Who’s ready to have some fun?! That’s what video games are supposed to be all about right? Sometimes as grown ups we get caught up in thinking way too much about things, and we need a nice, mindless outlet for entertainment to enjoy. Sure, the appearance of this fun has changed over the years. It’s not necessarily WCW Vs. NWO Revenge or Mario Party 2 anymore (Mario Party 1 was banned from my house because all the spinning ruined controller analog sticks). We have more evolved and mature tastes now, thank you very much.

Saints Row The Third really turned heads by just deciding to go right out of their goddamn minds in almost every aspect. The game was extremely referential and had an insane mix of sophisticated humor and poop jokes living in harmony. All this was packed into a game that was actually quite well made. With Saints Row IV, Volition just said “Oh you like that? You liked that spoonful of crazy? Well here’s an Olympic sized pool full of it!”. Saints Row IV appears to be made entirely by referencing a flow chart that operated like this: Is it fun? Yes? Put it in the game!

Whereas SR3 was basically your typical open world urban game that had you spending a great deal of your time driving between objectives, SR4 just decided screw that noise, how about you just fly everywhere all the time. That sounds awesome, but a nice part of these games is listening to the radio stations. Well then let’s just jam a radio right into the player’s skull so they can listen to music ALL THE TIME. Sounds great, but being able to fly alone would be pretty silly without having at least a sprinkling of a few other super powers to screw with too. The end result is basically the best super hero game ever made, and certainly the best since that one Spider Man game that one time.

There will inevitably be a lot of comparison between this game and Saints Row The Third. The general consensus I have seen suggests that SR3 is the more liked game. The new installment didn’t do anything wrong, but The Third was such a huge jump and such a pleasant surprise that all Saints Row IV could really do is iterate on what was already there. While I agree with that point of view from a story and comedy standpoint, I couldn’t disagree more on the gameplay end.

Story-wise, sure. Things were so crazy last game that the only way not to disappoint this time was to go even crazier, to double down. As a result, some of the absolute insanity just seems a bit like it’s trying too hard. Now for myself, I quite honestly didn’t love the story or the humor from the 3rd game as much as many others did, so I actually found this game to be just fine in that department. If anything, I found the humor slightly more subtle and a little less stuck in potty humor. I really enjoyed the loyalty missions that gave you insight into all the characters, and the “Romance” options on the ship were kind of hilarious.

The gameplay is where this game really stands out for me though. The super powers are insanely fun to play around with. You can jump hundreds of feet in the air, run at the speed of sound, launch fireballs, mind control, freeze and entire city block, and your body is basically made out of wingsuit. It’s just great fun all the time. There are these collectibles all over the place called “clusters”. I’m typically the type to only go after collectibles if they give you a meaningful reward, and in this case they do. The clusters are your currency for buying some really sweet upgrades to your super powers.

There are a lot of side missions that are pretty similar to the ones offered in the previous game, and I still don’t particularly care for them. They did implement a nice trick though to get me to do more of them. They would package five or six of them together into a “Quest Line” that would reward me with a super power upgrade or new weapon when I was done, so I actually ended up doing all of those as well. I legitimately enjoyed spending as much time playing this game as possible, so I went back after I finished the game to complete all these side objectives, which I rarely do.

Saints Row IV still has one of my favourite parts as well. I’ve always loved that you can customize the look of your character, yet they are still voiced. It’s usually one or the other. Add in the inclusion of seven different voice actors to choose from, and your main protagonist is truly unique to your experience.

But just so you know, if you pick any voice other than the guy with the cockney accent you’re a bad person who apparently doesn’t like joy.