
If that action feels broad and over the top, well, that sums up Just Cause 4 to a T. So now he has to go back to square one, raise an army of locals, repair his equipment and find a way to battle a weapon that can control the very weather itself. In fact, Rico suspects that the freak storm is somehow connected to Illapa. It dashes him to the ground and destroys all his wonderful gadgets. In this case though, an odd and crippling lightning storm terminates Rico’s attack. In really difficult stretches, he can grapple up to a hovering helicopter or over to a rumbling tank, throw out the vehicle’s operator and take that deadly craft into the fray. When he encounters any small army, Rico can jump the distance of a football field in a blink and take foes down with automatic gunfire or a grappling lash. Oh, and he’s got a redeployable parachute that will catch updrafts and elevate him to the highest heights.

He also has a wing suit with which he can swoop in like a falcon. To do that, he equips an amazing grapple hook of sorts-one that can propel him miles in minutes, lifting him up a mountainside with ease. And he plans on zipping in and ripping this baddie and his weapon apart singlehandedly. This super-duper good guy has taken down many an oppressive and arrogant South American dictator before. Of course, that’s all just background info, really, because the Just Cause hero du jour, Rico Rodriguez, is once again on the scene. And to keep any nosey interlopers at bay, Espinosa has employed a vast and numberless army of ruthless mercenaries known as the Black Hand. It’s also home to his mysterious, high-tech secret weapon, Project Illapa. This lush, verdant island is home to an oppressive and arrogant dictator by the name of Oscar Espinosa. This story’s action is set in a fictional South American country called Solis. In the above light, Just Cause 4 is, well, Just Cause 3, only with another layer of digital butter. They deliver an open world in which players can blow things up-in a chaotic, flaming extravaganza-with a cavalcade of weapons, vehicles and impossible skill sets. So they give game fans exactly what they want: the “joy” of unleashing ceaseless bedlam. Or to put it in terms of a well-used idiom, the Just Cause gamemakers know which side their bread is buttered on.

Others, like the Just Cause series, are happy simply revisiting the virtual ground they’ve already conquered. A number of popular franchises always try to reach for something new, something different.
