Game Review: Saints Row IV

          Let me start off this review by saying one thing: I freakin' love Saints Row 4. I don't believe I have ever seen a game take such a wanton and casual approach to planetary invasion such as this one. Developed by Volition, SR4 is a game made just for the sake of being a game. It knows exactly what it wants to be and it repeatedly throws furries and superpowers at you to remind you of that. This is possibly record-breaking levels of moronic fun, a game with a deceptive amount of intelligence thrown into the design whilst remaining observably idiotic in nearly every aspect. I have never grinned so much while playing a game of this caliber before, it truly is something to be experienced. Now that I have conveyed to you an iota of this game's nonsensical nature, shall we nut punch this review into gear?

Be prepared to witness some strange sights on your journey.

Story

          Asking me to describe the story in this game is akin to asking me to give you a summary of every major action movie plot from the 90s onwards. SR4 takes elements from all of those plots and melds them together into some kind of horrifying plotbomination that makes you rethink what you know about a proper storyline. Ordinarily I'd call a game like this disjointed in nature but somehow this mishmash of story elements works wonderfully for this game. The story starts off with you, the leader of the 3rd Street Saints, embarking upon a secret mission to take down the General that escaped in the last SR game. Unable to accept the public's praise of the Saints gang, the General has decided to team up with Middle-Eastern terrorists and nuke Washington so America can somehow start over. As ridiculous as this opening sounds you should know that the crazy train is about to plummet down a mountain and end up in a zany pit of no return. After defeating the general and disarming the nuke, you land straight in the President's chair in the Oval Office, which somehow spurs a spontaneous election which sweeps you into office. I guess the American people have a heart for destructive badasses over peaceful diplomats. Or everyone in the world lost their damn minds because this is a Saints game and there is only bizarro logic. Sure, let's go with that last one. Soon after this election the Earth is invaded by a war-like race known as the Zin, a galaxy spanning empire hellbent on total domination. After having most of your gang members abducted, you try and square off with their leader, Zinyak, who quickly proves to be the better combatant. Seeing the destructive potential in you, he kidnaps the main protagonist and places your mind inside a virtual prison as a way of indoctrinating you to the Zin philosophy. This proves futile because your character is a complete psychopath, or a puckish rogue depending on your viewpoint, and thus begins an eye-opening tale of how a gang leading U.S. president kicked the collective asses of an entire alien empire. Yes, that is the story and it doesn't get much deeper than that. I cannot even call it weak storytelling because of how effectively implemented it is into the structure of the gameplay. Everything mixes so well that I cannot fault the creators for their rampant creativity. You just have to play it to really grasp what I'm talking about.

Why would powered armor NOT be in this game?

Graphics

          For those of you wondering if SR4 suffers from the same issues that plagued its predecessor, I'm here to let you know that you can rest easy. Performance in SR4 has been greatly improved over the 3rd entry, although both games look about identical to each other. If you have played the 3rd game then you'll know pretty much exactly what this one looks like. The game features great lighting, reflection mapping, fantastic particle effects, and detailed character models; same as the last game. Also ported over from the last game are the rather awful looking low-res textures, which are thankfully almost never pulled into the spotlight thanks to most of the game taking place in the evening.  Yes, most of the game takes place at night, which may be very disappointing to some given how the series has always had a day/night cycle and even a few weather patterns. After your first playthrough you gain the ability to change the weather and color palette of the world, though having access to this earlier on would have been more greatly appreciated and utilized by those who might like to perform xenocide during the daylight hours. Now getting back to those particle effects; I must say it works favorably for this game with how often random objects seem to explode and give off glowing sparks and embers, or how energy pulses out from one of your many super powers. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you get those to. I'll expand upon that in the Gameplay section later, as they really come into their own when given to the player. The city of Steelport, or to be more accurate the simulation of Steelport, is a lively place with all manner of strange characters prowling the streets after hours. Its common to see gimps, furries, and bikini models strolling around as if no one is paying them any mind. This kind of whackiness really helps sell this sequel's insanity, its just a shame they couldn't have improved the textures for the PC version. With the next consoles around the corner I don't believe we'll have to worry about low-res textures in console ports for much longer. So to sum it up: SR4 is a rather pretty game that seems well aware of some of its engine limitations and strives to only put its very best at the front for the player to witness.

Hmm...flashing red lights and alien guards, must be important.

Gameplay

          This entry is going to be tough to tackle considering the sheer number of gameplay elements present in SR4. The game offers an expansive amount of content to explore and acquire, such as various super powers, weapons, homies, and much much more. Now about those super powers I mentioned earlier. Since the game takes place mostly in a simulation, certain hacks become available throughout the game. These hacks are used to give your character fantastical abilities and powers, such as Super Stomp, Freeze Blast, and Arc-Lightning Telekinesis. I don't even have to elaborate on how awesome that last one is. These abilities will radically alter the way you play the game and are a massive shift in a new direction for the Saints Row series. Nearly right off the bat you are given the ability to run faster than most vehicles, eliminating the need to ever jump into one again. Vehicular transportation has been a big part of the series since its debut back on the Xbox 360, so it may come as a shock to some that the game tends to steer you away from riding from location to location. You can still pimp out your rides as extensively as you like, with a huge assortment of vehicles waiting to be discovered and newly added Zin vehicles to test out. The phone returns in SR4, allowing you to call up homies, vehicle delivery and more. Since you are in a virtual world your rides take no time to reach you, teleporting you inside them on the spot so you can immediately wreak vehicular carnage to your heart's content. I found this addition to be much needed, as the AI in this long running series tended to smash your beautifully customized sports cars just trying to reach you. The weapons are also vastly expanded, with each category containing several death dealing items that continues to expand as you progress further into the story or complete challenges. Most of the weapons feel over-powered, which is fitting considering you are a super power wielding president of the United States. All weapons, powers, and vehicles are customizable and upgradable, offering something for everyone. Want to take a Pulse Rifle from the Aliens franchise and pair it up with Fire Blast to barbecue an entire city block? Feel free to, this game doesn't seem to care how insanely psychotic you are. And you will revel in being the psycho. The game rewards you with new weapons and abilities for completing challenges that are mostly based on causing massive amounts of chaos. Among these new challenges are vehicle based destruction bits, super powered fight clubs, the returning Insurance Fraud and the like. To be honest it felt like there was less variety in the challenges around this time, like they just reskinned a few aspects for most of the events and popped them in-game. In order to gain new powers you must defeat these alien brutes known as Wardens throughout the game, though their numbers are not limited by storyline encounters. Get your wanted level high enough and one of these baddies will come tumbling from the sky amidst fiery rain, ready to bash heads with you. While mindlessly fun, the series seems to be showing its age, with Steelport seeming a little smaller than last time. I had completed every challenge and hacked every store after only completing roughly 50% of the campaign, which did allow me to focus purely on the story afterwards, but ultimately left me wanting more. Despite some of these issues what I'm about to say next makes up for absolutely everything the game does wrong: Dubstep gun. A freaking gun that shoots various flavors of dubstep. Dear god that is the best idea ever. Now I just need a gun that shoots metal music and I'm made for life. I could go on about everything else the game offers, but that would likely take a couple pages. This game offers so much to the player, you really get what you pay for here and then some. The series has aged well, with everything still working like it should, but hopefully in the next entry things will be a little more different. Larger locations would be nice, along with crisper textures, but then I just break into a sprint on the free-way; creating hurricane force winds in my wake that send vehicles crashing into buildings. And then I realize I've been grinning childishly this entire time.

That one guy standing behind the others seems oddly unconcerned about his impending doom.

Sound

          The musical score is exactly what you'd expect from a Saints Row game: Loads of different musical choices, a customizable track listing, and plenty of radio stations for the enterprising gang president on the road. Weapons have an appropriate level of bang to them while explosions hit speakers and headphones with massive force. Its almost as if you can feel the very shock-waves reverberating through you. The dialogue exchanged between the many characters is both hilarious and interesting, with the new villain Zinyak being a near constant source of Shakespearean quotes and condescending jabs at the player. Another thing worth mentioning again is the Dubstep Gun. Oh goodness does it sound so damn awesome to be able to slay your foes with heavy bass drops. Overall I found the audio aspect of the game to be consistent with the quality displayed in the other categories of this review.

Behold a Warden. Happy campers they are not.

Conclusion

           Volition have really set the bar much higher for themselves to top in this fourth installment of the series and its made abundantly clear that absolutely anything can happen after this. From what started off as a GTA clone in Saints Row, the series has become a shelter for those seeking pure enjoyment for its own sake. SR4 is about having your cake and eating every other person's slice too. Its just thrilling to use your newfound powers for mischief, tossing cars over buildings and ice blasting entire intersections. I can not more highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking to have a good, mindless time. SR4 is a fine example of when developer's let their hair down and tap into their creativity, they come up with ideas that would make a psychologist start popping pills. 9/10 (PC version reviewed)