Review: Saints Row IV – This is How We Do It

Shortly after I'd finished Saints Row: The Third, the 4^th installment had been announced. After the overload of comical violence, memorable characters, and gang-related mayhem I'd just been exposed to, I was left pondering one thing about the sequel. “How do you get bigger and more bombastic than Saints Row 3? Where do we go from here?”

Saints Row IV answered that question with a resounding “UP” and Volition proved that they could indeed top themselves within the first 20 minutes of gameplay. After a short SEAL team-style mission that ends with The Boss disarming an in-flight nuclear missile, Saints Row IV drops the protagonist into the White House as Commander in Chief. And what's the first thing our president does? Fill the cabinet with Saints. Pierce, Shaundi, and Kinzie are back, accompanied by Matt Miller (former leader of The Deckers from Saints Row 3) and Benjamin “Motherfucking” King (from SR1). Keith David also co-stars as himself - as the Boss's VP.

During a press conference in which the Boss tries to recover from making a statement about how the pledge should be changed to “one nation under ME”, an all-out alien invasion begins, and things go to shit. After a brief bout of space invaders, Boss gets knocked out and wakes up in some fucked up 50's sitcom version of Steelport.

In a few short moments, Kinzie pipes in and informs you that you're basically jacked into the Matrix. The alien invaders (known as the Empire of Zin, or just The Zin) have recreated a personal hell for each member of each species that they've abducted from their home planet. Apparently, The Boss's nightmares are of a 50's sitcom. Kinzie eventually hacks you out of Leave It to Beaver, and drops you back into a replica of the Saints Row 3 version of Steelport... just a little more... Matrixy. Buildings shimmer and bystanders occasionally pixelate or glitch out, constant reminders of The Simulation.

Now if there's one thing that we all took away from The Matrix movies, it was the special effects. Keanu Reeves could dodge bullets, stop time, and fly. Basically, superpowers. By the end of the tutorial segment, you'll have already acquired super-jump and super-sprint, which have now effectively annihilated the usefulness of vehicles. Taking cues from nearly EVERY Triple-A, open-world, third-person, sandboxy title out there, Saints Row IV has masterfully combined the best pieces of each: Jumping around and collecting “clusters” from the tops of buildings derived straight from Crackdown. Superpowers that have roots in both Infamous and Prototype. And, of course, all of the series prior GTA elements remain as well.

Saints Row IV changes the game a little bit, trading Cash for Cache (real original), and replacing Respect with XP (which is just calling it what it was). The introduction of superpowers required its own form of currency, as well as a unique way to acquire it. Data “Clusters” are located all around town, usually on top of buildings, but occasionally hidden in walls or underground. Fortunately, they're abundant and it's not at all required to collect every single one to max out your abilities.

Side-missions like Mayhem and Fraud return. However, the addition of superpowers has had a unique effect on these activities. Fraud still allows you to play in traffic, but it is significantly more fun and productive to build up a 60mph running start, jump 10 stories into the air, and THEN start ragdolling. Shooting fire from your hands and tossing cars around with telekinesis also adjusts the way that Mayhem is played. In addition to these classics, there are also superpower specific side-missions. Trailblazing has been replaced by Blazin, in which you use your super-legs to run races around town. Professor Genki's S.E.R.C. has been exchanged for Genki's Mind Over Murder, in which you're required to throw specific objects (cars, people, and Genki heads) through different colored targets, before making a mad dash for the next zone. They've even added a Super Powered Fight Club, where you take on waves of enemies using only your superpowers, culminating in a super-powered boss fight with an iconic character from a previous Saints Row game.

However, there is a downside to all this super-absurd super-fun. Since none of your gang members are given your gifts, they've basically become obsolete. Sure, it's fun to wander around town with an army of gimps or hookers, but hardly productive. Your named homies don't receive any of your powers either, but thankfully the game has included “loyalty” quests that expand a bit on the selected character and grants them carbon copies of your skills. Super-sprint also means that cars are effectively useless, as anywhere you want to be can be ran and/or flown to much quicker than driving.

Also notable is that, since your consciousness is located inside of an alien simulation, the aliens happen to be the ones enforcing it. What this means is that for a gang-based crime shooter, Saints Row IV doesn't really have any gangs to speak of. There is one particular moment in the story where the simulation starts throwing any and every gang the Saints have ever encountered at them, in a constant effort to be rid of them, but this too is short-lived.

The storyline here is paper thin. Aliens invade Earth. Humans get abducted. Humans break free. Take Earth back. Saints Row has never gotten accolades for its storyline, but what's more important are the interesting and diverse characters, and the humor behind everything. Saints Row IV is dripping with referential comedy. From the start when you're fending off the hostile invaders and quoting Planet of the Apes, till the end when you're rushing headlong into the final battle and Boss quotes Optimus Prime while Stan Bush's “The Touch” blasts epically in the background. Though when the game isn't referencing some form of pop culture, current or otherwise, it's usually referencing itself. Major moments from Saints Row 1 and 2 have been dropped in as some form of continuity porn for those who knew Ben King and Johnny Gat from “way back in the day”. I found this completely unnecessary, and while you can get away without having any background, I instead decided I'd go back and play through the first two titles. I expect the experience to be interesting, grueling and overall not-fun. I'll let you know how it goes.

Saints Row IV also throws around a lot of fun parodies which, oddly enough, keep the gameplay interesting. As previously mentioned, each abductee is being forced to re-live their own personal hell inside the Zin ship. Over the course of the game, you'll rescue each one of your crew members by walking them through the fire – which keeps things fresh. Matt Miller is stuck in an old-style text adventure (similar to the one in Saints Row 3), Asha forces you through a Metal Gear Solid/Splinter Cell style level in which you must first shoot out the lights, and then kill the guards. There's also a lot of sneaking around in boxes and stabbing people. Johnny Gat's rescue mission was a major highlight for me as you're forced to play through the side-scrolling beat'em up “Saints of Rage” (a reference to the classic arcade brawler “Streets of Rage). No two rescues are the same and it really shows just how creative Volition allowed themselves to be.

But nothing comes without a price. Saints Row IV's biggest draw back is its lack of technical polish, which can be downright infuriating at times. The frame rate seriously starts chugging when there's anything more complex than a firefight going on. For all the emphasis on Tron-esque alien tanks and flying “saucers”, their neon glow and flashy lasers can cause some serious slow-mo. Even sprinting down the street starts to cause lag as cars and pedestrians are tossed about in your wake. In addition to this, I have also experienced multiple game freezes (though fortunately only one of those was during an autosave), and even being stuck in an infinite fall animation. Granted, this seems to be the curse of many open-world sandbox titles and no matter how glitchy and how many game-breaking bugs are still around by launch, if it's stamped with Bethesda, it still gets 9's. Taking that into consideration, I have a hard time truly criticizing Saints Row IV for these faults, and find it to be a larger problem with QA and beta testing.

If that's not enough to rattle you out of your cage and off to purchase this wonderful menagerie of sandboxed mayhem and destruction, there's the ever-present co-op as well, and several co-op exclusive activities (which I still have not tried yet as of this review). Whored Mode from Saints Row 3 was left on the chopping block, since the whole thing seemed rather tacked-on anyways.

Prior to launch, Saints Row IV announced the most pompous, overconfident, self-absorbed titled collector's edition I've ever heard of. They called it the “Game of the Generation” edition. And now, after playing through to completion, I have to wonder if it was really all that arrogant a thing to say.

I give Saints Row IV:
A-

Despite some mildly annoying technical shortcomings, Saints Row IV is an excellent package. It finds a way to combine the highlights of every other game in its genre into one thoroughly enjoyable experience. Take notes, games industry, this is how you do it.

-Nik "Latency" Trumble