ISWT Review: Saints row 4

When it comes down to it I never really saw the appeal of the early saints row games. They just looked like GTA but not actually being GTA. I heard the second game took itself a bit less seriously and the third much less seriously but I still never really saw the point even when they did change it up. The humor and style never really grabbed me but when I started seeing trailers and news about the fourth game my eyebrow was raised with the declaration of making it a Science fiction GTA game with the story being based on an alien invasion and the main character being the president of the united states because he was just so awesome as the leader of a gang and later high style crime syndicate.

As you can tell this game takes nothing seriously sans a few bits here and there in the story but at that point it's more just giving enough to chew on then having a deep and meaningful story. Though that's not really what they're going for in this game regardless. But let's start off with the story.

As I said you become the president after the single most random opening with one of the funnier moments in the game which I dare not spoil. Quickly you end up in a fight for your life after the planet is invaded by a race known as the Zin. You end up unconscious and wake up in a very strange world in once again one of the funnier moments and find out you're in a simulation and basically you spend the game getting back your friends and messing up the Zin leader Zinyak's simulation by causing chaos....and that's about it. There are some twists and turns but it's again just the game giving you something to chew on less then trying to make an incredible story. Granted the story isn't terrible but it's more because it knows what it is.


The graphics....Are at best presentable. It takes a more exaggerated and almost cartoon like appearance and it fits but it's not exactly aiming for good graphics. Don't get me wrong it looks okay just...

Okay and not much beyond that.

The soundtrack is part of the humor and effect to this game. Anywhere from "Insane in the brain" by Cypress hill to "Lump" by The presidents of the united states. "Night on bald mountain" to "The Touch" by.....it's from the 80's Transformers movie. Most people know it better by that anyway. It's random goodness and it does it's job and then some I'd say. Plus some tracks are used rather well during scenes. "The Touch" for instance is used during the rush towards the final boss. I don't consider that a spoiler since well I think we all thought they would do it by that point in the game.

What about the original tracks? Well they do their job but sans the Zinyak theme ( which is pretty good surprisingly ) Most are rather forgettable.

Alright let's get to the real purpose of this game. The gameplay. Oh mercy me is this game fun. This game gives you whatever you want and says have fun with this. Super speed, Super jump, A number of offensive powers including Telekinesis, and Cryo Blasts. Now you may be wondering what about the gang stuff like calling in back up? Well at first you may think it's useless and there really is no point since again super powers but after a while they start getting a bit tougher and it doesn't hurt to at least have another target for them to shoot at. "But they don't have super powers so if you move they won't catch up forever" You say? Well yes and no. I have seen them teleport if worse comes to worse and not to mention they evantually get loyalty missions and gain super powers of their own so at first they aren't that useful but as things go on they become more useful.

To be fair though cars are still useless when you can go mach 6 on the ground.

The missions range from the story missions being simple introductory to Activity types to rather varied and often awesome genre shifts. There is a streets of rage style side scrolling beat 'em up level. there is a top down tank style mission. It's well done stuff too for what they're making a parody of. Saints of rage was pretty good for a minor segment.

 Admittedly a touch ironic in hindsight.

The side missions are a mix of different activities done one after another. A touch repetitive maybe but not bad all in all. The activities themselves range from simple combat missions to race missions. The basic stuff. And then we have the ragdoll missions. Where you fling yourself at stuff using speed and jumping powers and press a button to go limp and see how much you can hurt yourself. This may be one of the most entertaining side mission in any sand box game I think I've ever played. It's ragdoll physics the mini game. 

So the powers and missions are good. What about the weaponry? Basic guns are simple enough and have a pretty nice array of customization options. From paint to different versions of  the gun which function slightly different. Upgrades are about the same each having a unique upgrade which can come very much in handy. And then they silly weapons. You know what my favorite weapon in this game is? The dub step gun. Yes you read that right. It fires dub step. Between that the Inflato ray, the abduction gun and the like this game has both very simple weapons and very ridiculous weapons. And I think the shooting controls are pretty damn good.

Let's get to the main two things people talk about with this game; The main positive and the main negative. The one thing people always say as a negative to this game is it's identity. Coming off of the first two games (again to my knowledge) Which were much more serious comparatively speaking the third game took a lot of guff from people and this one took a lot too but less because of the sense of humor and more because of the powers and how much it changes things. A lot of people have said it has no identity and certain aspects carried over from previous games are made pointless by the powers. I will say only really cars have become useless. I still think that backup has some uses. But if you were a fan of the first style of saints row then I can't blame you for being upset about the new changes. It's not what you got into. I can speak for someone who wasn't a fan of those and I really enjoy the new style being more of a comical and parody style of games like grand theft auto because If I wanted straight up GTA I'll play GTA. But as I've said if you preferred the old style I can understand your dislike and I can't recommend this.

Seriously though I hear GTA 5 is awesome. Haven't played it myself but that's what I hear anyway.

What works though is the utter devotion to fun. Saints row 4 does everything it can to make this game fun. Every power up or mode of transportation starts off simple and any add ons to them you want pretty well come at some point. I wished you could run instead of jumping up buildings. Done. I wanted to be able to glide. Done. I wanted to be able to do a stomp move mid air to precisely land. Done and almost done twice with the stomp and death from above powers. Hell with enough money for upgrades you can get infinite ammo for any weapon types. And while the difficulty suffers a bit. On normal it can still get a bit crowded with enemies which can be tricky. Unless you have the black hole gun with infinite ammo Then the games enemies become a massive joke.

Long story short (way too late) This game is stupid fun. Some people would say it's just not the same with the massive changes to the franchise but my god it's so damn fun. If you want to give this a chance please do. I fully recommend this game.

 And yes....black hole gun.