(5) Saints Row 4 Review

Saints Row 4

When one thinks of the Third Street Saints, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Total mayhem? Crazy guns? Wacky outfits? Well.. that’s probably what comes to the minds of most of us and it’s safe to say that Saints Row 4 definitely provides all of the above, and then some. This game is definitely not for the ones looking for subtlety and gravity (literally!) in their gaming.

What's new in Saints Row 4?

Well, nothing much other than the fact that you can now prance about with crazy superpowers. That's right, superpowers. You can jump clear over skyscrapers, run around Steelport like The Flash, move objects with your mind... nothing fancy there. Oh, how did we get these powers? Obviously, after the ever so awesome leader of the Saints – that would be us – saved the country from being nuked, we were made the President of the United States. Pssh, predictable. Then of course the aliens invaded and trapped the humans in a virtual world, it’s pretty standard stuff. Anyways, this virtual world just happens to be an exact replica of Steelport, only now there’s a bunch of crazy aliens and stray viruses strolling about. Hmm maybe we shouldn’t mention the Earth blowing up... yea we’ll skip that part.

The leader of the aliens, Zinyak, who just happens to have a flawless British accent for no particular reason, enjoys being a pain in our proverbial behinds throughout the game. As with any criminal mastermind, he will do anything and everything he can to try and stop you from disrupting his virtual world. But he’s not the most brutal of adversaries.

“I believe I can fly! ”

How do you deal with such a problem? Matrix 101, read a guidebook, noobs. You hack into the system, duh. I mean, it’s no fun if you don’t cheat right? Thanks to some tinkering on Kinzie’s part, you now have super powers! As you dash about gradually taking control over virtual Steelport by completing various mini games and events, the world is also littered with over a thousand glowy blue cylindrical blobs for you to collect to unlock even stronger powers and acquire upgrades to the ones you already have, to the point of overkill.

With great power, comes great boredom. The addition of super sprint and super jump pretty much means you won’t be travelling by vehicle at all. And since you run straight up buildings or leap straight over them you pretty much aren’t paying much attention to the open world, which is actually quite detailed so you’re missing out on quite a lot as everything just passes by in a blur. Combat is easy and all you need to do is super jump your way out if the going gets tough, which it rarely ever does. The events and mini-games are crazy and fun as is the norm with Saints Row games, but get repetitive and drab over time, more so because of the lack of challenge rather than the tasks actually being boring.

Weapon options are as crazy as ever. Always fun running around with a dubstep gun shooting “beats” at people and watching them dance into disintegration. The abductor gets honourable mentions, sucking people up into the sky is always pretty damn awesome. But then again, we hardly found ourselves using weapons much when you can just supersprint around and 1-shot stuff with some badass-taken-to-the-extreme wrestling moves or by spamming super powers. And this where SR4 begins to somewhat fall off.

“Aliens were bound to invade sooner or later.”

First off, you’re waaay too overpowered. I mean c’mon, superpowers right off the bat made the game a bit too easy. The President of the United States needs to be nerfed. Steelport is still pretty much the same as in SR3 for most part, the only new additions would be the “virtual nightmares” which each Saint goes through before we arrive for the rescue. These “virtual nightmares” in themselves are quite innovative, from ripping-off Metal Gear Solid, to fighting a Godzilla sized can of Saints Flow, to 2D beat-em-up arcade style, the story itself does do its job in keeping you occupied.

On the bright side, character creation is as unique as ever. You can explore the depths of your imagination and we’re positive the character creator should be able to recreate that thing you just imagined perfectly. The frequent parodies, jokes and references will tickle your funny bone and your comedy department should be easily satisfied.

Two player co-op is the same as SR3, only this time there’s the inclusion of superpowers. We have to say, watching someone else wrecking masses of aliens with superpowers feels almost as good as doing it yourselves. Deathmatches are particularly fun.

Saving the best for last, Gat’s back. Yes, Johnny Gat, that Johnny Gat. That’s all you’re getting from us though.

 “I think I can just about see my house from up here. Yeah. There it is.”

CONCLUSION

All in all, Saints Row 4 feels like SR3 with God-Mode on. The jokes and puns are great, as is with all Saints games, the outrageously insane and obvious story is also ridiculously hilarious. The character creator is also top-notch, but the game loses its charm because of the speed at which it begins and stops being challenging. That’s about the only blip, in an otherwise memorable game. This is a great game and definitely worth a play for Saints Row and open-world game fans alike.