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This is a single player critical review for people that are fans of the Saints Row series of games. I know the game is called Saints Row IV but I will call it Saints Row 3.5 since it does not feel like a whole new game.
A quick little bit of info here... Saints Row IV started off as DLC before THQ shut down, it was originally meant to be the final big DLC add-on (us older gamers would call it an "Expansion" pack) to Saints Row 3. THQ went bankrupt and Volition was bought up by Deep Silver. They took the final DLC, the core game, and stretched it out into a full game. I also wish I could give it a score of 3.5 but it feels good enough to go with 4 out of 5 for the moment.
So to be clear, this game is still Saints Row 3. Same city, same vehicles (less of them though), same graphics, same game engine. Just certain things added or taken away.
This game is absurdly fun and funny. So let me break it down as spoiler free as possible:
Game engine: The exact same as Saints Row 3.
Graphics and Models: Deep Silver took some vehicles and assets from the previous games and reworked them to the wonderful level of detail seen in the First Saints Row game, mainly the vehicles. They have a much higher level of fit and finish than even Saints Row 2 had. BUT, there are fewer vehicles in this game than in any of the other games. Boats are completely gone, so waterways are absolutely empty. Only 2-3 Airplanes remain and there is no civilian air traffic, though once you see the plot, it kind of makes sense to be that way as opposed to the same lack of boat and air traffic from SR3. The animation and characters are much nicer looking and seem to have had a once over by Quality Control. So all round the models are much nicer.
Sound and Music: The sound effects are pretty much the same from SR3. The music on the other hand is absolutely great, they have just about everything, and lots of big name songs. The voice acting is wonderful, even Nolan North (of Drake, Deadpool and seemingly every male video game character ever made, fame) lends his voice to the player character list, along with quite a few name brand voice and film actors as other characters... The roster is rather impressive and makes the game all the more fun.
Story: The story in this game is much more fun and involving than SR3 was. You will need to play all the previous Saints Row games to understand the back stories, banter, and in-jokes of many of the characters in this game. Plenty of "OMG!" moments, and lots of laughs. There is some great character development and banter that was sorely missing from SR3. Though at times it feels the game/writers spent too much time watching cyberpunk and action movies from the 90s and early 2000s instead of creating something entirely new. It was great fun, and worth seeing all the parodies of other games and movies, but at times the parodies feel more like blatant rip-offs. Also, the Choice/RPG style options are pretty much entirely gone after the first few minutes of the game and are there for comical reasons instead of giving you any rewards or boosts of any type. Example: In SR3 you could choose to destroy a building for a respect boost or keep the building for a cash boost, save someone or let someone die, and so on.
Player Customization: The level of visual player customization is the same as SR3 and nowhere near as amazing as the player character customization from SR2. Though carried over from SR3 is the selectable player upgrades/leveling system.
Vehicle Customization: The same as SR3 but with quite a few more parts and accessories for some vehicles, though you still cannot customize "special" vehicles, planes, helicopters, and VOTLs. Though for a game with cars and car customization it severely lacks in vehicle based missions compared to previous games as most of the time you are running, jumping, shooting, and fighting with super powers, instead of driving or riding shotgun like previous games.
Weapon Customization: Weapons have non-visual upgrades now instead of the visual upgrades like from SR3 (when you upgrade a weapon, it does not change its base appearance with things likes scopes or suppressors and such that SR3 had). Though you can change the "skin" of the weapon to look like other types of weapons and most have 1-3 selectable paint jobs, but you cannot add or remove parts of a weapon.
Other Customizations: Cribs/player bases are completely gone so absolutely none there. Gang customization is the same as SR3.
Game World: Still in Steelport, or a simulation of so to speak, exact same map size and most every location remains the same as SR3 just add some cyber bits here and there. Also, during the game it is perpetually Night/dawn/dusk/dark and there is no day cycle until you completely beat the game. The city doesn't really feel as "alive" as SR2 did, but when you figure out the plot it makes a bit more sense to be that way.
Super Powers: While they are fun, and have lots of upgrades, it ends up feeling too much like the game "Prototype" and not enough like Saints Row. Most of the game vehicles become pretty much pointless when you can leap, climb, fly, and run better than nearly any vehicle in the game rather early on.
Controls: It controls nicely and has the exact same layout as SR3, though with the super powers, some buttons now have secondary functions when you hold them or tap them.
Game play: You will go everywhere from space, to text adventures, to 2D fighters, to top down pixel battles, to platforming, robot fights, and more. The variation keeps things interesting, at least on a first play through. There is even a massive list of cheat codes built into the game as well to make the game even more fun, crazy, hard, or easy. So it works if you are a casual gamer or one of the hardcore challenging types of players. There are optional side missions that are basically just activity completions and rewards. There are no activities left over after doing the character "side quests" so at that point the end game just becomes a run around and collect random stuff/points you missed kind of thing. You can replay activities for money or better medals, but There is still no main mission or special character mission replay options... We had it in SR2 why can't it be in SR3.5?
Re-play Value: As with most the Saints Row and open world games, it is pretty high in the re-play department. With the amount of character and vehicle customization, as well as upgrades, it is worth revisiting to see what can be changed or done differently on another play-through. Not to mention the amount of in-jokes, Easter eggs, and other things that you may have missed.
Overall Opinion: This game is much more fun than SR3 was, but still not as much fun and time consuming as SR2 is for me. It has more polish than SR3 did, and I hope the future of Saints Row gets much bigger than Steelport or Stilwater combined as the map just feels small compared to many other games out there, especially when you have super powers. My biggest gripe is that it needs more side activities and player customization. In SR2 most side activities had 6-12 levels to them, whereas SR 3.5 has about 2-4 levels or so to each activity (seriously, we want more Genki and mayhem levels!). They still have not added back in the optional service vehicle activities and rewards (taxi cab, tow truck, ambulance, fire truck, police car, police helicopter, and so on that SR2 had). Still no "Fuzz", "Septic Avenger", "Demo Derby" and so on. There is a distinct lack of vehicle races as well. If you are going to give us all these customizable vehicles; give us something to do with them.
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BOTTOM LINE:
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It is a stupidly fun game, but many times felt too much like the game "Prototype" and not enough like Saints Row. The absurdity has been turned up to 11.5 and had the knob broken off, so don't buy this game thinking it will have an award winning plot or basis in reality in any way what-so-ever. (And that can be a good thing as games are meant to be fun to play. That is why they are called games and not movies.) The vehicles and player models seem much more polished over SR3 with the wonderful detail that was put into the first Saints Row game. The voice acting makes it worth replaying, as the different player character voices have different things to say throughout each play-through. Goofing around and being a completionist and rabid customizer will take around 20-30+ hours depending on how much of a "collector" you are. Throw in Co-op craziness and extend that time quite a bit more. (playing Telekinesis catch with a car or baddie, racing, cat and mouse, Vs, and so on.) It is just a fun and silly sand-box game and not for people that take things too seriously, and if you have a twisted sense of humor, make sure this game ends up in your collection.
I say wait till it is more "expansion pack" priced, under $35 before getting it as I just could not get over the feeling it was an expansion and not a whole new game, since super powers were already introduced in SR3 add on content. Plus with the amount of DLC planned for this game, even if you get it cheap, you will likely end up paying full price or more anyway once Deep Silver finishes nickel-and-diming people for DLC for the rest of this game.
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After the amazing spectacle that was Saints Row The Third, I was incredibly excited to see Volition take the series a step further into the purely ludicrous. Unfortunately, Saints Row IV simply can't shake the fact that it started as a DLC add-on to its predecessor and as a result fails to deliver a memorable experience of its own.
As the story begins, the Saints are now in the White House with your titular main character taking the role of Commander in Chief. Not soon thereafter aliens invade and place the Saints in a Matrix-style computer simulation where most of the game takes place. This simulation is a virtual recreation of Steelport from SR3, and IV disappointingly brings nothing new to the table by way of setting. Not only is it the exact same layout from before, the entirety of the game takes place at night. Steelport didn't have a ton of personality to begin with, and shrouding the city in darkness certainly doesn't help that fact.
One of the primary selling points for Saints Row IV is the superpowers that you incrementally learn through the course of the game. It doesn't take long at all before you're sprinting faster than a race car, scaling buildings in a single bound, and shooting fireballs from your fingertips. The whole thing feels ripped right out of Prototype and Crackdown (complete with orbs scattered throughout the city to improve your abilities), and it's appropriately fun to fling yourself through the Steelport skyline at 100mph. However, the superpowers quickly become a double-edged sword.
As soon as you get your increased mobility, there is absolutely no reason to drive a car again. In fact, there's hardly a reason to touch the ground again. The entire bottom-half of the world is forgotten as you bound from one objective to the other. So on top of the uninteresting setting shrouded in darkness, the game actively encourages you to only traverse the even less interesting building tops throughout your travels.
It seems like Volition realized this, so the game is peppered with constant and arbitrary reasons for you to lose your superpowers. These seem forced (because they are), and it's unfortunate that better reasons couldn't be found to keep your feet on the ground.
After all the powers run their course, however, Saints Row IV doesn't have much else to say. The story is needlessly stretched to full game length by repetitive missions and an over-emphasis on side-mission activities. What story there is doesn't hold water, either. I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh often while playing SR IV, but it chooses to focus far too heavily on waxing nostalgic over providing a satisfying narrative. Everything follows a predictable path, and what should have been an epic clash to send off the series with a bang ends up being a redundant slog that presents its finale with a whimper.
The humor in Saints Row has always been one of its strongest suits, but even here things have taken a downturn. It seems like Volition has forgotten the difference between parody and reference, and as a result falls into the Matt Hazard trap of simply recreating tired video game tropes and then calling them out. It's the developers wanting to have their cake and eat it too, exploiting lazy design shortcuts (an overabundance of fetch quests comes to mind) and hoping to get away with it by pointing out how bad it is. This problem is pushed to its derivative limits through your spaceship and crew, which is a shameless rip off of the entire structure of Mass Effect 2 without even trying to be funny about it.
This is all irritating on its own, but the myriad of bugs and glitches were enough to send me over the edge. Throughout my playthrough, I encountered no less than 4 game breaking bugs which caused be to restart from a checkpoint or reboot the console entirely. From scripted events not triggering to NPC characters getting stuck in the game world to full on crashes, the entire experience felt sloppy and unstable. And no, the fact that it's set in a computer simulation is not an adequate excuse.
In the end, I feel that Saints Row IV would have been better staying as the DLC pack "Enter the Dominatrix" for a budget price. The recycled content, lackluster story and half-hearted execution make it impossible to recommend at the full $60 price point, even for die hard Saints Row fans.
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First of all, I'd like to point out that I have played all the games in the Saints Row series. It started off as a copy cat to GTA. Then, it became less serious than GTA and added more humor. This fourth one moves away from the regular gang versus gang type of story and adds a twist by adding amazing superhero abilities. Before I purchased this, I told myself not to judge it immediately and to give it a try since I knew the game had superhero abilities and more silly stuff.
After playing it for a few hours, I was having tons of fun. There are a lot of things to do, and now that you have superhero abilities, you can do whatever you feel like doing. Use telekinesis, race around running at super speed, jump from a skyscraper and bring wrath to your enemies with a "death from above" nuclear explosion. I enjoyed the storyline. Everything about it made sense. It wasn't like they came up with ridiculously crazy stuff and did not have an explanation for it. I also enjoyed hanging out with your homies and the option to romance them(LOL). Got a thing for Shaundi or Gat? Go for it. Hahaha. It was fun to chat with your homies and bring the fight to your enemies with superpowers or funky weapons. Believe...there are plenty of FUNKY weapons. I won't spoil too much, but you'll definitely have tons of fun with them.
Moreover, if you enjoy games that have references from music, movies, or video games...this is definitely for you. I could not help but laugh at all the funny video game references throughout the game. As with the other games, you're still able to customize your character and your crew. I wish they had added something to customize your ship, but since you're at war, I guess there is no time for that. The graphics are an improvement from the past games, and the soundtrack is great.
I have no regrets in purchasing this. If you want a serious game about gang versus gang type of story, this may not be for you. But, if you enjoy sarcasm, other types of humor, and twists, this is your game. My only real pet peeve is that some of the side quests get a bit repetitive, not all of them, but some. I wish there had been more diversity with the side quests.
Honest reviews on Saints Row IV
This game is fun as hell I'm not gonna lie. The bad part about it is that there are not a whole lot of main missions, but there are a lot of side missions. These side missions though just have you going around and doing the same things over and over again though which is where it just gets boring and tedious. Also this just feels like a very expensive DLC for saints row three with them using the same map. The super powers are a nice touch and fun to mess with though. I would wait til the price goes down before buying it.
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As any Saints game there are flaws, glitches, and so on but it doesn't matter at all. It's not very often I find myself laughing out loud and at a game but Saints Row IV as all other Saints games delivers the laughs. Leaping over buildings, sprinting super sonic speeds down the streets, freezing enemies and shattering them, the over all package is very enjoyable. I must admit a lot of the game seems to be rehashed from Saints 3. Cars, customization options, map, and so on are more of the same. Again, none of this matters. Everything is so over the top and fun you won't notice the flaws. At least I didn't. I recommend Saints Row 4 for fans of GTA, Crackdown, Prototype, and the lot, flaws aside.
