The next chapter of the Third Street Saints is a wild ride, with some flaws here and there.
GO CRAZY
You cannot go all crazy without reason. If you do, then all that insanity you have planned goes out the window is it becomes repetitive. Thankfully for Saints Row IV, the crazy antics this game has is fully within reason. After wrapping up a story line from Saints Row The Third, The leader of the Saints becomes President of the United States. As he heads to the Press Lounge to clean up a mess about something he or she said, aliens attack the White House. The alien leader Zinyak kidnaps the President and his or her staff that includes Shaundie, Kenzie, Pierce, Ben King, Vice President Keith David, and a few others. While the story and the situations you a put in are over the top, it is told rather well. All these characters are fleshed out.
I was honestly surprised how well the story is played out. Saints Row The Third had an OK story, but it was not fully realized. Here in Saints Row IV not only is it realized, but it feels like it even wraps up events that happened in the first two games. I would delve into the loyalty missions, but I do not want to ruin the surprise. While the story is surprisingly good, the game play is why we play these games, and it is a good thing that Saints Row IV plays is great. Saints Row IV drops you off in a virtual Steelport and after some tinkering from Kinzie; you will eventually get super powers. They include super speeds, gliding, fire attacks, and even buff.
GO WILD
These new powers does come with a price, when having your super speed up to max levels, crossing a bridge will cause the frame rate to drop, but only for a couple of seconds. The most annoying thing is that the game will freeze on you a few times. Sometimes the menu will not even load, and you would need to do a hard reset on your system of choice. As annoying as these issues are, it did not stop me from enjoying Saints Row IV. I hope that Volition, the creators of the series, will look into fixing on most of these problems.
Saints Row IV took me nearly 40 hours to do complete. That includes the activities, the challenges, and the missions. The missions can range from main, loyalty, and side. The Side missions are just the activities with context. You do a series of activities and you will unlock things like weapons and better abilities. Most of these activities are fun to do.
If you played Saints Row before, then you know that mixing your own playlist over Saints Row IV's radio stations is back. Gliding around with Aerosmith's I Don't Want To Miss A Thing is something I did not know I want. As simple and easy as it is, it is one of my favorite moments of gaming this year. I went with songs I know and like. Biz Markie, OutKast, Presidents of the United States, and even Haddaway was in my playlist. The best part is that you do not even need a car to listen to the soundtrack. Which is good because once you get your super sprint ability, the vehicles becomes useless. Once you max out the super sprint ability, you can knock them away causing them to explode.
The same goes for weapons. Except for a few story missions, the weapon I used the most was the Dubstep Gun. It may be a joke, but once you max it out, it is no laughing matter. You can beat most of the game with this one weapon alone. Different skins bring in different tracks. The default track was the one I used. Every gun has a different skin, and the coolest thing about it that a few ties into movies including Aliens and No Country For Old Men. There is even a powerful, hidden gun related to Men in Black.
HAVE FUN
The big question however. Should you buy it? I would say yes, but not yet. There is 40 hours of content here, but the main story itself is not that long and there is no carry over. You cannot transport your past skill into a new game. This means you would have to find all the clusters all over again if you want to get the most out of your abilities, and there is over 1000 clusters spread throughout Steelport.
If you do end up buying it, please buy it new. While it is perfectly fine to have games like The Last of Us, we all need to remember why we play games to begin with; Fun. It is not perfect, but it is an entertaining game. While most studios want to be serious and be like movies, they seem to forget that movies can be dumb fun also.
