Out Prototyping Prototype, out Crackdowning Crackdown, but does it out Saints Row Saints Row?
After the out of nowhere turn that Saints Row The Third took, Volition had their work cut out for them to equal or surpass the arguably best entry in the series. Saints Row IV excels The Third for the most part, but it's not without it's problems.
A few years after The Third, we find the 3rd Street Saints embarking on a mission to assassinate the disgraced leader of S.T.A.G., Cyrus Temple. Who has fled to the Middle East and is planning to launch a missile at the good ol' USA with the help of some terrorists. What's with the slightly perplexed look on your face? After dealing with Cyrus (I won't spoil how this section ends) the leader of the Saints is now the leader of the Land of the Free. Yeah, that's right, he's the President now. Trust me this is still nothing in the grand scheme of things. While on his way to a press conference aliens forces called the Zin attack (Yep) and start abducting people left and right. After a less than successful attempt at stopping the invading forces, the President now finds himself trapped in a simulated version of Steelport. Where he must break free and save not just America, but humanity itself.
Speaking of Steelport. One of the main complaints I've seen against this game is the fact that it takes place in the same city. Whilst I understand where these people are coming from I'm glad that they didn't create a new city. Not because I was aching to explore Steelport, nothing like that, but because it would've went to waste. As you may know, in Saints Row IV you're giving superpowers. Two of these are mobility focused, a super sprint and a super jump (with a lovely glide after a few upgrades). These are fantastic fun and if you're anything like me, you'll never drive another car unless you're forced to. Because of these powers, you're either viewing Steelport as a sea of rooftops or as a blurry mess. You don't really have time to admire the scenery, meaning that an entirely new city would have gone to waste.
As I mentioned five sentences ago, you now have super powers. You know about the mobility, so let's cover the offensive. To start off you're giving an ice blast, throw this and living beings and vehicles alike will be frozing solid if caught within it's blast radius. You will also have telekinesis and a mighty stomp at your disposal, both self explanatory. Through accomplishing the side missions that litter the game, you'll unlock different elements for your powers. Your ice blast can become a fire blast, telekinesis can steal life and your stomp can shrink those around you. This is where some of the Crackdown elements come in. In order to obtain the majority of the upgrades for your powers, you'll need to buy them. The currency for the upgrades is Clusters, the Clusters can be found scattered throughout Steelport. There are 1255 in total just waiting for you run and jump your way into their loving arms. For those of you having panic attacks at the thought of finding and collecting all of these, calm yourselves. Volition have listened to your cries of fear and anguish and has gifted you with a collectibles map obtained through a side mission. You still have to get them all sure, but at least you can see where they are. So you'll only have sleep depravation to worry about.
Amidst all this positivity, inevitably there will be negativity. After all, those of you who can count to 5 can clearly see I've giving this a 4/5. It's the side stuff. The side missions I mentioned earlier amount to nothing more than the standard take over the city activities, wrapped up in a little amount of dialogue. These will get insanely repetitive fast for a lot of people. The thing is you can't really ignore them, because like I said you will get some good rewards from them. Power upgrades and weapons mainly.
The PS3 version also suffers from some odd technical problems too. During the more explosive activities, the tank and ufo activities in particular. The game couldn't handle the cacophony of destruction before it, causing the game to get progressively slower, the sound to cut out and eventually lock up. With this lock up in particular I was still able to access the XMB, so it could have been worse. The most common lock up I had was when I tried to access the hub. This is where you can buy upgrades for your powers, look at your quest log and so forth. Numerous times I had the game just lock up on me after trying to select the quest log. After this happened a few times, I put it down to me trying access this stuff whilst it was saving. Turns out this wasn't the case as this happened even when it wasn't saving. I had to restart the last mission 3 times because of this. 2 times because I wanted to use the hub, the 3rd time I hit select out of habit. I'm not sure if this problem actually locks up the game or just stops the controller from working. Either way it required console reset.
Let's try to leave negativity behind and end on a happy note. You may have noticed that I haven't discussed the main story missions at any length, the reason is simple, I don't want to spoil it. I know this isn't helpful but do try to trust me when I say that this takes what they started with The Third and somehow made it even greater. The musical moments are back in full force, each mission is more ludicrous than the last and it somehow manages to make the majority of it's jokes hit. And whilst the side missions are a bit crap, the loyalty missions also fall under the side quest banner and those are great. Technical problems and repetitive side missions aside. Saints Row IV has been one of, if not the most fun game I have played in some time.
One thing that I felt throughout was the feeling of conclusion. This feels like the end of Saints Row. With a cast of characters, references and jokes that span all four games. This is Saints Row's Metal Gear Solid 4. For the fans of the series that were able to survive the transition into lunacy, you'll get the most out of Saints Row IV. For those of you who joined the series with the last entry, don't worry, everything you loved about The Third is here and then some.
To surmise my overall feelings on the game, I'll leave you with this.
What a bloody fantastic video game.
