How would you rank the Just Cause series?

I only played the second game for a couple hours. Couldn't get into it.

Can be fun, but pretty so so in general.

Explosions/10.

Over 100 hours into Just Cause 2. There was still probably a lot of stuff I hadn't completed/blown up due to the sheer size of the map (I know I didn't finish the game lol). Only real problem I had with it was ordering weapons and vehicles was a pain. AI was pretty bad too, but that just made it more fun. Enemies wouldn't hesitate to drive off cliffs in pursuit of you.

Didn't play much of 3 (I was likely invested in GTA V). Lots of the new features were available as mods in JC2.

2 was quite good. the rest have had some good elements but are let down but super generic design and bad writing.

JC3 probably has my favorite wing-suit implementation in a game though, using it with the grapple hook to fly around is great fun

Just cause 2 is best third person open world game. craps all over GTAs.

rest of them are not very good.

It's really fun for what it is. I just wish the controls were more precise.

2 had the best map for being so large, 3 had the best physics and effects but wasn't as well optimized for consoles and map was much smaller, 4 felt like it struck a balance between those three.

Overall I more enjoyed some of their other titles like Generation Zero, Mad Max, and they co-developing Rage 2 with id Software.

What makes these games fun to me is the mindless gratuitous action. Each game adds new tools of destruction which are fun to just screw around with, like playing with the tethers, or those sticky booster things, stick them to cars, people, the games signature explosive shit it always wants you to blow up, use them in all kinds of creative ways. Might have my progression wrong but I believe it was the third game that added the squirrel suit which is nice to have, and the sticky booster mines or whatever those are. The game's still are very cookie cutter. Gun fights with AI enemies feels so very 6th gen in its simplicity but the action is still very top notch. It is a very cookie cutter game if that matters.

Overall good series. I wouldn't call it top-tier since I feel like the driving and shooting mechanics could be better, and for all it's size and scale you end up doing a lot of the same stuff over and over. But flying around the huge maps with your grapple, parachute, wingsuit combo is totes X-treeeemz. Good, dumb fun.

Edit: I've only played 2 and 4, if that matters to anyone.

Meh pretty generic boring open world blowing up shit is fun so is messing with the NPC's and tethering them on windmills but that's about it. Just Cause 4 bored me to tears after playing 3 the series is just meh and 2 is overrated.

I like the gameplay (explosions & destruction) but man is it repetitive.

Complete garbage and that since the original. These games have nothing else but to run and gun. There's no "video game" in this.

@SOedipus: " I only played the second game for a couple hours. Couldn't get into it."

Got 3/4 via PS+ and I couldn't get into either one of them.

It's hard to deny the freedom the games have is good, but having played 2 it gets pretty repetitive being so uber powerful all the time, at least that's how it felt after a while. Flying around was really impressive in JC2 on 360, but I don't own the game anymore. It's just, fly around, destroy an area with little resistance, rinse repeat. There was nothing really of note in the world besides blowing up the bases.

I need to play 3 on the ps4 soon to give the series a second chance, I do own it. But first, my current Nioh playthrough, then Vanquish.

Yeah, I have those games via PS+ as well. Never even installed them.

It's ok... I had fun with JC4, but didn't really get into the others.

Pretty meh to average series. I can't say the Just Cause games are the best or worst at anything they do, but they're just not my cup of tea.

I find the gameplay pretty repetitive. No. 1 and 2 were okay. When I borrowed no. 3 I got bored and quit after a couple of hours. Just more of the same.

When it comes to the JC series, well the one word that i think of is FUN.

If you want great graphics, go watch a Sony game.

If you want a great story, go watch a movie you hack.

But if you want something to chill out in and just **** around in the world, then JC is your game.

I mean i love the silly stuff you can do like getting into a sports car, rolling up to one of those big turbine windmills, attaching a tether to your car and another to the windmill while it flings you into the air and you break off the tether and go flying miles into the air before plummeting down to earth with a thud, good FUN stuff.

I've played every game and completed every game in the series.

Hopefully they announce number 5 this year.

I played one of them for like 20 minutes. Poor framerates were nauseating to look at, so I didn't find it very enjoyable.

Put probably 100 hours into #2, tried getting into 3 but hate the wingsuit.

Good Fun series. I think the series peaked with JC 2 but I personally kind of like JC 3 a bit better myself.

I wouldn't say they are particularly amazing, but they are more or less the "corny movie" of video games imo. Just over the top, rediculous plot and action and everything.

Very creative ways to take on enemies, though, a lot of fun.

JC 4 sort of ruined the series imo it was just too much of a good-bad thing.

Third game is where it's at, but if you didn't dig the second one at all, you probably won't like the third.

@i_p_daily: does JC 4 get better? I played it for maybe 3 hours and couldn't really get into it. I've enjoyed the series for the most part.

@mrbojangles25: That depends on what you want to get better and what parts you dont like.

Same. Played JC2 an hour or two. Lame. Uninstalled.

Dumb fun but let's you get pretty creative if you experiment with all your upgrades.

I loved the first two games, but 3 and 4 left me a bit flat.

I went with meh.. just never could get into any of them for some reason.

Solidly good, dumb fun with lots of explosions and speed and bullets and chaos. Harks back to an earlier style of shooter, without so much cutscenes, linearity and pre-scripted sequences, in a crazy and pretty open world. Very buggy, unpolished and stacked with poor AI, though. Work playing through in between "serious" (aka linear Sony cinematic) games though!

Can't remember which I played, think just bits of the first two games. But yeah, proper dumb fun games. Just turn the brain off and enjoy. Maybe more to it than that, but that was my takeaway.

Nothing wrong with that either, just wouldn't spend my time on that these days. Always another game I'd rather be playing.

yeaaa I had the same experience. I think part of the issue is graphically it was was uglier than JC3 and the gameplay didn't seem much different so I just went "maybe i'll just go back and play JC3 instead"

and then I just didnt play either

the giant tornado was cool at least

2 is hard to go back to imo.

3 and 4 have idiotic progression. Have to side content to progress. 3's performance on consoles was unacceptable but if you play it on PC - it's pretty good. Wingsuit + tether + grapple are alot of fun. 4 has some cool new toys but I didn't get into it as much as 3.

If you combine the best aspects of all 2, 3 and 4 you'd get something pretty awesome (Also need to fix up the vehicle controls a bit ), but they haven't been able to put it all together yet.

JC1 is novel. JC2 is about the only good one, and it's really good. JC3/4 were made by the B-team and it shows. Their best games are JC2 and Mad Max.

Yea, similar sentiments. It manages to capture that sense of an action movie from 90's, Commando and such, without developing into trying to be a movie at the expense of what it is, namely a video game. At it's best that's what it reminds me of, fantastical 80/90's movies where semblance of realism goes out the window in favor of fun.

But that's primarily "Chaos", where the player is allowed a huge tray or toys or go about it how they please.

Kinda think the actual missions, main and side undermine all these open-ended options by adhering to GTA style theme park, where it's strict linearity.

One thing do like about Just Cause 3, and (for once) is the social features. Up the top right it shows what your friendliest has achieved e.g. longest wingsuit glide becomes a little meta-game itself where can easily spend 30 odd minutes trying to optimize your own score.

The lack of enemy variety seems to undermine the action somewhat as well. You fight tanks, helicopters and ground troops but ultimately point a rocket at it, it's dead. Some basic rock/paper/scissor would help prolong the basic combat from becoming repetitive.

From the 3 played, always felt like a frame for something truly amazing. And playing it, theirs like little glimpses of that in the combat to combat moments.

JC2 is only truely great third person open world game. GTA suck so is saints row so is watch dogs so is RDR2 so is AC and on and on.

JC2 manage to make something fun and amazing. lol at calling not only best but only good third person open world game overrated.

Crap ass series just like Ass Creed.

Do you feel it's better than BOTW my freind? Or have you not played it? Can you send a Switch, but will want it back.

Personally, I find the Spiderman hook a lot more funnier can trying to climb up a rainy wall.

JMO.

I liked JC3 the best, 2 was good as well. I like the series, I was a big fan of mercenaries as a kid and this series kind of scratched that itch for me.

Boring repetitive games.

Only played 3 and 4 and found them pretty dull and generic.... and you know the second is crap if ghost is hyping it!

@uninspiredcup: Im talking about its beat in GTA type games. Otherwise Batman arkham games are best by far.

I like open world games with variety going to bases and blowing up red barrels and oil tanks gets old fast. One of the reasons why GTA is so good because it always gives you more things to do. In GTA V I can play tennis, golf, get a lap dance get drunk, play darts, go hunting, go to the movies, run a triathlon, go to a shooting range, have night street races, race, dirt bikes, 4x4's race jet skies ect... JC2 is overrated AF and Rico is a boring protagonist.

It’s a franchise that really demonstrates why story and framing matters. Goofing around in a physics sandbox will be fun for only so long. But it won’t keep you motivated. This is why the “it’s all about gameplay” crowd are wrong and Sony has gotten it so right!

Rico is terrible protagonist sure. JC story is bad sure and its no masterpiece by any mean but it is fun.

in GTA you can play tennis but who cares? waste of time, go to movies? lol terrible useless feature that is even in RDR2 we play games to play not for some watching movies or get lap dances. this is worse than movie games.

rockstar doesnot know how to make game a fun and they want to deliver movie or TV show rather than game. I rather fly on parachute, grapple a chopper or plane and blow the crap out of anything than doing chores in GTA or RDR2.

Rico is terrible protagonist sure.

E's Angry Joe.

Can be a fun sandbox to play in, but overall shallow story and missions don't keep you engaged.

@BassMan: Yea, this is kind of my problem with it. They give you all these incredibly fun tools where you can be creative and do open-ended stuff, basically, make your own action sequences.

But the actual missions are GTA3 shit from 2001.

This itself can be fun. But it squanders the games biggest asset.