Rico is back, and this time our Blow Everything Up expert is back on home turf. His home of Medici is now the playground of the evil General Di Ravello . There’s stuff about how said General is having the people mine a wondrous material called Bavarium that can be used for explosives, or ‘virtually unlimited’ fuel but … whatever, right?
Playing a new game in a franchise, on a different controller, is always an interesting experience. No matter how much you try not to, you go in with expectations. Your fingers know which buttons do what, and how the ‘physics’ works. And it’s always different – even if it’s only a subtle difference – it causes issues and makes things feel clunky.
Also, Rico’s face has changed a little. I liked his older look, or got used to it. I guess I’ll get used to this. And I’ll get used to his new voice. I guess. So many changes!
Yeah, I’m still in that stage with this game.
The game begins with a wonderfully irreverent introduction to the main characters . From there you perform a ridiculous and fun stunt to learn how to shoot. From there you are led, taught the basics of movement, driving, grappling, and not long after are given some upgraded equipment.
The grappling device has some new tricks, and a new ‘flashy, hi-tech’ look to go with it. Not only can you grapple people and things, and link two objects together with the grapple line, but now you can ‘retract’ the grapple line that joins two objects and thus come up with new ways to destroy things.
Oh, and in addition to the infinitely generating parachute, Rico now has a ‘wingsuit’. That’s quite fun, and given enough height, means you can cover long distances quickly.
Lots remains the same. You have to dodge fire while killing enemies. You have to blow certain things up to complete a town/base/whatever. You can drive/fly/whatever vehicles you can get your paws on. The terrain is a bit different, the graphics are a touch nicer, but the basics I’ve come to enjoy are there.
Of course, there are differences. You no longer collect armor/weapon/etc crates to upgrade your weapons. Instead you complete challenges.
Also, missions now seem to have more of a checkpoint system so when you die you don’t have to start again from the beginning.
On the downside, there seem to be some performance issues on the PS4 with framerates jumping all over the place. I’ve also had some graphical glitches that made it hard to see what was going on, and, occasionally get stuck half in objects until my health ran out.
Still, I’m going back to Fallout 4 for now. I’m sure I’ll pick this up again the way I did with Just Cause 2. Maybe they’ll have patched it by then.
