izigame.me

Woah okay, so I got this game along with the other 3 just cause games and I've played through them all until I reached this title. Its bad, its really bad.
Please note I've only played this game for like 50 minutes, and normally I dont think reviews are too valid until you've beaten the game but I honestly dont feel like wasting my time. I also feel like the fact that I was able to construct a list of complaints this long and detailed within 50 minutes speaks to the inherently flawed game design and may save some people from wasting their time and money on a terrible product.
Its a direct downgrade from just cause 3 in mechanics, story, characters, gameplay, objectives and visuals from the previous title.
Just cause 2 was pretty bad in my opinion, and it feels like the guy who made JC2 got put back in charge after JC3. Ammo restraints are back, I never have bullets. They added drone enemies, which while they existed in JC3 they were only in certain areas and they werent that many of them. Now they're everywhere, very small, very fast and they're super tanky, (which exacerbates the ammo problem). They tied grenades to the guns and removed your infinite bavarium C4 charges. Weapon dumps are far more limited, they arent clearly marked and they mostly carry one or two weapons. They removed the ability to carry 3 weapons at least as far as I was in the game you could only carry 2- which meant once again you had to choose between rocket launchers and anti personnel items. Vehicles have ammo now... which .... why, and now objective markers are hidden behind some sort of augmented reality contact lens.
The Chaos system is back, WHY IS IT BACK?!? IT THE WORST SYSTEM EVER! YOU HAD IT JUST CAUSE DEVS! YOU'D FIGURED OUT THE KEY TO SATISFYING SIDE CONTENT IN 3 WHY DID YOU BRING SUCH A TERRIBLE SYSTEM FROM 2? It existed in 3 to an extent but it wasnt intrusive. It went hand in hand with the outpost conquest system so most of the time I didnt even notice it was there. In short the main game progress is blocked until you cause enough "chaos" which basically means until you've blown up a enough random red objects, or completed side objectives youre effectively stuck. In this game its tied to the frontline mechanic which was kind of cool but since it was tied to the tedious side objectives rather than the actual frontline combat it was unsatisfying. Outpost are no longer conquered by destruction, in fact destruction does nothing except generate chaos, the destroyed objects even respawn so your impact on the world is negligible.
Speaking of red objects, what happened to the destruction dynamics? The ball shaped fuel containers dont explode any more, they sparkle with blue energy now, the radio towers break into chucks like they were built with legos instead of falling over all cool like they did in 3, red objectives have overall less explosions, things just seem to spark now instead of explode.
While we're on the topic of objectives, the whole "hack the computer" thing, where if you get shot during the 15 seconds of hacking you get stopped and have to start over is OBJECTIVELY a bad mechanic. I never almost never use the word objectively - you'll always be able to find someone who like something but that doesnt apply here, so please allow me to explain. A person who is playing this game has paid money to play the game, as a mechanic the hacking system consists of pressing a button and then not playing the game while you wait for it to complete. Whats more the completion of this objective has very little to do with skill or strategy, since even if you kill all nearby enemies, if you have any heat level at all (which you will since these hacking objectives are placed within enemy bases) the game can spawn an enemy and shoot you within those 15 seconds. Therefore this mechanic does not reward intelligent gameplay, it does not reward skilled gameplay, by definition it is not gameplay in and of itself since the player has no agency or input during the 15 second hacking time, thus I assert that this mechanic is objectively bad. Just a heads up, it looks like a pretty core mechanic as well since In the roughly 50 minutes of gameplay I experienced I did this 5 times.
Moving on... Story - I dont care, I reallllllllllly dont care, but as far as I can tell these cut scenes are unskippable. Rico was an agency operative in the first 3 games and he was having some issues with them in 3, which I didnt really understand since Rico was doing good work for the agency in all the games and was still doing stuff for Sheldon in 3, but now he's no longer with the agency, I guess, and he's investigating a super weapon his father built........ what? The writers didnt think to mention in the first three games that Rico's father built super weapons? Also I thought JC3 said that his parents were assassinated when he was a kid, he's like 40 now, if this weapons been around for 30-ish years why is it only now a problem. I paid attention to the main plot of the games in 1-3, based on what was disclosed in those games this makes no sense, if it was explained elsewhere thats just bad writing. As it is the jump from 3 to 4 has already pulled me out of any sort of emotional investment you created in 3 since theyre such different characters. He's also teamed up with some random woman and the game waits all of 5 minutes before trying to pull some starwars plot twist stuff, (oh my god I dont care). Then they're like okay - time to overthrow the government.................................. Dude what? The "bad guys" havent even done anything yet except try to kill you when you attacked their military base unprovoked. Uhhh yeah, Rico is terrorist in this one.
Speaking of Rico what happened to his character? He was this charming fun loving and playful dude in 3 but in 4 he's this grungy edgy guy, like the most bland main character from some sort of b-tier action movie.
Graphics.......... this looks like a generational downgrade from 3 and I dont know why, also the mandatory cutscenes were locked at like 20 frames per second while the game ran at like 90 FPS, so those scenes were really choppy.
Some side notes, before I leave, the physics in this feel even floatier than before which I personally didnt like, it took any sort of skill out of grappling hook traversal, the wing suit felt slower, and despite my complaint about less explosions earlier the red barrels in this are way too fragile, I brushed one in the first allied settlement you access and it exploded. I didnt shoot it and I wasnt being shot at, it just barely fell over and blew up. Also the first mission where you dont have your grappling hook, it wants you to cross a bridge, there are three paths but it just mission fails you unless you take the one it wants, and it doesnt give you any sort of indication which one is the right path, it just has a marker on the other side of the bridge, I dont know how much they do this later, but since just cause has traditionally been a "find your own solution" sort of game I was pretty miffed to be punished for finding an alternate solution.
Seriously if you're looking for a Just Cause game, go play 3.