Hands-on: Five moments that made Just Cause 3 the most fun I’ve had all year
The three hours I spent playing Just Cause 3 was the most fun I have had in ages. It wasn’t because the story elements were particularly engaging (they weren’t) and it wasn’t because the shooting was better mechanically than Destiny (it wasn’t), it was purely because I spent most of the time messing around in the open world, taking in the sights and trying to do as much cool shit as possible. I certainly haven’t managed to figure out the coolest stuff to do in the sizeable open world of Just Cause 3, but I did more than a few awesome things that kept me entertained, and for your pleasure I have listed them below.
1. The Helicopter Crash
In the open world there are areas that need to be liberated, and in order to do this you need to destroy certain objects that range from speakers and billboards to electrical equipment and statues. How you destroy them is up to you, but take too much time and make too much noise and reinforcements will try to stop you. Now one area I found appeared to be some sort of mining area, with a big ass crane and tons of stuff to destroy. I set about blowing up the electrical equipment and quickly a helicopter appeared to stop me. Using the grapple hook I launched myself towards the helicopter and hung upside down below it. From there I proceeded to shoot the massive crane, destroying it and crushing some foes in the process, then I jumped into the chopper (throwing the pilot to the ground) and proceeded to blow even more stuff up. Before long another chopper was heading my way so, being a fearless badass, I flew straight towards it, jumped out at the last second and watched two helicopters crash into each other as I parachuted to safety. This series of events wouldn’t have looked out of place in The Expendables, and it felt awesome to pull it off, after fully expecting to fail about half way through.
2. Forcing a guy to GET IN THE SEA
Remember that time about a month ago when Twitter’s favourite thing was telling people to get in the sea? Well not satisfied with telling people I decided that I would force people to get in the sea and have a good time. Running along a beach, I saw quite a few NPC’s in swimming wear yet none of them were actually in the water, so to fix this I used the grapple to attach a rubber ring to a man and then smashed it into him, which somewhat unfortunately killed him. Despite this minor setback I was adamant that he would have fun in the sea, so with rubber ring still attached I used another grapple to grab him and then attached the other end to the ground below the water and contracted the line to pull him and ring into the sea. I did want to try to find him a friend to play with, but alas my actions had scared away all the people on the beach.
3. Wingsuiting down the biggest mountain I could find
Jumping off the biggest thing you can find is a time honoured tradition in open world games, so as soon as I figured out how to spawn a plane I flew to the biggest mountain I could find, positioned myself on top of it and jumped off the edge. Now in most open world titles this would either be certain death or a very slow parachute descent, in Just Cause 3 a quick tap of the Y button sees you gliding down the face of the mountain with some pace thanks to the wingsuit. If I am being totally honest I actually ended up doing this twice as the first time, after a few seconds of gliding down, I noticed some bright areas on the mountain that almost looked like a visual glitch. Wanting to check it out I flew directly towards it, and only once I was a few feet away from it did I realise that it was pools of lava, and I proceeded to face plant into it. The second time, though, was much better: staying close to the ground but far enough away to stay alive offered up a strange thrill, and the views on offer were incredibly beautiful.
4. Parasailing
The 2nd main area of the map (all of which is available from the start) is primarily made up of many islands with lots of water in between. As I was making my way from one island to another, across a sizeable chunk of water, via parachute, I started to lose momentum and would shortly be crashing into the ocean. However, by chance a jet ski was passing below me, so with a quick tap of LB I grappled onto it, while still parachuting as I was dragged along with it for some time. I then tried it out on all manner of ships, from speedboat to fishing trawler and it quickly became one of my favourite pastimes, trying to see which large body of water I could cross by only parasailing.
5. Accidental Death
Killing yourself unintentionally is probably going to happen a lot during any playthrough of Just Cause 3. During my three or so hours playing I killed myself at least twice, although it was probably more. The one that I remember vividly involved a petrol station, a number of guards and the biggest explosion of the day. After getting into a firefight while trying to liberate an area, I was unsurprisingly swarmed by enemies. In order to gain an advantage, I climbed up on top of what I think must have been a petrol station and started shooting the hell out of anything that moved. After a while I noticed some conveniently placed barrels that were right next to some foes, so I shot one expecting them to blow up, kill the guards and allow me to carry on raising hell. Unfortunately, because I only shot one of the barrels the rest flew off in different directions, on fire. One managed to find its way right underneath me, and proceeded to blow up, setting alight the fuel pumps below me. Within a few seconds the roof I was on exploded, killing me in the process. Here’s a tip kids, don’t take a flaming barrel to a petrol station, it won’t end well.
