How do you feel about Saints Row IV?

Honestly, I enjoyed SR3 because it was mechanically sound, which I can't say for any other games in the genre. It doesn't seem like they're breaking any of that and I'm 100% ok with iterative design. I'm not balls-to-the-walls excited for it, but I'll pick it up and have no reason to doubt that I'll have a fun time with it.

For the PS4 hell yes. For the PS3 no.

@starvinggamer: GTA IV isn't mechanically sound? Red Dead Redemption isn't mechanically sound? Mafia II isn't mechanically sound? What.

Worried it's just the Saint's Row 3 Enter the Dominatrix DLC bloated to full retail price. I'm skeptical but I'd love to be wrong.

I'm excited. There's definitely some merit for people to be worried since it's coming out pretty soon after 3 and with THQ having gone under, I should probably be worried too but for some reason I just don't think this is going to be a flop or disappointment.

I'm worried that they are taking what should have been DLC and fluffing it to fill a 20+ hour "full retail game". I don't mind more SR but I don't want it done cheap or half ass.

I'd say I'm aroused.

I'm pretty pumped for it. Love that they started out as a GTA clone and down the road they just said "Fuck it!"

It will be nice to play SR4, then like a month later play GTA5.

I was pretty excited about Saints Row the Third but felt burnt-out on the game by the time its last few hours rolled around.

Still, after that trailer, I think it could be fun. Unfortunately, there were two tired memes mentioned in it ("America! Fuck Hell yeah!" and "Hail to the motherfucking chief!"). If that is what the humor relies on, then I will be severely disappointed. Humor relying on old popular stuff is getting, well, old, and I'd much rather see modern stuff stop referencing 70's, 80's, and 90's pop-culture, and start making some good stuff worth referencing in the future. No, really, we get it - you're all out of bubblegum, they mostly come at night, you'll be back, etc.

They've gone the complete wrong way from I considered good about the Saints Row franchise.

I don't care about how 'whacky' they can make the game. All the rocket launchers that shoot monkeys and dubstep guns and aliens do nothing for me. I liked how it was this fairly realistic crime story that went off the rails in a weird but believable way. I can totally buy into the idea that my small gang has become global superstars and that my boss eventually becomes the goddamn president. That's great.

All this magic power stuff they're showing off with flying and moving people with your mind just does nothing for me except make me sure it's going to control terribly, since it all looks like they just took the Saints Row 3 engine and hacked a bunch of stuff that it wasn't meant to do into it.

I'm pretty unsure about it. I love dumb humor but they are dangerously close to crossing the line to just plain stupid (from the trailers I've seen). I enjoyed Saints Row the third based off its writing and less off its gameplay which I found pretty standard and at times boring. What kept it fun were those dumb missions that came up like deckers die that varied up the gameplay in crazy and unique ways. Now they probably feel the pressure of having to up the anty even fuether and increasing that craziness to a point where it's no longer funny or unique and just out of place and stupid. I really hope I'm wrong but between the trailers and the initial intent of this being an expansion, this game has me cautious.

I never played Mafia II, but the half-dozen or so hours I spent with GTAIV and RDR consisted of me suffering through the gameplay in an attempt to find these GotY quality experiences everyone else seemed to be having. In those games the mechanics of moving and shooting and interacting with the world was a chore. It wasn't until SR3 that I actually managed to have fun and realize that it was the games, not the genre, that I had a problem with.

Maybe "mechanically sound" wasn't the right phrasing, maybe I should have said "mechanically not a fucking chore to play".

but isn't the magic power stuff there because they're in like some weird cyber world?

@animasta: Yeah, I think so. That seems to be the excuse to re-use all their old assets, anyway.

Saints Row 3 was a fun game, but by the end I feel that it ran into the problem of constantly trying to one up itself and get crazier and crazier. 4 looks as if it's running into this problem right from the start.

I'd have preferred a good mixture of 2 and 3. A more grounded and personal story, but with some really funny and crazy stuff mixed in. This game should be about a new gang making their name and eventually taking out the corrupt government in their city, headed by old age pensioner versions of Pierce and the main character.

Cautious.

IdolNinja (of Gentlemen of the Row fame) got to hang out at Volition and got an extended behind the scenes look at the game and came away very positive about it. He can't talk too much about what he's seen yet, but what he has talked about so far is very reassuring. Some choice quotes from his Something Awful forum posts:

One of the biggest issues I had with SRTT was that the storytelling felt disjointed and very much like a slapdash rush job. It was especially disappointing to me since SR2 had such a fantastic story with lots of great connective tissue and character beats in the cutscenes and interstitial dialogue.

While I can't divulge any details, I will say that SRIV feels much more like SR2 with a fully fleshed out and well told story. I really wish I could say more...

One other thing... In no way did SRIV feel like DLC, or a rush job, or a cash grab, or anything like people are saying. It honestly feels like a full fledged sequel with a meaty campaign and a ton of extra open world content.

thats great but why has he only seen behind the scene footage of saints row 4 and not the bigger sites. you would think they would show ign or game informer the game to have the mainstream press ? also he does kinda look like the saints row hype guy. i just typed his name in google and he is hyping the game like theres no tomorrow :/

Who says they haven't? I'm sure they have and will post full previews about what they saw after an embargo lift in the future.

I don't feel any kind of way about it, really. I've tried Saints Row 2 and 3 for a couple hours each, but compared to what Rockstar does with their games it just feels so aloof and lacking in character. Saints Row has a well-earned reputation, and a lot of it sounds great when I hear it on the podcast or what have you, but each time I've tried to play either of those entries in the series nothing about the games feel right. The game feels stuck in the PS2 era to me in a lot of ways, whereas GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption felt like games that could only exist now, on the PS3.

I suppose for people that like the series - and the entertainment I'll get out of its existence from the Crew - I'm excited for them, to me it looks like just the sort of insanity that makes for terrible movies and ridiculous video games. But so far I haven't enjoyed how these ridiculous video games actually video game, so my personal investment is next to nothing.

thats the point we would have heard ign say "WE HAVE SEEN SAINTS ROW 4" like they did with dark souls and gta v but they havent regardless of embargo, not some "modder" who says he has seen the game

I'm glad it exists.

Series peaked at 2 for me. 3 was trying too hard. The tone felt off in the same way all of the later C&C games felt off.

I suspect a lot of SR latecomers will feel like that about SR4 when it comes out. 'LOL dildos & gimps!!!' doesn't really remain funny for very long, if it was ever funny to begin with.

I thought Saints Row 3 was fine. It was kind of funny but I think at this point I think I'm more interested in games with interesting stories and ideas.

I'm looking forward to GTA V extremely more than SR4 and will most likely end up skipping it unless it does something revolutionary. At the moment it looks like a Prototype parody with guns.

So far all the previews seem to say it has more and more content and with the new trailers coming out (especially the latest with all the superpowers) the game just seems to be pushing in this wonderfully absurd direction. I love open world games and with SR4 being released a month before GTA5 I will be one happy open world roamer.

Interested to see what MP is like too. I'd looooooove 4 player co-op! And Deathmatch to come back.

I'm not sure how the super power stuff will work in gameplay, but I'm honestly more worried about how crazy hyper patriotism the game is going to be. Seems to be a lot of Team America World Police style story and that stuff just actively turns me off of the whole thing. I find the whole "America fuck ya" joke/attitude extremely obnoxious and it will ruin my enjoyment of the game. So I hope they keep that stuff in the background and easily avoidable.

Also, everytime I see the gameplay I find that it really wears the whole expansion pack being strung out into a full game on its sleeves. So I'm worried a lot of it is going to feel forced and that they are going to go too far into the dumb camp this time around.

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Saints Row IV will be game of the year, just like how Saints Row the Third was game of the year for 2011.

It just looks like more Saints Row the Third....

too bad 2 played like shit.

(also the humor was much more interesting than lol dildos)

I'm glad to see Saints Row going as over the top as it possibly can.

I'm not worried about possible technical issues (will be playing on PC) but I do hope the game turns out great because the dubstep gun preorder is really tempting me and I hate dubstep.

Feeling the same way, did they announce it for next-gen consoles?

It's looking good, mainly for how similar it eventually will be to saints row the third. But, I will still enjoy it significantly when it releases.

It's looking good, I love that they're getting even crazier with it. I'm a little disappointed that the game doesn't look like any sort of large leap over Saint's Row 3, but I'm not going to condemn it for it.

I'm disappointed that it basically seems to be an iteration on SR3 rather than something totally fresh and new, but I loved SR3 and this will assuredly be a great game in its own right, so I'd say I'm pretty excited about it anyway.

I'll pass. It is now in the "No longer dumb fun but simply just dumb" territory for me. It looks to me like it's trying too hard to be "crazy". 3 was already trying pretty hard and went just far enough that i could still follow and find enjoyment but not anymore.

In any case i wasn't super interested in it even before they had shown any trailers.

It looks like they are trying to hard to top how dumb the third was. I have no interest in the next Saints Row game.

When Saints Row first Cam out I thought, "Awesome! A GTA clone! These open world games are great! I want that!" But then I realized that what this was was something different. I now know that I com to GTA and Saints Row for two different reasons. I come to GTA for the serious story and serious emotions that come with it. I come to Saints Row to not give a fuck. Saints Row's special sauce is being absolutely over the top and not caring about itself at all. I mean look at the development of your gang over this series. In the first game you're fighting for the neighborhood, in the second it's the city, and in the third you're fighting an international syndicate. And now in the fourth game you seem to be fighting to control your country. I mean if you're looking for anything that resembles serious emotions or story in a video game, you're looking in the wrong place.

I disagree. Things might have changed with Saints Row 3, but Saints Row 2 had serious moments like this and this between the silliness. That was fantastic and they were pulled off so well while being contrasted with the hilarious moments. SR1 was like this as well, but it seems they've decided to abandon this in favor of being all-out silly, and I'm not too into that direction yet.

As someone who has played every entry in the franchise. I can honestly say that I no longer give a damn about it because The Third was just so dumb. I'm much more of a GTA player anyway.

IV looks like The Third with superpowers and that just isn't enough to make me interested.

Don't care at all.

Roll on GTA V!

Yeeeeeeeeeeeup. I really liked how Saints Row 2's story was like an action movie that had a bit of everything, from drama to comedy, and stuff like the ending scene with Julius were executed (pun intended...) really well. I went into SR2 expecting a lot of the dumb fun, and it had that, but I was also blown away by how well directed its story was. The entire Brotherhood Arc alone tops SRTT's story.

I enjoyed SRTT well enough mind, but its story was more like some sort of sketch show, and stuff like how it handled killing off Gat and the way its entire first act was made up of tutorials left it feeling pretty inconsistent on the crazy and a bit rushed. Plus SRTT was a pretty fucking boring open-world game in comparison to SR2 at that, though that's one aspect I believe SRIV will be making an improvement on given how it's set in an alternate reality or whatever.

The game looks like more of the same. I liked SR3 enough, but I don't think it will play as well a second time without a lot of growth.

Add to that, that we know it started as an expansion and it seems to be rushing to beat GTA to market with a new publisher that might just be looking for a quick return.

You can see pieces of a potentially bad product.

I don't know, man. From what I have seen in the trailers, I would say Saints Row went from stupid to full retard.

Never go full retard!

Voted other because I'm ambivalent for the typical reasons.

I really wish it were out right now since there are few retail releases. This game needs to get as far away from the GTA5 release as possible. When that game launches along with next gen open world game, many of the ideas, mechanics, and graphics from this game are going to look really silly (in a bad way.)

It really seems more like Saints Row 3.5, but still it looks crazy fun and I'll probably grab it day 1 as I enjoyed 3 immensely (I played through it 3 times with every play throughs lasting more than 20 hours).

I agree with some people above me, it kinda seems like a Dead Island Riptide sort of thing. Not in terms of quality but it just looks like more of the same.