Explosions, mayhem, Rico. Through storms of fire and death Rico persists and thrives.

I enjoyed playing Just Cause 2 some years ago (link), so I felt pretty certain I’d enjoy the successor Just Cause 3, and I do. It’s similar but better.

Just like in the previous game you’re playing as the carefree and cheerful action hero Rico Rodriguez, a man bereft of fear and of obedience to the law gravity, and once again the overall mission is one of rebellion against a tyrannical dictator and his grip of a group of tropical islands. Or at least that’s how I recall the last game, but my memory is a bit fuzzy on that point, to be honest. This time an oppressive regime has seized control of Rico’s place of birth, and he becomes a key figure in the revolt, or something.

You see, I don’t really keep track of things like “story” and “characters” and “deeper meaning” in a game like this. It may nominally be about bringing revolution and salvation to the oppressed and downtrodden, but it’s actually about Rico’s proclivity, compulsion even, to blow things up and cause mayhem, bless his heart. And if an innocent bystander or ten gets caught in the crossfire? Well, that’s just too bad, but Rico doesn’t care, Rico doesn’t give a shit. He’s an artist of destruction and an orchestrator of chaos, as well as a wielder of rationalizations and cheesy one liners, and he loves it. He may pay lip service to the idea of rebellion and freedom or whatever, but when you see the tears of joy in his twinkling eye as he mows down both those in his path and those who are not, you know where his heart is really at. Guilty and innocent alike, watch out. Viva la revolution of mowing things down and blowing stuff up.

The game is fairly similar to its predecessor, but it is running on next gen hardware and has a number of improvements, big and small, such as the addition of the wingsuit, which is a piece of clothing shaped like wings allowing for flight. A great addition as travelling is frequently required, and fast travel is not always available or desirable. There are plenty of vehicles of course, but you end up using the wingsuit a lot. It’s both practical and fun to use.

The story and characters are forgettable and pointless, but do work as a delivery mechanism to give you a parade of spectacles to act out. Doing the story isn’t exactly mandatory, there are many other activities available — a true sandbox game — such as taking out military bases, but doing the story does provide with some practical benefits as well as a wide variety of different scenarios and challenges that are fun and that you won’t find elsewhere, so it’s worth pursuing even if you don’t care about the story and the people as such.

When you’ve liberated the entire territory you can choose to have areas of choice re-oppressed in order to liberate them again, Rico-style. Told you he loves that shit.

Part of the fun is the many ways to get the job done. Take out the military base with a tank? Check. Another type of tank and using another tactic? Check. Helicopter? Check. Parachuting with a rocket launcher? Check. Throwing yourself in the middle of a swarm of enemies for some high-intensity action? Check. Sneaking around the edges sniping people and objects? Check. And so on, the list is long, there’s a large assortment of weapons, vehicles and approaches. You’re a one-man-rebel-army.

There is a certain compelling and player-driven feedback loop that’s going on between you and the environment, as it reacts to your actions and you counter-react to those reactions, on and on, strikingly fluidly. The circumstances unfold and you make quick tactical decisions adjusting to them and, sometimes, bending them to your will. It’s largely possible to regulate the intensity of the encounter by how you approach the situation. I often make the intensity sway back and forth, sometimes throwing myself into the thick of things (a high risk, high gain gamble), and sometimes approach the mission with more calm and thoughtfulness. The game really do support a wide variety of approaches and tactics.

So yeah, it’s a fun game, but what about negatives? For me, the unseriousness of it all prevents any deeper sense of immersion in the world, which is actually quite a drawback. You do get flow, but not true immersion or a real sense of meaning. You don’t believe in the world so you can’t truly imagine yourself being a part of it. And that’s fine in a way, it’s not a failure of part of the developers as it isn’t something they aim for, and changing this would basically require remaking the entire game, but if that’s something you crave, then playing this game too much might start to feel like eating too much candy — tasty but not really nourishing. But moderately and maybe intensely once in a blue moon, absolutely.