LO1 Game Analysis of Just Cause 3

(PC)

Just Cause 3 is a single player, 3rd person shooter, open world action-adventure game. It shows conventions of its genre, such as; Free roam, gun play, a plot and mission objectives. It sits within the genre as a unique title as its series has always been know for action, guns and explosions, it also introduces a new game mechanic by using a grappling hook, a gliding suit and parachute all used to get around the map and to use in combat.

The story of the game follows several years after the events of the second game, where the main character Rico Rodriguez, returns to his homeland Medici (Fictional Location) now under a dictators control, and Rico, with the help of his friends, will liberate the islands by conquering the soldiers who have taken control of areas through out the map. The story is informed by the gameplay as the way you progress is by using your tools, including vehicles, grappling hooks and explosives to destroy propaganda around the map. The characters are quite strong in personality in the narrative, but the game focuses more on the action than story, and your approach to the main character, Rico, is that he is a soldier built for action as shown by the gameplay too, the other characters aren't as strong in personality than Rico, other than Mario, Rico's friend, who we get shown some personality as we see the bond between the two as friends. For example, Mario nearly gets killed in a part of the game and you must go and collect the resources needed to help him survive.

The game was developed by Avalanche Studio on the Avalanche engine, beginning in 2012, which the company was also developing the 'Mad Max' game alongside it, with 75 members on the team developing it. The game had a few helping hands from other development companies, such as Criterion Games helping with the car handling in the game, as they are well noted for developing the game series 'Burn Out'. The game also had some inspired mechanics like the asynchronous multiplayer, which is a type of leader board mechanic, trying to beat other players scores, this mechanic was inspired by games like 'Forza Horizon 2'. Another mechanic is the destructive mechanic, which like 'Red Faction', lets you destroy most parts of the environment and this led to a smooth game, where the destruction you cause feels like you actually did something. The developers also went out and took pictures of actual Mediterranean islands, especially Morocco and the southern area, to create an immersive game world.

The main character, Rico, is quite relevant to the target audience as he represents the inner child, of the mainly male target audience, because kids around 8 to 10 year olds typically like action and explosions, and to live through that would be cool to them. Even at the older age of  target audience age of 18, you would love action, and this makes him relevant to them as you can play through those scenario's and because it's free roam, you can do anything. The character does fit into the conventions of the action-adventure genre as the usual characterisation of the characters are weapons and upgrades which you unlock through missions.

Their is a variety of challenges in the game, which gives you hours of gameplay, these are things like NPC enemies, Propaganda and the actual landscape and environment. The enemies don't have much variation as they are all pretty much the same, the only thing that raises the difficulty are the vehicles and weapons they use. The next challenge is propaganda, which you have to get rid of to liberate an area, which lets you unlock things and get ally NPCs to fight with you in that area, their is a variation of the propaganda, such as; Billboards, Statues of the dictator and enemy bases. Finally, there is the environment, and this is mainly a challenge when your gliding with your wing suit or parachute, it can also be a danger when fighting enemies as their is a destruction mechanic which destroys the place around you, and you can get hurt by falling buildings and exploding cars. The reason this game has such good success, is because of it's predecessors and the main feature, destruction. No other game can have the same magnitude of destruction as Just Cause 3, especially with the size of the games world, this is also the reason it's unique to other games with the same genre, even though it may borrow some idea's from previous games. The game evolves around unlocking new weapons and tools like turbo jet explosive and rocket launchers, which makes it easier to kill harder enemies later in the game.

 The target audience for Just Cause 3 is an average of 18+ years old, and typically males, as it contains a lot of violence which would be unsuitable for younger ages and violence may not appeal to the female audience.

Finally, the game is released on the current generation consoles, PS4 and Xbox One, but also the PC. The game is more suited to PC as the controlling of the character is easy to do, it looks better with a higher graphical quality with a more stable frame rate, compared to the restricted console releases but their may be future updates for it will make it more stable on the consoles.