Just Cause 4 - Xbox One

The vibe of the Just Cause series has always been '80s action movie with unlimited budget'. While not every videogames series has benefitted from the increased horsepower of bigger and better games machines, the anything-goes ethos of Just Cause certainly has. Things have just kept getting bigger and dumber in the best possible way as newer consoles and PCs have allowed ever more outlandish physics-based craziness.

In Just Cause 4 Rico Rodriguez heading to another fictional South American nation to fight oppression and make a lot of things explode in a manner that's reminiscent of Far Cry after too many E-numbers. This time he's in Solis, a nation with a number of distinct biomes - desert, alpine, rainforest and grasslands. They're all there for the exploding, and now they're ripe for ravaging by extreme weather, too. Thunderstorms, tornadoes, sandstorms and blizzards are all liable to sweep in and cause chaos at any given moment. The wingsuit's back and as important as ever for getting around, too, so watch out for those weird weather effects...

The grappling hook has had a few upgrades, too. You can, for example, remotely retract cables. Sounds harmless enough, until you consider the potential for mixing up this mechanic with the game's physics and remotely bashing things together.

Another change is the Frontline, a moving area of open warfare where your allies defend the edge of the territory you've taken against your enemies. A moving zone of conflict? Sounds like Rico's idea of fun.

Just Cause 4 promises to be big, dumb and a whole lot of fun. more