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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Not too dissimilar from a B-tier action movie franchise, Avalanche Studios’ Just Cause series never rose far above its station. It earned varying degrees of success across four entries, thereby enjoying a comfortable status quo that many of its Double-A counterparts would aspire to. However, such comforts came and went liberally, especially with the launch of a fourth installment in December 2018.

The first Just Cause made an attempt at raising the stakes for the open-world genre popularized by Grand Theft Auto III. Gorgeous vistas and a ‘go anywhere and do anything’ mantra meshed perfectly with Avalanche’s goal of providing players with tools to instigate chaos as they saw fit. But Just Cause's stunning environments and freeform gameplay could only pull so much weight in a digital world that felt as unpolished as it played. Great strides were taken to improve upon the core mechanics in subsequent outings, which Avalanche realized rested squarely on the back of the havoc players could unleash with explosions, vehicles, high-powered weapons, and the constantly evolving grappling hook. Some would argue it was never enough.

Avalanche’s debut title failed to move the needle commercially, yet Just Cause 2 swung onto store shelves and sold like hotcakes in 2010. Unfortunately, sales tapered off from that point forward. Nonetheless, the development crew never wavered, pushing the envelope in terms of its technical prowess at every turn. But with Just Cause 4 performing below expectations, franchise faithful were left to ponder whether protagonist Rico Rodriguez had many more adventures ahead of him.

 

[DryvBy]

This series is always good for a watch. Thanks!

 

[FoxMcChief]

Just Cause 2 was the best open world sandbox for me until Tears of the Kingdom.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I only played JC2 on 360 as a demo download. Was pretty good. Looked and ran solid for an open world game. I never got into buying and playing it only because I was really into COD at the time.

 

[winjer]

This saga never really clicked with me. Mostly because of the gunplay, which felt too arcade and simplistic. And characters and story always felt shallow.
A shame, because these games have some cool things going for them.

 

[GymWolf]

Just Cause 2 was the best open world sandbox for me until Tears of the Kingdom.

Have your tried jc4? it has way more physics and tool to play with even if the rest of the game is crap.




And those video doesn't even cover everything.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Dunno what is the current reception of Just Cause 4 after all the patches and updates, but I played that game about 3 years ago and I thought that it was still rad as shit. It wasn't as good as Just Cause 2, which is still the best one in the series, but I actually had better time with JC4 than JC3.

JC3 mostly felt like an inferior repeat of JC2 and I could never bring myself to finish that game in one go because it always got dull after a few hours of playing, but the weather anomalies in JC4 added much-needed variety to the gameplay and I liked that about it.

Honestly, the whole series is one of my favorite open world sandbox franchises of all time. It's fucking awesome.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Have your tried jc4? it has way more physics and tool to play with even if the rest of the game is crap.




And those video doesn't even cover everything.

No, I haven’t. I might one day.

 

[Gambit2483]

JC3 really hurt the brand/franchise so much that it never recovered from it.

A shame because JC4 was actually a decent game....better than JC2? That's debatable.