Saint’s Row IV Review

You’re climbing a nuclear missile heading for Washington DC, hurtling towards the stratosphere, disabling it with seconds to spare, and then free falling right into the Oval Office, before becoming the president of the United States of America. It’s ridiculous, it’s far fetched, and it’s only the beginning of Saints Row IV.

Originally meant to be nothing more than a modest expansion for Saints Row: The Third, Saint’s Row IV follows the theme of kicking the stakes up a notch with each sequel. The question is, where do they go from Saints Row: The Third? In the last game the Saints had gone from street gang to all but owning their home city of Steelport, not to mention the fact that they’re famous and filthy rich to boot. The only logical answer was that the Saints now run the White House and must defend the earth from an alien invasion at the hands of Zinyak, a warlord from a race of aliens known as the Zin empire.

Obviously

The Saints are quickly abducted by Zinyak and each forced into a virtual reality simulation of their worst nightmares. Once the boss manages to break free from his 1950’s sitcom virtual hell and wreak havoc on the alien spaceship while naked (because it wouldn’t be Saints Row without a booty out shoot out,) Earth is destroyed by Zinyak and the boss is placed in a simulated version of Steelport where it’s up to them alone to free the rest of the Saints one by one from their simulations and face Zinyak together as the last earthlings left.

The gameplay is the same open world sandbox that Saints Row has always been, but while the words “zany GTA clone” come to mind for the previous games, Saints Row IV finally takes a big step away from it’s main competitor with the addition of one brilliant new feature. Super powers.

Yes they really went all out with Saints Row IV, but when a series that previously had nothing to do with super powers suddenly makes a whole game based around them, there’s a lot of potential for things to go tits up. Luckily this wasn’t the case for Saints Row IV, and the super powers fit in snugly, complimenting the rest of the core game play like new mechanics should when they’re done right.

Included in the new arsenal of abilities are super speed, super jumping, elemental blasts, stomps, and buffs, and telekinesis. Elements include lightning, fire and ice, and once unlocked can be cycled through at will for each respective power. Basically, you have everything you need to be the super slammin’ badass you’ve always dreamed of being.

Basically this

The best part of the powers is that while they add a lot to the combat, they don’t make your guns redundant, in fact the two of them actually have a lot of synergy. For example, one of my favourite things to do is to freeze blast a group of enemies and then shatter them with a shotgun, or super stomp them into zero gravity and then pick them off with pistols while they float there helplessly. It’s okay though, because most of the violence is in the simulation. Most of it.

Apart from that, it’s business as usual for Saints Row. The player character is fully customizable, or you can even import your character from Saints Row: The Third. You can still complete side missions to increase your hourly income, which can be spent on various perks that upgrade things like damage resistance, ammo stock and homies, which adds RPG elements to the game. The story is still full of the hyperbolic and dry Saints sense of humour, and blatant parodies of other popular games such as Mass Effect and Metal Gear Solid.

While it is full of plot holes when you really sit down and think about it, this is a game that features a melee weapon called the dildo bat, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and as a result manages to be a wicked amount of fun. Saints Row IV is not only the perfect culmination of several games on an upward trend of absurdity, but also a really solid superhero sandbox game that makes the rest of the games in the series look tame.

The previous game, for comparison

Originally published at The Insatiable Gamer.