Just Cause 4 (video game)

[Neil]

So this was free on Epic Game so thought I'd give it a go. It's bonkers and I'm not entirely sure if it's actually any good, but I have to say it offers mental physics based combat in spades. It reminds me of when playing Half Life 2 and replaying levels in that purely for the physics fun to be had. When Just Cause 4 is on steroids in that department.

[MinionZombie]

I've not bothered playing JC4. I did play JC3, though, and while I did enjoy it - despite a few glitches - the one major problem was a massive and regular amount of slowdown in the framerate whenever things got even slightly busy. I swear, half the time I was playing the game it was at 20fps at best. Whenever it popped back up to circa 30fps it felt like a breath of fresh air. I really did enjoy the physics fun of the grappling hook thingy, pulling down structures, or smashing things together and so on, and generally clearing the map of bad guys while doing some fancy vehicle hijacks etc - but the game was absolute dog shit in terms of efficiency, which severely hampered the overall quality of the game. I've heard that JC4, at least on consoles, isn't that much better than #3 in terms of frame rate - and that it's also a buggy mess. There were plenty of bugs in #3, and I came to that game quite late in the day (so all the updates had been applied!)

[Neil]

Yeh, I don't think JC4 is anything more than JC3 other than more missions, and more insane physics etc... This is my first Just Cause

[kidgloves]

I've played them all. Great fun

[Neil]

I've given up with it. The interface and controls just seem so painful (on the PC) it's just too frustrating. Just trying to change the behaviour of the grappling hook, with talk of options to power up. And then the map with you supposedly controlling where forces are applied? It's just so unfriendly and convoluted it out weighs any fun from the ingame combat/destruction.

[MinionZombie]

I've given up with it. The interface and controls just seem so painful (on the PC) it's just too frustrating. Just trying to change the behaviour of the grappling hook, with talk of options to power up. And then the map with you supposedly controlling where forces are applied? It's just so unfriendly and convoluted it out weighs any fun from the ingame combat/destruction. I know what you mean about little things in a game (such as the interface, or the controls, etc) getting in the way of a fun experience. I've just completed Sleeping Dogs (still got the DLCs to go), and although I ultimately quite enjoyed it, there are myriad problems with that game - and so many of them are silly little things that needn't have been an issue ever, if they'd just made a few tweaks. Sometimes it's to do with controls, other times it's silly bits of busy work, or various glitches you stumble across along the way. It was more frustrating to begin with, but once I got used to some of its weaker elements I enjoyed other things much more. But I know exactly what you mean about small bugger ups having a negative impact on the game that far outweighs the actual size of the problem itself. I recently played Metro: Exodus, and that too suffered at the hands of silly little nuisances. One of the earliest you discover is BLOODY BASTARDING ROW BOATS!!!!! Anyway - have you tried playing JC4 with a controller? I'm assuming you're using a keyboard and mouse. Usually that's very good for aiming, but it could be troublesome for some other controls maybe. I used to play a lot of PC games, but I went over to consoles in 2007 just for the ease factor of not having to worry about graphical settings and whether or not my system could handle a game.

[Neil]

have you tried playing JC4 with a controller? No... Never got into controllers, as I've always been a PC player... TBH, the problem is more the design of the interface and just knowing how to do stuff in config and upgrade screens/maps and the like... It's just not clear/friendly

[MinionZombie]

No... Never got into controllers, as I've always been a PC player... TBH, the problem is more the design of the interface and just knowing how to do stuff in config and upgrade screens/maps and the like... It's just not clear/friendly Ah, I hate things that aren't intuitive. It does make you wonder what on earth play testers are for. If I can, upon a first play-through, stumble across myriad problems that could be simply fixed with a little bit of common sense, why can't the game-makers? Very annoying! I recall, for example, Rage 2's menu system being rather naff - especially the upgrade screens. It was all a bit overcomplicated, and it certainly didn't help that (for some odd reason) the menu itself was exceptionally poorly optimised, causing it to run laggy-as-hell to the point that on multiple occasions it actually crashed the game.