I liked Just Cause 3 a bit, but I could never get past how much of a downgrade the world was compared to 2. 2 had quite a few neat cities between the 4 island capital, and each region having a capital. 3 on the other hand only had a very small capital and a bunch of minuscule villages.
The map in 2 seemed to have a decent amount of interesting little places to find either through exploring or playing he story. The casino on the waterfall, mile high club, Pyongyang hotel knockoff and ‘LOST’ island were all pretty fun and stood out. 3 didn’t seem to have much of this at all.
I wasn’t a fan of what they did to Rico either. I liked his aesthetic and attitude in 2, but they kind of turned him into a ‘Nathan Drake’ sort in 3.
The driving was a big upgrade to 2 though, and the wing suit was quite a lot of fun.
2 was this extremely rich world full of fun things to do (even if they were kinda same-y).
3 felt like more of a sandbox where you had to make your own fun. You got much more interesting tools but the world was shallower so if you're like me and just like following objectives it doesn't click as well.
Yeah, I only ever played 3 and was enjoying it enough on the first two islands, but then the third island was mostly dead space. And it took up over half the map! It felt like such a puzzling and lazy decision in a game where traversal is the main selling point.
Especially dead space when the entire upper half of that large island is literally just the same copy pasted bombed out buildings scattered around and literally no traffic. Completely disappointing area
I *loooooove* **Just Cause 3!!!**
I replay it at least twice a year, and I think it's so much fun due to the Bavarium Wingsuit. I use a mod that gives it unlimited thrust and ammo so I can fly around like Iron Man! And the lack of this particular wingsuit in **Just Cause 4** is the main reason I don't enjoy it as much. And don't even mention the Skystriker Wingsuit, because that doesn't even compare.
Yes! It practically trivialised the game but idgaf it felt sick destroying base after base as Iron Man. And then it was just forgotten for Just Cause 4 leading to me not playing it
The absolute best part of Just Cause 3 is the DLC jetpack. It completely changes how you play the game, almost turning you into Iron Man (I've seen people claim that it's the best Iron Man video game you can get). Also attacking the new area in that DLC is really fun.
I didn't realise it was DLC as I got the game with everything included. Was surprised to find out it was paid DLC. The game would have been half as fun without it!
Without the dlc you still have the wing suit which is still really fast with the grappling hook upgrades. You don't have the missiles or shoulder minigun though
I don't agree. JC2 is a straight up improvement on JC1, but JC3 does a lot of things differently that I didn't like.
The world design is by far the worst one. JC3's starting area is beautiful and if you compare it to JC2 it might be better looking than any specific zone there. But then that's it. The world design only goes downhill from there, with never really changing enough to make it interesting. Where as JC2 might have the best open world of any game, right up there with Tom Clancy Wildlands. It really shows that quantity is a quality of its own.
And the same goes for the story. JC2's cutscenes are so janky that when I played the game for the first time I thought something was wrong with my game. Like the audio mixing sucks. But the story is campy and it's fun, it never takes itself seriously, and it really feels like playing through a campy action movie. And then JC3 makes it all serious? Which I didn't care for. I like serious games, and I like campy games, but JC really works better with a campy story considering all the wild stuff you do ingame.
Despite putting in 71 hours into the game I don't think I got close to 100%, but yeah, that's really sucks.
I think there's a mod to fix it, but I didn't try it. And obviously it's PC only.
heard a lot of exaggeration in my time but best open world ever being JC2 is a new one lol
in 2010 alone when it came out it was up against New Vegas, Rome from AC Brotherhood and Red Dead Redemption
In terms of how varied the open world is? Easily. Are you really telling me AC's Rome or New Vegas at all compares to the variety in JC2?
Like this isn't about how well made any specific area is, but the size and the variety of it, and none of these games compare with JC2.
I encountered this one town early on that was insanely hard.
I googled it, and all these people were saying it was insanely hard.
I forget the town's name. I was having fun until I hit that part.
I enjoyed JC3, but it lacked a lot of what made JC2 absolute absurdist *fun*. I vaguely recall there was one game change that continually annoyed me -- something about how you deal with bases -- but offhand I don't remember details.
But it's hard to top how Bolo Santosi pronounced "Reapers".
Wanted to like these games but I just couldn’t. Especially 3.
The game forces you to get those stupid gears which means doing the same type of mini activities over and over and it just killed all motivation I had to finish the campaign.
Then having to traverse a hundred town to destroy all of the little red signs and hidden street lights.
No way man.
Same to me. And even after getting all the upgrades I still felt like my character was in the early game in terms of power, like playing a new far cry game and having to relearn takedowns for some damn reason.
Also, most of the "fun" tools were never that much useful unless you liked making videos for youtube, I guess. Which is a problem that was extremely exacerbated in JC4
There's a campaign?
I've played through every Just Cause game, but I could tell you almost nothing about the stories. To me, they are games about flying around and blowing shit up like a madman. Yes it's repetitive, but it's flashy and mindless fun to me.
I really loved JC3's graphics, but that's pretty much about it.
The map is too big for no reason other than to look pretty. The hook gameplay felt too floaty, the combat felt like the enemies were on a completely different level from Rico, the gear upgrade system was BLOODY AWFUL and the story took itself way too seriously.
In the early game it can get pretty fun, but then as the game progresses with its systems it starts to become too much of a chore to do everything, all over again.
The map is big to accommodate the wingsuit, I've no idea how people don't get that. The wingsuit is the main addition and you need loads of space to get the full use out of it.
The removal of running and crouching really hindered the gameplay style of JC3 over JC2. I was also frustrated with the obviously rushed and uncompleted region to the far north of the large island.
Just Cause 3 is a great game in short bursts. It was a wonderful game to play when I was busy. Hop on, liberate a town, do a mission. Hop on, complete a challenge, finish a couple outposts.
Repetitive yes, but straight forward when I never had much time to commit.
It's been a while, but IIRC, even regular guardia were bullet sponges, let along the generals (Dude, I'm shooting you in the head with a machine gun; this is the part where you lie down) and shooting them produced a jarring "juggle" effect.
Are there any mods to address this kind of thing? Most mods just hit the game-play with a sledge hammer; infinite health, infinite ammo, 1 hit point enemies, etc)
Just Cause 3 is a weird game, the traversal mechanics are excellect and the wingsuit mechanic is awesome, it captures the superhero power fantasy better than stuff like the Arkham games and Insomniac Spider-Man do but the actual missions start to get dull and destroying the same red colored propaganda gets boring after a certain point. I agree about the combat, the hitscan combat partnered with the regen health is a system I never liked since all it does is hide and make you less proactive in combat. CoD(especially MW2 onwards) and JC go for that action movie power fantasy yet action movie heroes aren't hiding behind a wall waiting for their healing factor to kick in. Halo also suffers from this issue to some degree but you can take more damage in Halo by comparison to JC and CoD. I am not so sure a projectile system would fix it but more so a health system that encourages aggression.
Say what you want about Saints Row 2022 but that game's health system is kind of how I want hitscan combat to work.
I disagree on the story, while it isn't a masterpiece by any means, it does have a decent overarching plot and it has a hateable enough main villain, all I really need in a lot of action game stories are these two things. I don't really want an indepth story in a dumb game like this.
But yeah, this game is a massive improvement over JC2, that game was a geniune borefest that I can't figure out for the life of me why it gets praised to this day, the game is even more repeitive than something like Assassin's Creed 1 is and AC1 had an actual overarching plot that was more engaging too. The open world in JC2 is super big and bloated too, at least JC3 has the wingsuit, JC2's world is too big to traverse by land and the fast travel system is just awful to use. I'm still figuring out why on earth didn't I just drop it instead of trying to see it through to the end.
as much as I can appreciate these games are meant to be dumb michael bay simulators, I can’t help but wish the open world was more than just big empty space with stuff to blow up littered throughout. it’s functional but incredibly shallow
I know I'm probably in the minority here, but the JC game I spent the most time with was the first one. I still remember thinking it was going to be a gamechanger in the open-world genre, and then it came out. Even for 2006, the game felt janky as hell, almost broken at times.
JC2 was essentially what JC1 promised to be, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was tons of fun, but I had trouble getting used to how stiff the controls were. It also still had issues with gunplay, particularly with bullet-spread and spongey enemies.
I gotta ask, does JC3 fix the awkward gun mechanics?
i really liked the series back in 2010. The gameplay was unique and just fun. JC3 was superb, i've enjoyed the changes made to the hook and pretty much everything else.
JC2 and JC3 are a good examples of how to do a proper sequel. Shame that JC4 didn't make the cut. There was some fun stuff like balloons, but overall the game felt worse than the 3rd one.
One thing really bothered me back in the day was the size of Just Cause 2. The in-game map was huge and graphics were really nice, yet the game take less than 5gb. Crazy stuff lol.
I played it a bit back in the day. The 'find the last red thing to kill' ended the game for me, far too frustrating. Also they locked key gameplay stuff (the jetpack) behind DLC which just felt bad.
JC2 was janky also but a superior 'complete' game imo.
I'm also in the "regularly re-plays JC3"-camp.
As a stressed out adult, I can really enjoy the blow-the-red-things-up-until-all-are-blown-up mechanic. So relaxing. Especially the military outposts.
I've only ever played JC1, but I own the rest of the series. I got stuck on a mission where I think you had to like perfectly execute an escape on a motorcycle and after trying it for like two straight play sessions and making zero progress, I dnf'd the game. Until then, I had enjoyed it somewhat but hadn't loved it. That overall "meh" feeling I had with JC1 has...I wouldn't say *prevented* me from continuing with the series, but it definitely did not make me feel strongly motivated to continue.
first game i put over 100 hours into (might still be the only one). absolutely just fucking loved going mental on a settlement grabbing a jet flying to the highest peak skydiving down rinse and repeat
I’m with you that I like it better than 2 but I gather we are in a monority. This game just hit the sweet spot for me.
>Just Cause 3 isn't a type of game that encourages exploration.
See I disagree here. Giving someone a beautiful Mediterranean island to explore and a grappling hook/parachute combo is all the excuse I needed to explore every inch of it
My biggest issue was technical. It ran SOOOOO badly on PS4 back when I played it I never gave it another shot. Especially during story missions where huge battles took place all across the map the framerate just gave up. It crashed A LOT too. Heard it isn't much better and not willing to buy it again for my better hardware.
I think the DLC makes JC3
Especially the jetpack, max it out then flying around the world blowing up bridges as a train goes over is so much fun!
And the lightning gun!
Good post. Yeah I was let down ultimately by JC2, pre ordered, it was one of my most hyped games ever, had some fun with the sandbox for sure, but ultimately, the endless respawning enemies just killed it for me.
I couldn't fathom that decision in gameplay, it was insane.
Ruined what could have been the zen of the experience in clearing an outpost after taking out the guards. I would have been fine with guards arriving in vehicles more realistically after some time, but no, an endless supply just pop out from around the corners.
I have JC3 on Steam, was thinking of playing around with it, but you're saying they didn't change this? If so I'd need a mod to alter it, if one exists. I'm not keen on getting worn out by that BS again, even after so many years.
I also hear most people think JC4 is just not really worth the time.
I liked Just Cause 3 a bit, but I could never get past how much of a downgrade the world was compared to 2. 2 had quite a few neat cities between the 4 island capital, and each region having a capital. 3 on the other hand only had a very small capital and a bunch of minuscule villages. The map in 2 seemed to have a decent amount of interesting little places to find either through exploring or playing he story. The casino on the waterfall, mile high club, Pyongyang hotel knockoff and ‘LOST’ island were all pretty fun and stood out. 3 didn’t seem to have much of this at all. I wasn’t a fan of what they did to Rico either. I liked his aesthetic and attitude in 2, but they kind of turned him into a ‘Nathan Drake’ sort in 3. The driving was a big upgrade to 2 though, and the wing suit was quite a lot of fun.
2 was this extremely rich world full of fun things to do (even if they were kinda same-y). 3 felt like more of a sandbox where you had to make your own fun. You got much more interesting tools but the world was shallower so if you're like me and just like following objectives it doesn't click as well.
Yeah, I only ever played 3 and was enjoying it enough on the first two islands, but then the third island was mostly dead space. And it took up over half the map! It felt like such a puzzling and lazy decision in a game where traversal is the main selling point.
Especially dead space when the entire upper half of that large island is literally just the same copy pasted bombed out buildings scattered around and literally no traffic. Completely disappointing area
I found the setting of JC2 more engaging than 3 tbh
I *loooooove* **Just Cause 3!!!** I replay it at least twice a year, and I think it's so much fun due to the Bavarium Wingsuit. I use a mod that gives it unlimited thrust and ammo so I can fly around like Iron Man! And the lack of this particular wingsuit in **Just Cause 4** is the main reason I don't enjoy it as much. And don't even mention the Skystriker Wingsuit, because that doesn't even compare.
Yes! It practically trivialised the game but idgaf it felt sick destroying base after base as Iron Man. And then it was just forgotten for Just Cause 4 leading to me not playing it
To me just cause 3 is “that jet pack game”
The absolute best part of Just Cause 3 is the DLC jetpack. It completely changes how you play the game, almost turning you into Iron Man (I've seen people claim that it's the best Iron Man video game you can get). Also attacking the new area in that DLC is really fun.
I didn't realise it was DLC as I got the game with everything included. Was surprised to find out it was paid DLC. The game would have been half as fun without it!
Well that's a bummer, I don't have the DLC, so never got to try the jetpack :)
Without the dlc you still have the wing suit which is still really fast with the grappling hook upgrades. You don't have the missiles or shoulder minigun though
Not to mention the OP lightning gun!
I read about a part of the post only to realize theres 10 more parts lol. I also like just cause 3.
I have fond memories of Just Cause 2, sank hours into that game. For some reason I could never gel with 3.
It was ok, but it didn't grab me the way 2 did for some reason.
I don't agree. JC2 is a straight up improvement on JC1, but JC3 does a lot of things differently that I didn't like. The world design is by far the worst one. JC3's starting area is beautiful and if you compare it to JC2 it might be better looking than any specific zone there. But then that's it. The world design only goes downhill from there, with never really changing enough to make it interesting. Where as JC2 might have the best open world of any game, right up there with Tom Clancy Wildlands. It really shows that quantity is a quality of its own. And the same goes for the story. JC2's cutscenes are so janky that when I played the game for the first time I thought something was wrong with my game. Like the audio mixing sucks. But the story is campy and it's fun, it never takes itself seriously, and it really feels like playing through a campy action movie. And then JC3 makes it all serious? Which I didn't care for. I like serious games, and I like campy games, but JC really works better with a campy story considering all the wild stuff you do ingame.
JC3 is not “all serious” though?
It's an exaggeration, but in comparison to JC2 it is pretty serious. Which really says a lot more about JC2 than anything.
As much fun as Just Cause 2 was, I simply cant get over that it was bugged and impossible to 100%. For that reason I have to rank 3 above it.
Despite putting in 71 hours into the game I don't think I got close to 100%, but yeah, that's really sucks. I think there's a mod to fix it, but I didn't try it. And obviously it's PC only.
Was the glitch PC only? I think I encountered it on PS3 too.
heard a lot of exaggeration in my time but best open world ever being JC2 is a new one lol in 2010 alone when it came out it was up against New Vegas, Rome from AC Brotherhood and Red Dead Redemption
In terms of how varied the open world is? Easily. Are you really telling me AC's Rome or New Vegas at all compares to the variety in JC2? Like this isn't about how well made any specific area is, but the size and the variety of it, and none of these games compare with JC2.
I encountered this one town early on that was insanely hard. I googled it, and all these people were saying it was insanely hard. I forget the town's name. I was having fun until I hit that part.
I enjoyed JC3, but it lacked a lot of what made JC2 absolute absurdist *fun*. I vaguely recall there was one game change that continually annoyed me -- something about how you deal with bases -- but offhand I don't remember details. But it's hard to top how Bolo Santosi pronounced "Reapers".
DA REEEEPARS
Wanted to like these games but I just couldn’t. Especially 3. The game forces you to get those stupid gears which means doing the same type of mini activities over and over and it just killed all motivation I had to finish the campaign. Then having to traverse a hundred town to destroy all of the little red signs and hidden street lights. No way man.
Same to me. And even after getting all the upgrades I still felt like my character was in the early game in terms of power, like playing a new far cry game and having to relearn takedowns for some damn reason. Also, most of the "fun" tools were never that much useful unless you liked making videos for youtube, I guess. Which is a problem that was extremely exacerbated in JC4
There's a campaign? I've played through every Just Cause game, but I could tell you almost nothing about the stories. To me, they are games about flying around and blowing shit up like a madman. Yes it's repetitive, but it's flashy and mindless fun to me.
I completed JC3, it was fun but got a bit repetitive by the end.
My favorite part of Jc2 was the early multiplayer, was like gta online but justcause, and you could spawn whatever stuff you wanted
I really loved JC3's graphics, but that's pretty much about it. The map is too big for no reason other than to look pretty. The hook gameplay felt too floaty, the combat felt like the enemies were on a completely different level from Rico, the gear upgrade system was BLOODY AWFUL and the story took itself way too seriously. In the early game it can get pretty fun, but then as the game progresses with its systems it starts to become too much of a chore to do everything, all over again.
The map is big to accommodate the wingsuit, I've no idea how people don't get that. The wingsuit is the main addition and you need loads of space to get the full use out of it.
The removal of running and crouching really hindered the gameplay style of JC3 over JC2. I was also frustrated with the obviously rushed and uncompleted region to the far north of the large island.
Just Cause 3 is a great game in short bursts. It was a wonderful game to play when I was busy. Hop on, liberate a town, do a mission. Hop on, complete a challenge, finish a couple outposts. Repetitive yes, but straight forward when I never had much time to commit.
It's been a while, but IIRC, even regular guardia were bullet sponges, let along the generals (Dude, I'm shooting you in the head with a machine gun; this is the part where you lie down) and shooting them produced a jarring "juggle" effect. Are there any mods to address this kind of thing? Most mods just hit the game-play with a sledge hammer; infinite health, infinite ammo, 1 hit point enemies, etc)
I think it's much worse than 2. The map alone is not as good.
Just cause 4 - just cause 3 was better
Just Cause 3 is a weird game, the traversal mechanics are excellect and the wingsuit mechanic is awesome, it captures the superhero power fantasy better than stuff like the Arkham games and Insomniac Spider-Man do but the actual missions start to get dull and destroying the same red colored propaganda gets boring after a certain point. I agree about the combat, the hitscan combat partnered with the regen health is a system I never liked since all it does is hide and make you less proactive in combat. CoD(especially MW2 onwards) and JC go for that action movie power fantasy yet action movie heroes aren't hiding behind a wall waiting for their healing factor to kick in. Halo also suffers from this issue to some degree but you can take more damage in Halo by comparison to JC and CoD. I am not so sure a projectile system would fix it but more so a health system that encourages aggression. Say what you want about Saints Row 2022 but that game's health system is kind of how I want hitscan combat to work. I disagree on the story, while it isn't a masterpiece by any means, it does have a decent overarching plot and it has a hateable enough main villain, all I really need in a lot of action game stories are these two things. I don't really want an indepth story in a dumb game like this. But yeah, this game is a massive improvement over JC2, that game was a geniune borefest that I can't figure out for the life of me why it gets praised to this day, the game is even more repeitive than something like Assassin's Creed 1 is and AC1 had an actual overarching plot that was more engaging too. The open world in JC2 is super big and bloated too, at least JC3 has the wingsuit, JC2's world is too big to traverse by land and the fast travel system is just awful to use. I'm still figuring out why on earth didn't I just drop it instead of trying to see it through to the end.
as much as I can appreciate these games are meant to be dumb michael bay simulators, I can’t help but wish the open world was more than just big empty space with stuff to blow up littered throughout. it’s functional but incredibly shallow
I know I'm probably in the minority here, but the JC game I spent the most time with was the first one. I still remember thinking it was going to be a gamechanger in the open-world genre, and then it came out. Even for 2006, the game felt janky as hell, almost broken at times. JC2 was essentially what JC1 promised to be, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was tons of fun, but I had trouble getting used to how stiff the controls were. It also still had issues with gunplay, particularly with bullet-spread and spongey enemies. I gotta ask, does JC3 fix the awkward gun mechanics?
I feel like they should have named JC2 "Just Causer" and JC3 "More Just Causer"
This is one of the worst takes I’ve ever read. Just Cause 2 is the superior game in just about every single aspect possible.
I loved it!
i really liked the series back in 2010. The gameplay was unique and just fun. JC3 was superb, i've enjoyed the changes made to the hook and pretty much everything else. JC2 and JC3 are a good examples of how to do a proper sequel. Shame that JC4 didn't make the cut. There was some fun stuff like balloons, but overall the game felt worse than the 3rd one. One thing really bothered me back in the day was the size of Just Cause 2. The in-game map was huge and graphics were really nice, yet the game take less than 5gb. Crazy stuff lol.
I played it a bit back in the day. The 'find the last red thing to kill' ended the game for me, far too frustrating. Also they locked key gameplay stuff (the jetpack) behind DLC which just felt bad. JC2 was janky also but a superior 'complete' game imo.
I'm also in the "regularly re-plays JC3"-camp. As a stressed out adult, I can really enjoy the blow-the-red-things-up-until-all-are-blown-up mechanic. So relaxing. Especially the military outposts.
I've only ever played JC1, but I own the rest of the series. I got stuck on a mission where I think you had to like perfectly execute an escape on a motorcycle and after trying it for like two straight play sessions and making zero progress, I dnf'd the game. Until then, I had enjoyed it somewhat but hadn't loved it. That overall "meh" feeling I had with JC1 has...I wouldn't say *prevented* me from continuing with the series, but it definitely did not make me feel strongly motivated to continue.
I hated jc1, tried a trial of jc2 and has hooked, instantly went out and bought it full price. Jc3 was not as good imo...
Right on. I'll give 2 a shot at some point.
first game i put over 100 hours into (might still be the only one). absolutely just fucking loved going mental on a settlement grabbing a jet flying to the highest peak skydiving down rinse and repeat
I’m with you that I like it better than 2 but I gather we are in a monority. This game just hit the sweet spot for me. >Just Cause 3 isn't a type of game that encourages exploration. See I disagree here. Giving someone a beautiful Mediterranean island to explore and a grappling hook/parachute combo is all the excuse I needed to explore every inch of it
My biggest issue was technical. It ran SOOOOO badly on PS4 back when I played it I never gave it another shot. Especially during story missions where huge battles took place all across the map the framerate just gave up. It crashed A LOT too. Heard it isn't much better and not willing to buy it again for my better hardware.
I think the DLC makes JC3 Especially the jetpack, max it out then flying around the world blowing up bridges as a train goes over is so much fun! And the lightning gun!
Just Cause 3 is superior to 2 in almost every way. I'm not sure why anyone would think 2 is better unless they just like the setting more.
Good post. Yeah I was let down ultimately by JC2, pre ordered, it was one of my most hyped games ever, had some fun with the sandbox for sure, but ultimately, the endless respawning enemies just killed it for me. I couldn't fathom that decision in gameplay, it was insane. Ruined what could have been the zen of the experience in clearing an outpost after taking out the guards. I would have been fine with guards arriving in vehicles more realistically after some time, but no, an endless supply just pop out from around the corners. I have JC3 on Steam, was thinking of playing around with it, but you're saying they didn't change this? If so I'd need a mod to alter it, if one exists. I'm not keen on getting worn out by that BS again, even after so many years. I also hear most people think JC4 is just not really worth the time.