Recent reviews by apollyon

I've had no technical issues beyond one graphical glitch that was resolved on restarting, but even though I can get the game to run, there are a number of problems that unfortunately do not end at technical issues.

Number one on the list are upgrades being locked behind extremely tediuous and strict challenges that are a far cry from the rest of the games free-form chaos. The main gameplay is centered traveling from base to base with your grappling hook, parachute, and new to the series; a wingsuit. The traveling is superb, and nuanced. It's not just fun, it's something you learn to get better at as you play. After you liberate a base you unlock challenges that unlock new toys to play with, which creates a cycle of gameplay. Fly to a base, liberate it using your arsenal of weapons and gadgets, unlock challenges, complete challenges to unlock new weapons, gadgets, and upgrades.

It would be a perfect cycle if it weren't for the challenges. The infernally designed, boring, at times controller-breakingly-frustrating challenges. Some of them are just fine. Not fun, but not frustrating. Others, such as wingsuit challenges, can be so incredibly strict that IF you happen to get all 5 gears (the equivalent to a score rating, and more importantly the way you unlock upgrades), it winds up feeling more like luck than skill. Some of the challenges took me upwards of 20 times to get 5 gears, while a couple took me 2 trys. Neither instance was fufilling, neither instance felt like I got the score I did due to my personal skill. There is so little room for error, and certain challenges feel outright broken. One wingsuit challenge has you choosing what paths to fly through, each going a seperate way, which I thought was a brilliant way to solve the issue of how strict these challenges felt, until I went through one pathway perfectly, and still didn't get a high enough score to unlock all 5 gears. Was I supposed to choose a different path? Is there a specific combination of paths that is correct? Even if that is the case, that sort of trial and error gameplay is hardly compelling.

This all may seem nitpicking, I mean these little distractions are hardly why anyone plays sandbox games, but this is HOW you unlock upgrades for rico's gear and vehicles. It's LITERALLY the only way. That changes these otherwise ignorable mini-games from being distractions to being neccesary to complete if you want to get all the upgrades and unlock all the potential the games main destruction-based gameplay has to offer.

Even if the challenges had been tons of fun, this game does not add on enough or change enough to warrant buying it over Just Cause 2, not for the difference in price. Yes, the wingsuit is fun, yes the tethering system is fun. Are the new features worth $45? Absolutely not. Especially considering how Just Cause 2 has a much better system for unlocking content, I would just stick with the second one for now.