Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

If it's a video game it goes here.

Moderators: LawBeefaroni, Arcanis, $iljanus

Post Reply
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

With JC4 being released in less than three weeks, I thought I'd start a thread with some links for previews and discussion. First up, a newly released video from the publisher called Just Cause 4: Deep Dive Trailer. I'm happy because it looks like we are going back to a world like JC2 with lots of terrain types; in fact the game info for JC4 lists the game world size as almost exactly the size of the world in JC2, about 400 square miles. While a top to bottom or side to side measurement of 20 miles doesn't sound that big, I found the JC2 map lots of fun to explore, so I'm hoping for the same in JC4.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Rumpy
Posts: 12672
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:52 pm
Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by Rumpy »

Looks amazing. I loved the first two games but haven't played the 3rd one yet, but by any indication, this looks right up my alley.
PC:
Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM
2x1TB NVMe Drives
GTX 1660 Ti
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

Pre-loading is now available. I ordered the Standard edition, which clocks in at 50 GB :shock:. After pre-ordering AC Odyssey's more expensive version to get a three day early unlock and never got to use it, I opted to avoid the two more expensive versions of JC4 which will unlock 24 hours earlier. Now I kinda wish I had :roll:. Oh well, then just another day of farming in FS19 for me :mrgreen: <-- note, Mr Green, farming, get it?
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

Sixteen hours till unlock for the Standard Edition. Early reports over on the Steam forum aren't very encouraging, although those forums tend to be pretty negative about everything from sunrises to sausage cakes. The most disturbing aspect is the numerous mentions of crashes. Apparently not only widespread but of several different types. This concerns me since both JC2 and JC3 would periodically crash on me, which is something pretty rare in my game playing otherwise. I naively had talked myself into believing that those crashes I experienced were things of the past, but maybe not. Anyway, hold off on any purchases till I give it a look tomorrow. As I said, my rig is pretty bulletproof so if I end up experiencing crashes, it's likely other folks here will as well.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
gbasden
Posts: 7664
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:57 am
Location: Sacramento, CA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by gbasden »

I'm looking forward to hearing about your experiences! I enjoyed JC 1 and 2, but skipped 3 because of the poor reviews. I'd love to get back into it if it's good.
User avatar
coopasonic
Posts: 20966
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 11:43 pm
Location: Dallas-ish

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by coopasonic »

I watched maybe 20 minutes on twitch last night and it seems a lot like JC3 but more. I see it similar to the way Saints Row went from a GTA clone to an over the top parody. I know a few of you love the formula but it just doesn't click with me. I watched a guy taking over a base and it was just zipping back and forth checking boxes with wild abandon. Yes checking boxes with abandon. Those who enjoyed how ridiculous 3 was will probably enjoy this even more. Those who thought 3 was ridiculous should just go on with their lives.
-Coop
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

coopasonic wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 10:00 am I watched maybe 20 minutes on twitch last night and it seems a lot like JC3 but more. I see it similar to the way Saints Row went from a GTA clone to an over the top parody. I know a few of you love the formula but it just doesn't click with me. I watched a guy taking over a base and it was just zipping back and forth checking boxes with wild abandon. Yes checking boxes with abandon. Those who enjoyed how ridiculous 3 was will probably enjoy this even more. Those who thought 3 was ridiculous should just go on with their lives.
Actually even JC2 was like this. I didn't like JC3 as much because the devs had dropped the different biomes and made the game feel, well, small. But you're right, it does have that Saints Row madness to it, although JC2 and JC3 and apparently this one do have a serious story line. Honestly, I need a game with just some madness to it, I spent over three hours trying to re-image one of our damn tax laptops last night and had many, many issues. But that's a topic for another part of our forum :roll:
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

It's been 28 minutes since "release" and the game is still "Updating", which I guess is that it is unpacking. It takes a long time to unpack 50GB. And this is the progress bar:

Image

What's killing me is that my wife is out teaching a class for the next couple of hours, but when she comes home it's back to put up decorations. Every minute unpacking is a minute closer to become Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

OK, time for impressions! I've gotten two hours in on the game and my initial impression is, it doesn't suck! :D

For reference purposes, my rig: Intel i7-4770K 3.5GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 6GB, Win7 64bit Home Premium, 480GB SSD main drive. I'm running the game at 1920x1200, looking for 60 fps.

First of all, the best news, I played two hours with no crashes.

After an hour of unpacking, the game starts off with a prologue mission, in the dark with lots of combat, grappling, enemies and destruction. Unfortunately, it is dark and snowing and it makes the game look rather muddy:

Image

Image

The prologue is rather over the top, but it is an attention grabber, rather than normal gameplay. It does introduce the main characters and sets the scene. The combat is very much like JC2 or JC3 or a dozen other shooters you've played. You do have the grapple right at the start and it's still fun to grapple enemy soldiers and fling them through the air. However, it's not a walkover for you, the enemy is relentless and you can die if you don't move and cover. It's probably less than ten minutes long, then after an intro screen, you drop into the game proper.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

So we're now into the proper game. Rico is hurt and some of his equipment doesn't work and he has to hoof it to a village on a bridge to get some repairs. And now that it's daylight, we get to see how things look, and frankly the graphics are a bit ugly.

Image

The still image doesn't really convey the murkiness of view. It's not bad, but it's not AC Odyssey. Now I'm running at pretty much topped out graphics settings with my fps staying in the fifties, so what I'm seeing is probably the best it's going to be. And here we come to the crossroads for some folks. I don't really care about the graphics and actually once I moved into the sunlight I didn't even think about it any more. But it might bother some folks, so if you are a real graphics fiend, you might want to investigate further.

Image

Once at that village, we have a longer cutscene that really lays out the story. It's not a frivolous, later Saints Row, over the top story, it's actually more serious and gives a good background as to why you are doing what you are doing.

Image
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

And now we're done with the prologue, we've established the backstory and Rico is now in the open world. You have a mission you are requested to perform, but when you get there is up to you. You haven't unlocked all the fancy new features of your grapple, but otherwise you're free to do things like, well, stealing a fishing boat:
Image

Just to wind this up for now, I'll mention that besides the JC2/JC3 gameplay of destroying the enemy equipment and installations to cause chaos, you can also fight in the "front line". This is a pretty cool feature, basically where rebels and the bad guys have a common border there is fighting going on. You can join in and assist to knock down the enemy resistance. So far I haven't seen where this actually alters the borderlines of the regions, but it is a good way to generate more chaos and to earn more squads for your side.

And you can always lift livestock with balloons :D
Image
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
ScaryMike
Posts: 345
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 12:15 pm

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by ScaryMike »

Mostly agree with your take so far, with the one exception that I've had 2 crashes to desktop in 2 hours of play. Frustrating, but not enough to stop playing. One was during game play, one was during a cut-scene.
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

So, 6.3 hours complete. No crashes, but twice I got caught in a glitch where the helicopter I had just grappled to was destroyed. No big deal, I just went to the main menu and returned, no progress lost. I did learn a trick. There is no obvious save option in the ESC menu, but if you go there and then return, the little save icon runs, meaning (I think) that your current progress has been saved.

So, more impressions. I've done a few missions to progress in the story. Also there are three sub-campaigns (I guess you could call them) that give you points that eventually unlock a lot more abilities of your grapple. For instance, I think most people have seen the previews where your grapple can attach a booster to an object. One of the mods you can unlock is an option to change the behavior of the booster when it burns out, in this case instead of just fizzling out, it will explode. Voilà, no need to use ammo to blow up fragile objects like fuel tanks. And of course, nothing says Just Cause like lifting burning fuel tanks with balloons:
Image

Or the top half of an antenna:
Image

One of the things that has surprised me is not just that the map is really large, but so much of it doesn't contain any enemy installations. Or even much of anything. I guess this is OK.
Image

Not that there isn't a lot of stuff on the map, like this city:
Image

I remember in JC2 there were collectables pretty much everywhere which you found by a flashing icon on your HUD when you were near. Well, nothing like that here. In fact I can't really find any reason to go visit anywhere on the map except for where missions are located, or enemy bases so you can collect a lot of chaos points. So I'd have no reason to go to this village, for instance, except to attach livestock to balloons. It never gets old :D
Image
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

Just started playing today and found another cool features I'd been looking for. Just like JC2, and maybe JC3 but I don't remember, you can get airdropped to you all sorts of equipment once you unlock it. Unlike in JC2, again IIRC, you don't have to pay for it. I seem to remember in JC2 that's why I avoided getting big ticket items as once I crashed/lost/blasted it, I had to pay for it again.
Image
Image
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

Oh, and in vehicles there are radios with several stations, mostly varieties of music but also a talk radio station that reminds me of the in GTAV.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

I'm thirteen hours in and now I realize why I like this game so much. No RPG elements, no leveling up, no needing to keep leveling up to unlock new weapons, etc.

Also I like that there is a variety of missions, puzzles, shoot 'em ups and stunt challenges. Normally I'm not a fan of stunt missions, but in JC4 they are fun and not too hard, at least at first. And when they get harder, they get more challenging to solve.

I'll post one example, just so folks know what I'm talking about. My challenge is to get a certain type of vehicle to pass through a circle (actually a hexagon). There is no speed specified, but there is a catch, the circle is quite a ways in the air:
Image

So I could look for a ramp truck, which is a truck with a ramp bed, but what's the challenge in that :D. So I decide to use my grapple. I adjust the grapple setting so that initially it doesn't retract at all, so I can hop in the car. Then when I tap D-page up, the grapple will retract. Of course I first test it on another car, and I realize I might have the grapple retraction set a bit high:
Image

So I adjust the grapple retract and hook it up from my car to the bridge located oh so conveniently just above the circle 8-). I try a couple of times but I don't quite have things lined up. And the car takes a bit of a beating:
Image

But no worries, the third time is the charm, I hook up my grapple, hop in the car and hit the retract button and zoom we fly through the ring. Another stunt complete!
Image
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

I got my first crash to desktop at seventeen hours. Restarted after the game saved to the cloud. No progress was lost and since I wasn't in a mission it was acceptable, although hopefully it will be at least seventeen hours till it hits again.

The reviews are pretty brutal over on the Steam Store page, but I see an awful lot of them have played less than two hours. Some people do seem to be having genuine problems, but I saw one guy who turned all his graphics to max, had a crash in the opening cutscene and then posted how bad the game is. Really, I have very little hope for the planet if this is the caliber of people playing games nowadays...

Back in my day, you were happy if you got the right code into config.sys and autoexec.bat to make a game even run! Damn kids! And stay off my forum :D
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

Favorite quote from the game so far:

Image
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82085
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by Isgrimnur »

Finished up the base game through the Epic freebie. I had fun with it. I won't be paying Epic for the DLC at full price, but I might be persuaded to look at sale prices. Odds are good that I'm just going to move on to the next game.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Rumpy
Posts: 12672
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:52 pm
Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by Rumpy »

Played this one on PS4 a few months ago, got right to the end and noped out. Found it way too frustrating. It's an issue I have with open-world games of this type, where the chaos just gets overwhelming. Had the same issue with Red Faction: Guerilla. Anyway, found out via a video that I was supposed to be using one of the gadgets against the enemies, but I feel the they were poorly explained/introduced and I hadn't gotten that particular upgrade unlocked.
PC:
Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM
2x1TB NVMe Drives
GTX 1660 Ti
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by Daehawk »

Never gave this series a chance. I saw it mentions in the FC6 thread and since I cant get that but do own JC2 and JC4 figured Id try again. Its the over the top action and 3rd person view I think that always gave me zero interest. I remember trying one but quitting and deleting after 2 or 3 missions.

Im trying JC2 first since its older but its not ringing a bell so it must have been JC4 I tried. This 2nd one is ok but it is dated looking. Also Im trying to use a controller when ive always been a KB/M shooter user....for the most part.

So questions....should I start with 2 or just go on and installed 4 and play it as its newest and looks great? Keep in mind my gtx 950 bought the farm and Im using a gtx 760.

Also should I stick to using the controller or go back to kb/m?
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
Daehawk
Posts: 63524
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:11 am

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by Daehawk »

From some stuff Im seeing online they say 2 is better than 4.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
User avatar
jztemple2
Posts: 11541
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2009 7:52 am
Location: Brevard County, Florida, USA

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by jztemple2 »

Daehawk wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:44 pm From some stuff Im seeing online they say 2 is better than 4.
IMHO JC2 was the best of the series.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10902
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by TheMix »

I never played 4. But I'm pretty sure I did play 2 and 3. And my recollection is that 3 was a step down.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
Rumpy
Posts: 12672
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:52 pm
Location: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Re: Just Cause 4 - It's time to Rico again!

Post by Rumpy »

Yeah, I'd say 2 was my favourite. While JC4 had a bigger more detailed world, it was also more annoying in its difficulty spikes.
PC:
Ryzen 5 3600
32GB RAM
2x1TB NVMe Drives
GTX 1660 Ti
Post Reply