As you probably know, last week was kind of crazy in terms of game releases. Along with the two games I'm writing about here, a Splinter Cell game came out, as did an XCOM game. Probably some other stuff too, but nothing that caught my attention. I'd like to play Splinter Cell: Blacklist at some point, but I just bought Saints Row IV and Divekick last week, and then today I bought a year of PlayStation Plus, so I've used up my "budget" for the time being.
Divekick.
Even if Divekick had been complete garbage, after following that game for months and months, I couldn't not buy it. All those Divekick eSports Hours alone were worth the $10. But hey, it turns out that Divekick is actually really fun. Good thing too, because I had a couple friends and a pizza come over that night to play it. Well, the pizza didn't play it, we ate the pizza. If I knew a pizza that could play video games, I would have betrayed that fool years ago for profit.
I'm not going to recap the basic mechanics of Divekick, that's what the GB QL is for. I really like it, and so did my friends, but I think the promise of a simple fighting game that anyone can play may have been lost a while ago. I haven't had someone like my dad try playing it yet, but I kinda feel like not having a control stick for movement would mess up a lot of people like him, that haven't really played any games in a good ten years or so. But maybe I'm wrong, I don't know!
That's irrelevant anyway, because I'm not going to sit here and complain about how the original pitch was lost. I love how insane and weird the game has gotten. No, I'm not good with all the characters, but who is ever good with ALL of the characters in any fighting game? Well, some people are. Probably.
I've been flipping back and forth between playing story mode with various characters, and trying matches online. Unsurprisingly, I'm not particularly great against people online. But I've gotten good against the AI with most of the characters (on medium, at least). Not sure if that's entirely because of my skill, or if I've just figured out what the AI is and isn't good at. Either way, end of story mode S-Kill with infinite Kick Meter doesn't completely crush me like he used to, so I'm happy about that.
I do think it's hilarious that all the people at Iron Galaxy (at least the ones who talked on their live streams) seemed convinced that The Baz wasn't a very good player, but he's the one I have the most trouble against, and (from what little I've seen online) seems like he's the really tricky one.
That's about all I have to say about Divekick.
No matter how hard I try, or want to, I'm just not good with S-Kill. Conceptually I like him a lot, even if quite a bit of that is thinking it's funny that the character based on Seth Killian is the villain. Oh well.
Saints Row IV.
I'm having trouble summing up this game in words. How about this instead:
This game's a ton of fun. No, it's not quite as good as Saints Row the Third. A lot of it feels like it was slapped together in a rush to get the game out before the next gen consoles are released (because it kinda was, if you know the backstory of this game). Lots of sound effects are either way too quiet (super sprinting into cars), or not there (specific moment during the final boss that I shan't spoil, but that may have been a glitch). It's the same city, lots of the same clothing items, weapons, other things.
That said, when this game is at its best, it's so incredibly, ridiculously, and ludicrously insane and good that I'm flabbergasted. Saints Row the Third was a really funny game, but this game is hilarious from start to finish. Well, not quite, but I definitely laughed more than I did in The Third. Part is from the excellent writing, part is from the nonsensical situations the game puts you in, and part of that is from the kinda slap-dash quality that permeates a lot of the game. There are times in the game when you fight enemies that are intentionally glitched out, and they just look like mistakes made in attempting 3D modeling. And that's hilarious.
There's tons of fourth wall breaking, like a certain former professional wrestler who, when asked (in game) about why he was there, he said, "I needed money." A lot of the humor is referential in nature, which could have been a fatal mistake, but I think most of that stuff is done really well. I do feel like I missed out on a few jokes, because I hadn't played Saints Row 1 or 2, but I got enough of the jokes. I do echo what others have said and think that The Third should be required playing before starting SRIV, but even if that wasn't the case, you should play The Third. It's a great game.
I think the powers are a real, ahem, game changer. The Third was a really fun game to play, but IV is something else entirely. Throwing fireballs is fun, but when you stomp the ground to cause nearby enemies and vehicles to float in the air (or shrink the enemies), then use a skill that surrounds you in fire, and instead of throwing the fireball, you just run near the enemies to light them on fire (while they are floating in the air), and then, just for good measure, run up the side of a building, jump off, and punch into the ground so hard that a nuclear explosion goes off? That's incredible. Also, there's telekinesis. That's fun too.
I should say that I played on PS3. No, the frame rate was not as good as it would have been on PC. But it seemed better than what I had been seeing people were saying it was on 360, but I can't say for certain. But it definitely ran pretty well, and definitely within my tolerance limits. I will say that the "Tornado" upgrade for the super sprint seemed to really hurt the frame rate, and then the game crashed whilst I was using it. I thought this might happen, as the description said it created a tornado behind the character that sucked cars into it, so I kept a save from before buying that (you can't turn powers/upgrades off), and I reloaded that save. I would recommend against buying that upgrade if you're on a console.
About the only other thing I can think of to say (without getting into spoilers, which I won't) is that there are a bunch of story missions (and Loyalty Missions) where the game gins up some excuse for taking away your powers, because those powers would have broken those missions. I kinda like that, and I kinda don't. I feel like a game that was made with more time would have been designed in a way that this wouldn't have happened. But on the other hand, some of those missions are really great, and honestly couldn't have worked that well WITH the powers. So it's good and bad.
I do hope that whatever Volition does next, they take their time. Personally, I hope Saints Row Plead the Fifth (my hope for the title, well, that or Saints Row Five-Ever, since they didn't go with Saints Row Forever) is even bigger and crazier than IV. With next gen consoles, and more time, they could make a truly massive world that could handle even bigger and crazier powers. And given the ending of SRIV (again, no spoilers), but just about ANYTHING could be possible for the next game. Literally anything. Literally. In the old sense of the word. Not the new one.
This game made me realize that I need to watch the movie "They Live" at some point. That's all I will say.
BUY MY BOOK! PLEASE! US Link. UK Link.Canada Link.
Nothing else to say! But the Year of Luig stops for no one!
Log in to comment