Just Cause 3’s story is about something. I didn’t quite have time to figure it out as I was fucking every law of physics in the ass with my grappling hook. I spent well over 30 hours dicking around in Just Cause 3 and only got up to about the third mission, not that it really had any characters or plot anyways. There’s the one unconfident (Cuban?) guy, Rico, and that General guy that looks kinda like the dictator on the cover of Tropico, but dressed in white. I believe that the developers knew all gamers have the attention span of a squirrel that took an insane amount of speed and put this into their design philosophy. Mainly because Just Cause 3 only really does one thing very well: equip you with the tools to commit psychotic murder in a variety of ways of new and exciting ways. Not only that but it gives you these tools very early on. the very beginning in fact. It’s up to you to creatively slaughter every person that even slightly pisses you off.

Perhaps that’s why most civilians cheer for you, as the one’s that didn’t ended up decorating the streets like ornaments at Charles Manson’s Christmas Eve party. And they didn’t get the worst of it by a longshot. No, Just Cause 3 has a new system that allows you to modify equipment, thus increasing your capacity for murder and fun. Picture this, at one point a tourist began mouthing off about me ruining his vacation. This enticed me to attach his face to the asshole of the nearest obese person I could find. I then attached remote explosives to his chest that had the booster pack mod, and detonated. They went spiraling off into the sea, exploding and murdering an old lady going for a casual cruise in her speedboat. While I almost felt bad for the poor old woman, I was planning on murdering her anyways as the color of her boat displeased me.

Murder does start to feel a bit samey though. There are only so many ways you can invent to make Team Rocket blast off again. And as the majority of the game is about liberating provinces and outposts, all which require a lot of murder, you may find yourself wondering what the point of all the violence is. It might help if the shooting mechanic wasn’t so dull. Plus the game is only as hard as an 80 year old that forgot his viagra. There really isn’t much challenge to the game.

The most fun in Just Cause 3 comes in the form of the all-new wingsuit. Allowing you to soar endlessly. So long as you don’t mess it up by nose diving into the ground, you can gain a bird’s eye view of the island chain the game takes place on. Flying under a bridge that you decided needed immediate demolishing is incredible fun, especially when a chunk of concrete smashes your now lifeless body.

Just Cause 3 has a tendency to bottleneck at random moments. A major explosion may do nothing to your frame rate but a truck exploding may make your game look like a slide show for upwards of three seconds. That being said, explosions are wonderfully rendered spectacles to behold. More so when it causes a chain reaction culminating in the destruction of a building. Bits and pieces fall crushing nearby people and vehicles. Everytime I passed a gas station I found myself with an uncontrollable urge to destroy it, driving up prices and destroying the economy, completing step three of the plan.

If you’re patient enough, you’ll realize this is actually a video

Just Cause 3 was fun, and to me that’s what a game really needs to be. It allowed you destroy whatever and whoever you wanted in a way that suited you. Though it has its flaws, it is a beautiful game.