Game reviews: Just Cause 3 and Rainbow Six Siege

Just Cause 3

Square Enix

Where did they come up with the term “sandbox”? It’s not like any open-world game has ever truly lived up to the label – to the idea that players are completely set free in a grand enclosure where the only limit is their imagination on millions of possibilities.

Just Cause might come the closest. Here’s a series that celebrates the sheer ridiculousness of video games, not only acknowledging but also embracing a virtual existence without any consequences. Available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, the long-awaited third entry has already come under fire over what are seen as setbacks: weak story, bad aiming, long loading times. They’re mostly true, and for most other tent-pole games, they’d certainly affect our judgment.

But this is Just Cause, dammit; this isn’t some clichéd plot about a dictator seeking world domination or whatever. It’s about doing your own thing: breaking free, stealing an off-road bike, barrelling down a steep mountain, breaking out your trusty wingsuit, leaping off a perilous cliff, cruising through the skies, grappling onto a moving helicopter, throwing the pilot overboard, killing the troops inside, free-falling out, pulling a 180 with bazooka in hand and giving that chopper one last goodbye right before you jerk the parachute cord.

That’s where the fun of Just Cause 3 is at – and those are just the missions. But if you ever do get tired of that same-old super-spy structure, there are plenty of opportunities to take the road less travelled and blow a stupid amount of stuff up. Cars, planes, soldiers, buildings – nearly everything is destructible, and the true side-quest thrills are in discovering a seemingly endless multitude of explosive ways.