Just Cause 4

Before the review the best advice - when you start the game head to options and disable "Leaderboards" or your game will be constantly freezing trying to compare EVERY little action to other players, which almost made me delete it in 15 minutes after start. After disabling runs smoothly.
As for the game - it is 20 hours of pure chaos, typical for this series, same plot as in other Just cause games - trying the destroy the one bad guy in charge of the country. Gameplay is awesome - plenty of destruction, variety of weapons and the 3 modifications for the Grappling hook. Big thanks for finally deleting the stupid system of taking control of the areas - now you have the list of activities marked for you in the map to capture the area, instead of searching the whole place for 1 small stupid missed generator in previous games of the series. The only bad things I have found are the cutscenes, as they have some rendering problems and the menu with grappling hook upgrades, which is lagging hard.
Overall not sure why the game has such a bad rating, a solid one if you do not need a mega plot. Totally enjoyed the 20 hours of chaos and blowing things.

First - if you haven't played the third game, go play it. It's better at training you on the realities of Just Cause. Saving yourself from a deadly fall by grappling the ground and pulling yourself down faster isn't exactly intuitive! When this game starts out, you'll be starting with all the grappling abilities you had at the end of JC3, and you'll quickly be given new ones on top of that.
So, what's changed since 3?
Destroying stuff in towns is gone. No more trying to coax enemies into police stations so you can get more chaos by destroying them in there. Instead, you do a quest in a fortified base. Maybe it will be hitting 4 buttons spread over the base in less than 3 minutes, maybe it will be defending a point in the base for 5 minutes, or maybe there will be an underground section that needs shooting up. Unfortunately, there are more bases than mission types, so you'll get some repetition - hopefully your own abilities will increase between them so you can solve them in different ways.
There's more upgrading. You'll get the ability to add balloons to your tethers. Doing side quests to help trainees learn will give you the ability to make the balloons explode when destroyed, make the balloons invulnerable, and so on. Boosters are put on tethers, too, so you can add them remotely now and upgrades will allow you to change their direction, how strong they are, and so on. These upgrades are NOT needed to win the game, they just add variety.
Challenges changed a lot. The system where you could race against the ghost of your friends' (or your own) best runs is completely gone. There are now easier challenges and difficult challenges. The easy ones can get somewhat challenging, but many of them are outright trivial. As in "drive a motorcycle through this ring that has 3 motorcycles next to it" trivial. The harder ones are quite a bit more challenging, though. As in "drive a motorcycle through this ring that's on top of a crane" challenging. Some will need tether upgrading to complete. The rewards are most often just additional xp toward upgrading, which you really don't need - there are more than enough in the side quests. Sometimes the reward will unlock a new vehicle. Mostly, though, just do them because they sound fun to do.
Heat escalates faster and is harder to lose by simply running away. (Just use fast travel if you want to lose it.)
Destruction of objects counts anywhere, including in your own territory!? Just blow up whatever you like. Which is probably a lot, given that you're looking at playing a second Just Cause game. Also, you'll get more troops by blowing stuff up.
Territory advancement isn't as automatic now. You can't just go destroy a base on the other side of the map and take that territory. You have to advance your front line through that territory by assigning troops. It's not a big deal, it's just a mechanic to keep your borders sane. There isn't much strategy to it other than avoid having long borders. (You'll see troops fighting along those borders, too, which is a nice touch.)
There's a tornado you can play around with which the marketing plays up a lot. Honestly, the more gameplay-impacting feature I've found are the valleys having strong winds. The tornado follows a predictable path and only comes into play in a few story missions. (That said, it IS fun to play around with!)
Finding tapes, little altars, and old parts are gone. Finding lost tombs and solving their rolling ball puzzles is vastly more interesting. You can also find hidden statues, but the reward for doing all those is pretty small.
The default control scheme is a bit worse - 1 to select the map, and ESC doesn't get you out of it?? You'll get used to it in a few minutes, so it's no big deal, but why!?
No forced wait at the start so you can see Rico drinking the product placement like in JC3. (Also wasn't a big deal - it was easy to mod out.)
The main DLC is quite good - especially at the price you'll probably be paying, assuming you wait for a sale. They are set up as bundles, so you can play JC4 for awhile before buying the 'Gold' bundle. You start out pretty high powered in JC4, so this time you can start playing the DLCs pretty early.
Overall, the game is a good one. The crazy destruction that made this series fun is all still there with some additional craziness thrown in. I think the story is more contrived, but the result is that you get to play around with a tornado, and it isn't like story is the selling point here. There are even more fun easter eggs to find, too, if you want to take on that challenge.
Oh, and I really wish other developers would do their initial game load like JC3 and 4 do. Instead of getting some menu with background music, the games load your previous save and have Rico standing in a safe(ish) place right on the initial load, with the main menu displayed. If you want to change your settings or something, you can do so. More than likely, you'll resume the playthrough and the game starts IMMEDIATELY!

It's not a bad game, it's just not as good as Just Cause 3, which is a shame. I'd recommend getting it on sale.

I really like JC4 quite a lot honestly, but it's undeniable that for every two steps forward it takes from JC3 it takes one back and that truly is unfortunate. Rather than go on a lengthy tangent I figure it'd just be easier to do a pros and cons list (primarily compared to JC3)
PROS:
1. Much better grapple loadouts, not only can you have 3 unique loadouts equipped at a time you can actually individually customize each tether with distinct mods like retractors, air lifters and boosters for the very first time in the series
2. Much better map (imo) - it is simply much more diverse. JC3 is primarily a mediterranean biome filled with islands and a couple of snowy peaks while JC4 has rain forests, deserts, snowy mountains, large plains etc, and is more of one giant landmass (also the actual world map / mini map is significantly better in JC4 too)
3. Dynamic weather - tornadoes, blizzards, thunderstorms, and sandstorms (JC3 has none of that)
4. Dual fire modes for all weapons
5. More arcade like vehicle handling - which is just my preference for this type of game.
6. Unlock vehicles by doing missions rather than having to find them and bring them to a garage in JC3
7. Vehicles now have radio
8. Hoverboards (lol)
9. Runs much better and is far more stable than JC3
10. Arguably prettier to look at
CONS:
1. Worse physics and explosions - bummer
2. Worse looking water and absent water effects (which is odd since JC4 actually has weather effects) but alas JC3 has significantly better water physics.
3. Worse simulation in just about every way really
4. Abysmal menu UI - I didn't love JC3's that much either but this is so so much worse.
5. No C4 and grenades anymore - completely stripped from the game - REALLY?
6. Far more boring and lame villain. JC3's Di Ravello is just so much better.
7. No jetpack wingsuit :(
8. I've saved the very worst for last! JC4 has an absolutely horrendous and egregious progression system - you no longer need to destroy bases to progress, rather each "zone" has a generic, lengthy, and redundant mission to unlock the area. It's made it so now blowing up anything at all is completely optional - This is the greatest sin of this game by far - it took something that worked absolutely perfectly in JC3 and completely and utterly ruined it. Why would you make a game based around blowing ♥♥♥♥ up and yet remove its relevance in contributing towards any meaningful progression in the game? What in the actual ****?
And yet JC4 is still really fun its own special way with its ability to let you mess around in a way you just can't in previous titles - primarily with the much improved upon grapple loadouts and crazy weather effects/physics - plus I really do enjoy the map variety a whole lot more.
I just think this game had all the potential to be so much more and that is a damn shame. I hope one day they make a JC5 and that's it's everything that this game should have been.

dont expect this game to be like just cause 3. The gameplay is totally different. But its still fun, and i only paid 10 bucks for it so ill take it. But for 60 bucks? thats a scam. There are a lot of bugs, every military base has the same buildings over and over, maps feel kinda empty. But the grappling hook mechanics.... Thats all i care about here. You can make a flying tank.

All of the negative reviews wanted this to be the same game over again. Yes, the gameplay changed so it is less mindless repetitive blowing up the same town over and over again. Now the missions are each their own action movie scene. It is still a gigantic map with a ton of stuff to do. Absolutely worth it....on sale.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☑ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☑ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10