deny that there are a number of things that Just Cause 3 doesn’t do very well, and a lot of the things it does brilliantly are very similar to its predecessor. But all of this is easy to forgive when your adventure in Medici plasters a grin across your face for the duration.

Players may find their enthusiasm flagging at times, but it’s hard not to cackle with glee after watching yet another base bloom into a fiery blossom.

A shallow yet explosive experience, Just Cause 3 may not satisfy all tastes but if you are looking for chaos in its purest form, you won't be disappointed. Having said that, the game lacks variety, has some performance issues and its online structure seems uninspired. A fun but unrefined experience overall.

A welcome addition to the Just Cause family. There is plenty of destruction to cause, and plenty of room to explore the world however you want to. It’s a welcome amount of freedom from the action-packed linear games we seem to have gotten used to, and I’d easily rank it among the best of the open world games that the current generation of gaming has to offer.

When Just Cause 3 is consistent, however, it's a stunning display of cause and effect, as watchtowers topple into fuel tanks, which blow up nearby helicopters, which sail into oncoming vehicles. I often spent hours setting up outlandish chain reactions, or trying new gear mods, knowing full well I wasn't making any progress in the traditional sense. I was content to just sit back and marvel as it all happened.

Just Cause 3 pretty much raises explosions and physics-based destruction to the level of an art form, and a few annoyances with gunplay and repetition don't do much to detract from that.

It truly is an insane, explosion-filled romp through a beautiful nation chock-full of cheeky humor. It provides some of the best open-world tools ever. This is definitely a case of "it is what you make of it," and for those with intrinsic motivation to make it the best will be greeted with just that.

Just Cause 3 understands what the essence of the series is – impressively chaotic sandbox action – and it duly provides mountains of it. Just don't expect too much from the story.

An open-world fill of exquisite explosions that, while often falling afoul of flaws, might well contain some of the most fun moments this year.

A one-note experience isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it delivers on that one thing exceptionally well. Just Cause 3 has occasional physics problems and a lack of variety, but it’s fantastic if you just want to drop into a world and immediately start blowing it up.

Just Cause 3 is a playground where you get to be a physics-defying force of destruction, and its loop of liberating dozens of towns across this enormous scenic world would’ve gotten old much quicker if the combat wasn’t so full of options for free-form mayhem. Getting the most out of it requires some creativity and tolerance for performance bugs on your part, so come expecting to make at least some of your own fun.

Just Cause 3 delivers what it does best: chaos and destruction. Though the world and gameplay feel monotonous at times, the wingsuit and other new additions are fun. But still no multiplayer, really?!

This isn't the best open-world game, but it's a blast. [Jan 2016, p.62]

If Michael Bay is a gamer, this should be the perfect game for him: Loud and explosive, but not with a lot of substance.

What saves the game from eventual tedium is the absurd action spectacle you can create at a moment's notice.

Rico Rodriguez returns to save his homeland and blow up the evil forces of General Di Ravello Medici in an archipelago of 1.000 km2 of chaos and destruction. Offering hours of fun and explosions but neglecting other aspects, such as graphics and plot, it's unclear whether the fireworks be enough to engage the player.

Just Cause 3 is “just” Just Cause 2, but bigger, though unfortunately not better. We can destroy pretty much everything the way we like using the enhanced grapple hook and physics but storyline missions are too repetitive and the flaws are the same as those from the second chapter.

Just Cause 3 has two souls: one is pure, untarnished and ridiculous fun, the other is pretty raw, unpolished and repetitive. If you like blowing stuff up, launching rocket cows into space, or simply chaos, this game is definitely a dream come true. Just don’t expect an action masterpiece.

It's an explosive all-you-can-shoot fest. The absolute freedom will amaze you in the beginning, but it's still a mostly empty, albeit beautiful, box. If you love action for the sake of action and 90's action movies, you will just feel at home.

Just Cause 3 is the poetry of explosions. Continuous, glorious, nerve-shattering explosions. A particular breed of gamer will be in paradise, but if you are looking for a meaningful story or well written characters, Just Cause 3 comes up short compared to the competition.

The gigantic world and thirty hours of gameplay at least, which consists of constantly repeating twenty minutes – it's Just Cause 3. It´s necessary to add, that how much entertaining this twenty minutes will be, it's up to you. If you need to relax or to vent some destructive appetites, the game does not disappoint you. Just don’t expect anything else.

This is, after all, a game that goes out of its way to empower in a way few other games dare. [Jan 2016, p.102]

In the end, Just Cause 3 does not make as much of an impact on the genre that it’s predecessor did. But just because that is the case, that does not mean that this is a bad game, it’s far from that, it’s a good game that knows what it wants to be.

Just Cause 3 is a sandbox game that works only if you create your own experience. But if you play it in a straight way, it shows only limitations (and some technical issues that we hope Avalanche will fix soon).

Just Cause 3 is genuinely fun most of the time, but it’s the periods where its not that hurt it most. Add to that some mystifying design decisions around progression and upgrades, and you’ve got a game that attempts to go bigger than its predecessors while forgetting some of the elements that made them so good in the first pace. A fun, albeit flawed game.

The explosions are amazing, and it’s fun in short bursts, but Just Cause 3 is ultimately an unremarkable, shallow experience.

Just Cause 3 is a good game, but it should be better. The open world is phenomenal, chaotic fun makes you smile and graphics are extremely pretty. Unfortunately the gameplay is plagued with minor technical issues, clunky combat and weak storyline. The flaws are small but there is a lot of them - hence a little let down.

Just Cause 3 is okay. It’s far from great, but it’s not bad either. It’s just a decent waste of time. You can expect to mine at least twenty hours from it, with far more on top if you get really into it. Personally, I feel there are far better ways to waste your time, but there are far worse too.

Just Cause 3 is a game you'll either love or hate. It depends on how you grapple with the technical flaws and repetitive gameplay. But at least -in a boundless destruction sphere- you will hardly find a better option. [Issue #259]

It’s testament to Just Cause that I had no hesitation pushing through its annoyances; the surroundings are so exquisite that sometimes it’s worth enduring the slideshow for the canapes and champagne. This is a sumptuous world teeming with stuff to do.

My excitement hinged on juggling vehicles, firearms, and Rico’s toolkit over protracted periods. For much of that time, I doubt that a real thought cohered in my mind other than a notion that the user-generated videos spawned from Just Cause 3 will be bonkers and may form the game’s true legacy.

When you liberate an enemy stronghold Rico sometimes says, “That was fun - let’s do it again.” This feels like a perfect summary for the game: it is 15 minutes of stupid fun on repeat. But that barely matters when you are firing remote-detonated cows at a military compound filled with the red stuff.

From its intense firefights to its wanton destruction and carmageddon, Just Cause 3 ​has all the hallmarks of a classic action movie - it's just a shame the end result is more Van Damme in quality than vintage Schwarzenegger​ or Stallone.

There's a lot to do in Just Cause 3, it's just that doing it all isn't really that much fun. In fact it's probably a better game in retrospect than it is when you're playing it: freed from the controls and other issues, you'll remember it fondly. You'll also likely want to get back to it: there's a moreish, Ubisoft-style vibe here that encourages repeated playing. Those of you that wanted Just Cause 2 Part 2 will love what's on offer, but it all feels lesser than the sum of its parts.

A chaotic action romp, tragically let down by repetition and padding. There's fun to be had, but all too little variety in its huge open world.