Killzone: Shadow Fall (PS4): A purdy look'n, functional, but unoriginal affair.

There are usually 3 reasons I buy or play a first person shooter. Most of the time, its because its something I was genuinely looking forward to (See: Left 4 Dead). Other times its because a game has gotten so much attention, I have to poke my head in to see what the fuss is about (See: Bioshock Infinite). The third, and least common of the solutions is "well, I have this new system. I need something to play on it."

That's how I found myself with the original Resistance title and that actually ended up being a shooter I kinda liked. Well about a month ago when I got me a shiny new PS4 I found myself in that same situation. I had 2 games reserved but one of them got pushed back, so to give me something else to play I took a chance on a series that I have never played before in.....

KILLZONE: SHADOW FALL(PS4)

Shadow Fall takes place after the "Terracide" of Killzone 3 where the ISA basically render the Helgan planet uninhabitable. The ISA grants the remaining Helghast survivors refuge on the planet Vekta and allows them to colonize half of the planet. The relations are tumultuous at best as they build a massive wall to separate the Vektans from New Helgan, and covert military operation is rampant on both sides.

After the walls construction, Lucas Kellan and his father are trying to escape New Helgan and come across a Shadow Marshall named Sinclair, who tries to aid their escape. Despite being promised safe passage they are spotted by the Helghast and Lucas' father is killed in the scuffle. Sinclair takes Lucas in and in 30 years trains Lucas to be a Shadow Marshall as well.

Tensions are extremely high between the Vektans and Helghast, and Sinclair uses Lucas as his shadow operative to infiltrate the Helgan forces and retrieve classified information, pertaining to a bio-weapon created by Dr. Hillary Massar. It then becomes a race between the VSA and the Helghast to get to the weapon first.

The opening could basically be futuristic Nazi Germany its so locked down.

Why do shooters always have the most complicated and convoluted fucking story lines? I just wrote that shit and I still don't understand it. Fuckin' Left 4 Dead makes it easy: Here are some zombies, fucking kill them. I can get that. Resistance was like that too: Aliens are attacking, fucking kill them. No problem.

But with games like this, I'm reminded of when I tried to review Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.  I had no eff'n clue what it was I was explaining if I even bothered to understand it. It had Micheal Rooker in it, that's all I really remember. 

So the first thing that comes to mind when I play a shooter is what kind of shooter is it? Since I don't often play very many FPS games I try to narrow them down to one of two categories: Classic FPS or Modern FPS. Classic I consider games like Bioshock, Left4Dead, Resistance 3, etc because they are one that usually don't require scope aiming, cover, and have fixed health meters. Moderns are like Call of Duty with one to five hit kills, regenerating health, two weapon slots, and required scope aiming for any accuracy.

And I would say that Killzone: Shadow Fall is in the latter category of the more modern shooters. Not typically the style of FPS game I really enjoy but it suppose necessity makes for strange bedfellows. I will say because many of these games follow very similar control schemes, it didn't take me very long to find myself familiarized with what buttons do what. Generally if you have played a shooter in the past 5 to 10 years most of this game isn't going to be lost on you. 

Before I get too far into the game, something I feel I should address is that this was the first PS4 retail title I loaded up into my system. There was a bit of buzz about the fact that the game took up almost 45 gigs of space right out of the box. Since the PS3 is notorious for long install and load times, this was a concern. 

Thankfully, it wasn't an issue here. It installs a bit right from the moment you pop the disc in, and say about 30-45 seconds later you are able to start the game. The installation process continues and does so while you watch the opening cutscene and the first level. It was a very expedient process and I was very happy about that. 

Back to the game. Since it falls under the category of modern shooter, naturally there is some concern over the game having a pretty shitty palette basically devoid of color as you go from dilapidated location to dilapidated location. And while there is no shortage of these locations, it does spruce up some of the locations with a few splashes of color (such as the forest or modern city), and the Helghast uniforms usually have some vibrant glowing red on them so they are somewhat easy to make out.

I will say that this game certainly doesn't feel linear to me. I can't say it feels as wide open and vibrant as say some of the Halo maps are, but they do feel very big in their own right. Quite a number of times I found myself just completely lost in a level. I'd be following what appeared to be a natural path to my object to find myself nowhere near the location I needed to be at, and to further explore the map to figure out exactly which way I needed to be going. While it's occasionally frustrating, I would much rather do this than deal with a series of short linear maps.

When you get away from civilization, the environments are beautifully done.

The weapons in this game are a fucking snoozefest, and this is massive problem in almost every modern shooter I have ever played. You can give all the weapons in your game fancy UPC code names and its not gonna change the fact that I have automatic rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, and pistol. Fucking, Snore. At least Bioshock gives me plasmids to use, at least Resistance has crazy alien weaponry that can shoot through or around walls. Hell, even Halo has the goddamn Needler. I couldn't tell you the specific weapon names in Killzone,but they break down to the 4 majors I mentioned in this paragraph. 

You are given a little kind of helper bot though. you can sort of select your options for that on the touchpad and it allows you to fire ziplines, give you covering fire, stun your opponents, and hack terminals for you. So it sometimes works to provide distractions but more often then not I would forget to use it. Its really the only future-y thing about combat. Actually that's not true, you also have this Sonar Pulse kinda thing where you can see enemies around walls and floors, but if you hold it too long it screeches and alerts your enemies.

You probably saw this section at E3 already, but I can't capture until HDCP protocols are removed.

You would think something like that would make the game too easy. Nope, not the case. Killzone: Shadow Fall did not hold my hand going into this game. I died, and I died a lot. You pick up adrenaline packs along the way so when you drop, your little helper bot can bring you back. If you go into iron sight everything slows down to bullet time for a few seconds and you can mow down your offenders. It took a little bit of getting used to, and didn't save me from getting my ass kicked thoroughly every few levels.

There is one particular shard of glass in my urethra late in the game where you basically have to drop from pace and then glide once you've entered the atmosphere. You have to maintain swooping motions while avoiding collapsing buildings. The amount of times I screamed fuck trying to get past this fucking portion was ridiculous. I cannot fucking stand it when a game throws in a brand new set of mechanics late in the game with an unreasonable set of difficulty. Its infuriating. Have it at least scale so I can sort of get a handle on it first you fucking pricks. (I captured this sequence on the PS4, but unfortunately, I can cant pull and edit it, and I can only share it to Facebook. A massive oversight in this internal capture process.)

I feel the character design is a little wonky, but I'd say that's really my only visual complaint. Usually every humanoid character is completely covered in armor, so you barely get to see any actual people to begin with. I was surprised to find out that this game was Mo-Cap'd as well. I guess I have been spoiled but Uncharted, Last of us, and Beyond. Aside from that I think the visuals of this game are very impressively done and from what I have read, they actually didn't even use the full memory potential of the console.

While technically an enemy, Echo is the only real "Good Guy" in the game.  She's the only person who
really understands the gravity of the war, and is willing to fight against her family for the greater good

And much like the actual campaign section, the multi player for the most part seems pretty generic too. There is no shortage of 24 player team deathmatches to hop into, and the war zones basically cycle through stages of CTF, Assault, King of the Hill and team deathmatch. Performing certain accolades will allow you to unlock different add on to your weapon types.

Whats fucking annoying about this is you will no doubt get lumped in with a group of assholes who have grenade launchers on lock down. And I have to say it was infuriating trying to do anything in a multi player game because I would just constantly be blown up out of no where. It was really starting to infuriate me.

But at one point, I had a eureka moment. At some point I realized I wasn't a good enough shot to snipe, and my usual charge in, pray n' spray routine wasn't helping here. So why not try the support class? If there is anything I am good at in a shooter, is getting from one point to another. So I opted for a support class that can create spawn points and I make a habit of dashing to key hot zones on each map. To compliment my unsteady shot, I opted for the shotgun. Shit range but maximum damage potential.

In Deathmatch you will find popular spots people go to in nearly every map.

Worked like a charm. I get points every time someone uses my spawn (and usually I'm the only one), points whenever I revive some one, and once I get into a good position I can mow down enemies as they leave their base for at least 3 or 4 people till they figure it out. All of a sudden I am in the top 3 of nearly every game I am in. I guess sometimes you just gotta figure out what you are good at.  Grenade launchers are still cheap as fuck though.

So anyways, rating I guess. Well, the consensus on Killzone: Shadow Fall seems to be on of: "Hey this game is really pretty, but its nothing original." I'd say that is a pretty fair assessment. Nothing in this game really blew me away. The story was a bit above average, it was interesting when it really got going, and the ending was definitely a step from the norm. I find myself dropping into the multi player a bit now that I have a knack for what I'm doing, which is better than most shooters have fared with me. For a shooter that has no horror elements, its been worth the 60 clams.

All in all, I have to say that Killzone: Shadow Fall was a solid release for a launch lineup. It'll certainly scratch your shooter itch but if you are one of those frothing "I can only play Call of Duty/Halo" types its probably gonna leave you wanting. I got it on a spur of the moment impulse, but I overall I wasn't dissatisfied. 8 out of 10.

Would have liked the chance to be the Helgast girl more though....

Beyond: Two Souls (PS3): My Sad Haunted Life Simulator 2013

It's easy to get taken in by some shiny graphics. I mean ultimately, that's really what the game industry has been pushing for the past twenty years or so. And no game truly tried to sell the point that you only need graphics to sell a game as much as Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain did. While the game was severely lacking in actual gameplay elements and just gave us quick time events, the story was still pretty good (although heart wrenchingly depressing). But now Quantic Dream has upped their game by making their graphics even shinier, and brought in actual actors to play their parts in....

BEYOND: TWO SOULS(PS3)

The tale of Beyond: Two Souls follows tale of lonely girl Jodie Holmes (Ellen Page), as we go through her life. Since the moment she was born, Jodie has been linked to some form of supernatural entity who she refers to as Aiden. We jump around in the story from various points of Jodie's life from her troubled upbringing, her troubled childhood, her troubled teen years, and her troubled young adulthood.

The jist, without spoiling too much, is that her adoptive foster family leaves her at a military research facility under the care of Nathan Dawkins (Willem Dafoe) and Cole Freeman (Kadeem Hardison) who make her live in a bit of a sheltered off life as they monitor Jodie and her connection with Aiden, and attempt to teach her how to control him. As she adapts to this lifestyle, she is eventually drafted into the CIA.

After being abandoned by her foster parents, Jodie is actually has a pretty
affectionate upbringing, its just incredibly sheltered.

Its hard to explain the story any further because they way the story is present and you jump around the timeline, different points of the plot are given away at different times. And since this game's whole bread and butter is based around the story, giving you a detailed synopsis would really defeat the entire purpose.

Now I should probably stress right off the bat, that if you are picking this game up you should probably alter your expectations for the game. If you have never played Heavy Rain or even Indigo Prophecy then you are in for a real change of pace. During the course of this review I will probably refer to this as a game, but that's probably not wholly accurate. Quanitc Dream's big focus has always been to produce "interactive storytelling experiences."

Willem Dafoe: For when monster design isn't quite scary enough.

Unfortunately, therein lies the inherent problem because that's an awfully flowery term to use instead of game, which by definition is an interactive storytelling experience. The original Mario has like zero correlating text and no cutscenes, and that still weaves a tale you control the narrative. Now, in Quantic Dream's defense they do paint a hell of a picture. Heavy Rain through all its depressive scenes was still a very gripping story, and their technical demo for KARA had more compelling story in just 7 minutes than some movies do.

The problem is the Playstation 3 is a GAME console and when I use a game console, I use it to PLAY GAMES. And on this front this is pretty much where Beyond: Two Souls falters and falters hard. Heavy Rain was a game that suffered from some of the worst movement controls I've played in a game, and all of the actions that take place happen with quick time events or extended button presses or controller waggles. The bar was set incredible low for their sequel.

The game cleverly fools you into thinking this might have some stealth opps involved. 

But when you set the bar incredibly low, you don't have to jump all that high to get over it. The most recent E3 trailer teased that there would be some war situations and some stealthing involved in the game to bring up the pace and tone somewhat. And while this does in fact happen in the game? The overall control scheme doesn't really change that much. There have been some minor improvements but ultimately they just put quicktime events in a fancy new dress.

Movement controls have been simplified the the normal 3rd person movement we've all come to know. Why this wasn't used in Heavy Rain was fuckin' beyond me. When we get into the action sequences in Beyond:Two Souls we don't have the "Press X to Jason" prompts. Rather, when a combat sequence is taking place, the animation will drop to a super slow motion scene where you have to see which way Jodie is moving, and you need to press the analog stick in the corresponding direction. If you are successful she will land her punch or dodge a blow, if you miss she takes a bit of a beating.

My first playthrough, Jodie took a bit of a beating till I understood the controls.

This is generally how a majority of the action takes place and like previously stated, there are quick time events and controller waggles mixed in. For the most part, it works, but there are always a handful of awkward animations taking place where you have to really stop and guess if its meant to be one way or another. There were a number of times I kept getting it wrong, but it never really impeded my progress.

The other big control aspect in this game is one of the buttons allows you to switch to and control the entity following Jodie, Aiden. When cruising as Aiden you will usually find little indicators that allow you move objects or destroy things. When enemies are afoot you can use Aiden to strangle them or possess them to infiltrate areas. The problem with these sequences is the controls to fly Aiden around are kind of wonky, and your freedom to attack is somewhat limited. Anytime there are enemies around your options are pretty linear and when playing as Aiden, Jodie will often coach you along. 

As Aiden, you usually will just knock shit over. But there are segments where you can
possess and ghost strangle people. You just don't often get to chose which you do.

There is also a "multiplayer" mode that I use as loosely as I use the term "game" in this sense. Basically, it allows a 2nd controller to control Aiden, but since you can only use one character at a time, there really is no reason for it. You can easily switch to Aiden and then hand off the controller for the exact same effect. There is no point to it being there, and really it just takes away the fun half of the game and leaves one player being a very sad Ellen Page for like 10 hours. Nope.

And as far as game play goes, that really is pretty much all there is to it. There are a handful of sequences that will require you to do a bit of stealthing and sneaking while using Aiden to dispatch enemies, but it doesn't happen nearly enough for it to feel enough like an actual narrative based action game.

No, we are here because we want to watch a really, really, really long movie. So the question I suppose is: Did I like it? Well, its hard to say. Graphically, It might be one of the most impressive games I've seen. Like If I considered something like Uncharted or The Last of Us to have some pretty top notch motion capture, then Beyond: Two Souls is definitely a step above that. All of the notable actors in this game are nearly picture perfect digital images of themselves, and because the majority of them are legitimate actors I feel the delivery of the lines were a cut above. Definitely better performed than Heavy Rain was.

I love watching Mo-cap footage side by side with the finished product.

But what I'm not sure I care for is the way the story jumps around the timeline. To use a literary example, Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley delivers the story in what feels like two different story lines, where the big twist/climax appears where the stories timelines begin to intersect at a central point and fill in the gaps of each other's story.

This is kind of like how the Beyond story plays out. You find yourself constantly shifting between child Jodie and young adult Jodie. The constant jumps in timeline will often leave you thinking: "wait, what the fuck happened now?" and sometimes it can be exhausting to keep up with.

But nothing in this game is more exhausting than the relentlessly depressive tone. Literally NOTHING good happens to this chick. Any brief bit of happiness is overclouded by some kind of tragic event, or some haunting of her past, or some current haunting. Now granted, The game delivers a number of options for you on how you want to play things, but unlike Heavy Rain I don't think they appear to deviate how the story shakes out for the most part.

Ellen Page: Mall Goth Teen Angst edition.

There is an fairly early scene where Jodie goes to a birthday party and it turns into this uncomfortably heart wrenching disaster, and you are basically prompted with two solutions: Leave humiliated or commit unbridled vengeance. After (painfully) playing this scene two different ways, the game pretty much proceeded in the same fashion afterwards. Granted, one of the options was a billion times more satisfying to play out.

Through out all the scenes you have multiple ways to play out the conversations, so I guess there is a bit of replay value, and you basically get to choose your ending in the final scenes so I suppose there is reason to play more than once. Then again, you can easily jump to that scene and just pick the other options too.

Full Disclosure: I actually missed this option the first time because I was too busy
oggling digital Ellen Page in her shimmery red dress. DON'T JUDGE ME.

I find myself in the same position I was in for Heavy Rain. Did I enjoy my experience? I think I did. Do I think you should play it? Yeah, I'd say its worth your time. Is it worth 60 dollars? Ehhhhhrrrrnnnggg.... No.. it really isn't.

See Quantic Dream, here's where you have it backwards: You have some of the impressive graphics and some pretty good story writers, but the reviews to your game are mixed. You know who's game isn't getting reviews like that? Naughty Dog, because they take the good story writing and impressive motion capture, and slap that into a GAME. Into a game that is great and possibly game of the year, no less.

You however, after filming several hours of cinematic realized the player actually has to do something for it to count as a game. So the token effort is appreciated, but it really falls short. Beyond: Two Souls weaves a very interesting and engaging tale, and I will say there are marked improvements over the previous games. But it's too long to keep rewatching like a favorite movie, and there's too little interaction to keep the replay value high.

It is absolutely worth a sit through, but I couldn't blame you if passed on buying it.

A digital crying Willem Dafoe might be the most terrifying monster in a video game, ever.

Grand Theft Auto V: Raising the Bar (and then beating a hooker with it)

So yeah. I'm really late to the party on this one. Why? Because I can't stop fucking playing it. The Grand Theft Auto series wasn't something I really started to follow until late into the PS2 era, and it was probably the first introduction I had to the sandbox genre. I really enjoyed Grand Theft Auto 4 and the subsequent DLCs that came out to follow it, but its been almost five years. So hot off the heels of GTA's main competitor, I've spent the following weeks playing the newest installment of this iconic franchise...

GRAND THEFT AUTO: V

Our tale starts off with a heist in the frigid north of Canada. A small bank with a reasonably easy score four bandits come in and sweep the money with ease. Yet after they start to make their getaway, it quickly escalates to a massive firefight with what appears to be the entirety of the police force. One is shot down, one killed in a getaway crash, one is wounded, and one escapes. This brief moment ends with the loan survivor viewing the funeral from afar. 

We flash 9 years later where one of the survivors Micheal De Santa, is living in a tumultuous situation with his family in the glitzy shallow city of Los Santos. He seems to be well off financially, but is unhappy in his life. Things are rough with his wife Amanda, he doesn't relate to his children, he's in therapy to control his anger and is pretty much drifting in retirement.

Franklin Clinton is a repo-man from the hoods of Los Santos, trying to find a way to make something better of himself then just being some stagnant gang banger. Repoing cars for a shady salesman engaging in credit fraud, Franklin mistakenly tries to steal Micheal's son's new ride. An endeavor that results in Micheal smashing the ride through the dealership window. While not the best first impression, Franklin and Micheal befriend each other.

Things spiral out of control though as Micheal catches his wife cheating on him. He chases the adulterer to an cliff side house with Franklin, and rips the supports to the house down in vengeance. The problem is, it was the wrong house and now the two find themselves in debt to Mexican drug lord Martin Madrazio, who expects to be compensated. So with a 2.5 million dollar tab, Micheal sets out to make money the only way he knows how... The problem is the other survivor of 9 years ago, Trevor Philips, is still out there and if he sees Micheal is alive.... Well...

Micheal                               Franklin                               Trevor 

So here is what I like about this story right off the bat. For once, its not really the traditional GTA tired story line of some low level asshat coming to {insert city} and gets himself wrapped up with {insert gang} until he fights his way up the ladder until he becomes a venerable Scarface.  While its fun to play, its something that has become something of an old tread.

Here we are constantly jumping between three characters. Franklin somewhat represents the "traditional" GTA character as he starts off as the lowly street thug who is trying to get himself up the crime ladder and make some money while he does it. Micheal is more of a throwback to GTA: Vice City's Tommy Vercetti, someone who's been in the crime racket before, but has been out too long. Trevor however, he's basically the character to represent the GTA player. The raving psychopath who's first instincts are the kill someone, steal the car, and use the car to run down pedestrians. Shoot first, ask later, shoot again.

I really like a how this plays out because each character have their own individual stories to follow so I found it very difficult to find myself bored with how the path of any of them went. For example, I found myself using Franklin quite a bit on my first play through, but while Franklin is pretty likable his whole supporting cast is infuriating. His ex girlfriend, his best friend Lamar, his crazy aunt, every single one of the people in his life constantly shit talk him for not wanting to stay poor in the hood, like he has no respect because he wants to better himself.

So you cut from him to say Trevor, and it flashes to him stomping a corpse into the a toilet and screaming obscenities. Suddenly, I'm vested all over again because the 3 characters all seem to bring a completely different change of pace when you switch to them, and they are all equally fun to play. Yet at the same time, when the 3 of them get together they all work well as a foils to each other and have a great dynamic and dialog between the three them.

But not only that, the game itself functions as its own character. I know everyone's first inclination is to jump into the fastest car and just start speeding down the streets and mow down pedestrians. But really? If there is any one game where it is fun to just walk down the street and follow people and listen in on conversations, this really is it. One of my favorite time kills is to follow someone down the street and listen to them slowly freak out about being followed, their walk turning to a brisk power walk, then a near jog, then a full bore sprint as they yank out their phone to call of help.

Aside from the main story missions, they bring out series of "stranger" missions where one of the characters runs across some of the random Los Santos lunatics to give you obscure side missions to do outside of the main story, such as the psychotic fitness buff Mary-Ann or the TMZ spoofing invasive photographer Beverly.

The sad thing is the "heroes" aren't even the craziest people you'll meet.

So I guess I should probably discuss the actual game at some point huh. They made a couple of significant changes to the standard GTA convention this time around. First and most notable we are in the sunny beaches of a fictional Los Angeles, so no more are we stuck with a shitty palettes of dark and light grey, with a liberal helping of brown, tan and black. Now we have vivid sunshine, and lots of brightly colored cars, clothing, and scenery. I would say this is somewhat comparable to the color palette you would have seen in something like Saint's Row 2, for example. 

Which isn't the only thing it borrows somewhat from that franchise. The driving in the game has been scaled back a little bit in terms of realism. Now, we aren't at the Burnout: Revenge style of arcade racing where you can take a 2 mile drive around a bend doing 117 mph, but they realized that the uber-realistic driving of Grand Theft Auto IV may have seemed like a cool idea, but it does take away from the fun somewhat. The cars handle a bit more tightly and less realistic, and all the vehicles can take a lot more punishment than in the previous installments. Some people see this as a weakness, I honestly found it to be much, much better.

The voice acting in this game is incredible. The characters look like their respective voice actors and all three of them completely knock it out of the park. I can't think of a single line of dialog that was delivered in a way that gave me douche chills or even caused me to grimace. The graphics in this game are just as good with the major characters looking about as realistic as the full mo-cap animations can make it look these days. Even the generic NPCs look fantastic as well. Comparing it to Grand Theft Auto 4 the visuals are literally night and day.

I remember the trailers often clamoring about how improved the and revamped the gun controls have gotten in this installment of the game. Someone at Rockstar Games really needs a better understanding of the word "revamped". If you have played any of the previous Grand Theft Auto games, the shooting controls aren't going to throw you a curve ball. If anything, they ape that familiar 3rd person generic control system you have seen in so many other games to date.

There are a few changes though. For on thing, it feels incredibly more polished this time around. If you leave the settings untouched from the start of the game, raising your gun will auto lock on to the nearest possible target. When in firefights, usually a simple flick left or right will immediately jump from one target to another with relative easy. You don't even need to make the slight push upwards for a head shot, if you have an automatic weapon of any kind? The recoil with naturally move you up and bring down your target.

Which isn't to say the shooting mechanics make the game easy. Your players defenses aren't as strong as they used to be in GTA games.  There is a large number of missions where you just get onslaughted with sheer numbers which make firefights pretty hectic. Even with a full set of bullet proof armor if you take a solid round of shots, your ass is gonna be down in seconds.

This is where the the switching mechanic is very helpful. Aside from switching to points in the story, you can jump from character to character mid mission. In the video I've provided you can see that in this mission, I used Franklin as my front line grunt to deal with the majority for the enemies that come after me, switching to Micheal when his higher vantage point allowed me a better shot, and then to Trevor if I needed to hit someone long range or take down a chopper. It's all pretty seamless and really does help to keep the pace of the action up.

All of these polished up features lead Grand Theft Auto V's big selling point. The name of this game is heists. Sporadically through the game you have a series of set up missions leading one big heist where you knock off a store, bank, cargo ship, and so forth. You will organize a team which factors on mission success and the cut you receive. Depending on who it is you choose for jobs, you can walk in and clean sweep a place or you might have the cops on you in a matter of seconds. They are always tense, and probably one favorite aspect of the game.

There are usually a few planning missions before actually undertaking a heist.

The online mode is pretty awesome too, for the most part. Its biggest jarring flaw is that I have to share it with other people. And as we have already established, the Internet is full of asstards who I'd rather see get a prostate exam with a ice cream scoop than share an online game with, but I digress. If you hadn't heard, it has probably one of the worst possible online launches a game could have, but a few week after the release, they seem to have it sorted out.

There is a minor bit of story to the game, where you create your character (which, btw as the worst character creator I've ever used) and arrive in Los Santos where you are greeted by your lifeinvader friend , Lamar. He gives you an introduction to the city and helps you get started with a couple of small missions and races to get your feet wet. You can randomly join almost any game and be invited them as such. But as you level up, you will get calls from the myriad of side characters in the game who will unlock mission options as you progress unlocking more and more content.

Online mode you have access to the whole map from the start. It is friggen HUGE.

The majority of them seem to be fairly standard online fanfare: Races, Death Matches, GTA style missions (get drugs, get away before cops or other players kill you). Things like that, although around level 15, you get a call from Ron and if you go to Trevor's house. Trevor will yell at you about what you are doing and unlock the survival missions. These are basically GTA's take on horde mode. Up to four players and its a fuck'n blast. It was hands down my favorite thing to do in the game so far and probably one of the most profitable. My character has had a significant level increase since I started playing that mode.

There are a handful of downsides to the game though, since no game is perfect in my eyes. First off, what the fuck is the problem with the games industry and their musical tastes?! I was pissing some serious vinegar at Saints Row 4 because they did away with the metal music. I understand there are plenty of different tastes of music, but if you take away a distinct genre to put in 3 different types of the horrible menstruation of the techno genre, then you are taking away variety to cram a music YOU like down the players throat. Thanks asshole.

But GTA V takes it a step even further by not alone getting rid of the metal music, but also getting rid of the hard rock. Their rock station is basically classic rock, and with the exception of "What a Fool Believes" I was displeased with nearly all the music on it. There's an alternative station which is ok, but I find myself gravitating to the pop music since its basically the only stuff I found tolerable. Well that isn't fair, a handful of the rap on West Coast Classics was ok as well.

Although, this usually shouldn't be an issue for me. When I play Grand Theft Auto in almost any incarnation, I head straight for the talk radio to hear Lazlow make a complete ass of himself. He actually appears in the game as a character for once so I was pretty happy to see that, but the talk radio this time around just seemed to be lacking. Nothing really exceptionally hilarious. Much of the TV shows had the same weak effect. The commercials in this game are amazing (I love Pisswasser), but the television and talk radio left a lot to be desired for me.

After almost 15 incarnations of this game, we finally get to see Lazlow.

Considering this is supposed to be larger than any GTA game to come before it, I was actually supervised at all the features of the game that didn't appear in the game. There is no dating mechanic anymore, A lot of the mini games have been removed like shooting pool or playing arcade games. You can still call friends to go hang out, but the options of things you can do leave a bit to be desired. Granted, it does throw in a whole golf and tennis game in there, which is pretty good. So I suppose its a trade off.

The character customization is pretty weak too. There are lots of clothing options available but for each character only a few beard and hair types. Nothing you do affects the body. So you can alter their looks slightly but for the most part they still look they normally do.

Co-op heists are expected with the next DLC update. 

The biggest mistake in my book is probably their biggest selling point. This game is about heists really, and there are only so many of them. Your heist characters get experience as you use them, but there really aren't enough of them to make it relevant. There should be way more heists, if not in the story mode then included in post game. Granted, the game contains a replay feature so you can go back and replay any mission over again to try the other options for your heist, which is still fun. But they could have added like maybe 3 or 4 post game heists you could do after the story and that would have been fine. Here's hoping the addition of heists in online mode appeases this flaw.

I suppose my last complaint, and use that word loosely, is about the story itself. By rolling the dice and giving us 3 characters with 3 different stories to follow along with, it sort of leaves the entire game with no over-arching story that carries us the whole way. For example, that aforementioned character Martin Madrazio sets up what could be a huge arc dealing with Mike and Frank vs the Mexican cartel, but it ends up being sorted out after the first heist. It opens the door to transition to the Trevor story, but that's really how the game moves as a whole, loose plot threat to loose plot thread. Its still fun, but it feels disjointed.

A little bit of various parts of the universe tie into GTA V

But you know what? These are pointless nags on what has proven to be a fantastic experience for me. A few months back I was pretty much ready to lock down The Last of Us as my game of the year. I seriously thought nothing would be as good as that was. I was very, very wrong. I now have legitimate reason for pause because not only did I hammer through Grand Theft Auto V,  I have restarted the story and have been actually playing the online content. That's fuckin' unprecedented for me.  The timeliness of this should speak volumes of my opinion. I'm over a month late on a review because I'm still playing it.

 Even if you aren't a fan of Grand Theft Auto, or you don't care for what it represents, or whatever reason you are concocting not to play it. Rent it, borrow it, buy it, redbox it. Do what you have to do to play this game. We are on the verge of a new console generation a scant few weeks away and Rockstar Games gave this current generation a hell of a parting shot.

Play it. Play it, Play it, Play it. Games like this only come once every few years.

Oh yeah, and you get a psychological evaluation when you finish the game.
Fuck you too, Dr. Friedlander. 

Tales of Xillia (PS3): Familiar, yet Fantastic.

It's been a little over a year since I reviewed Tales of Graces f.  While it wasn't the glowing JRPG review I tend to give these games, in retrospect it was definitely one that I enjoyed. I recommended it to friends often and if I managed to get one person to convert, then I consider that a job well done. 

It was a slow year for JRPGs. Since that review, I played one old and one new Atelier game, two PS2 Persona games.. and.. ugh.... Mugen Souls. So after reading how this game was receive perfect scores in Japan, needless to say I was pretty eager to get my hands on it. Now after a little over a year, we sit down with....

TALES OF XILLIA:(PS3)

Our tale opens up with young Jude Mathis, a med student in the medical college of Fenmont, pursuing his medical degree. An accomplished doctor, he learns from his professor that he is already in line for a job. After covering for his professor's patients, he realizes the professor has gone missing after visiting a nearby military base. Jude is turned away at the base entrance, being told at the professor has already left. Jude is suspicious and starts to leave but as he does so, he spots a mysterious woman walking across the water trying to break into the facility.

The woman identifies herself as Milla Maxwell, and that she is here on mission. Jude follows her into the base and they discover that the military is running tortured experiments to drain the mana from people, including Jude's professor. After watching the professor die in a tube, Jude and Milla battle with a mysterious and psychopathic girl who seemingly is the cause of this. After dispatching her, Milla discovers a giant spyrix weapon called the Lance of Kresnik and tries to complete her mission to destroy it. She summons the 4 greater spirits which causes Jude to realize that she is none other than THE Maxwell, Lord of the Spirits.

However, things go sour as the psychopath returns and activates the weapon, which then beings to drain the mana from the room, and captures the 4 great spirits. Jude and Milla escape but then are pursued by the royal military. With the seemingly random help from a mercenary named Alivn, the three of them escape. With Milla now severely depowered without the four, she decided to return to her shrine to re-summon them so she can destroy the lance, and with Jude as a wanted fugitive he has no better course than to accompany her.

So, it might be a little difficult to give this game a lengthy review because many of the things I said about Tales of Graces f can easily be applied to Tales of Xillia. This franchise of games doesn't deviate much from the main formula but they do make a number of little tweaks to make it feel a bit different. So I will try to hit on changes more than the standards of the game which anyone who has played a Tales game should know by now.

For the first time that I can remember, Tales of Xillia features a dual hero system. Much like Star Ocean 2 back on the PS1, after the initial introduction sections you get to choose which of the two protagonists you wish to follow in Jude and Millia. My first thought was "Hey awesome, I get to see both perspectives." which was quickly followed by "Aww fuck. I'm gonna have to play this game twice in row now?!" RPGs never have short play times.

Although it was a bit of a premature assumption, since this rendition of Tales took me about 45+ hours to get through. Still a pretty meaty game length if you do the extra side quests or post game, but for JRPG and a Tales game specifically that is significantly shorter than I was expecting. perhaps to accommodate for the fact that it wants you to play it twice so you can do the missions with the opposing character's story path. Thanks to the return of the Tales of grade system, you get to customize your new game plus features in your second playthrough which drastically will cut down the playtime. Increased XP, damage, and level retention will make you fly through the game. 

There are two things I'd like to hit on with the story before we move on to the actual game. One? Its nice for once to have a Tales story that doesn't make me feel like a fucking idiot. Tales of games usually tend to have some pretty involving universes which force you to learn their lore and technology. With Vesperia's blastia cores and aer's, or Abyss's seventh phozons, or Legendia's merines, its enough to make you feel like you need an advanced degree in unintelligible rhetoric to follow along. 

Wouldn't be a Tales game without those weird animeish moments.

Thankfully, Xillia's tale is pretty cut and dry: Humans need spirits to cast artes to make life easier and spirits need mana from humans to survive, so they balance in harmony to suit mutual needs. But humans start making spyrix weapons that kill spirits for artes instead of giving them mana, so Millia is out to stop them before the balance is ruined and this influx of powerful weapons causes the nations to go to war. See that? Two sentences and I basically summarized the whole motivations. It is much easier to get immersed when I actually understand what the fuck is going on.

What I don't like however, is something I just noticed in this game. Almost every single Tales game I have played to this point, has had virtually the same story. Always a "Chosen one" and an "unlikely hero", Always two warring nations, always two worlds, always a younger character using a toy as weapon, always some horrible "power of friendship" moment, always some form of the world having its power drained. I might be glossing over these examples somewhat and they may not appear in all of them, but these are fairly common themes seen in nearly every Tales game to some degree. The locations and players change, but the story for the most part doesn't. This really sounds like a negative to be honest it never bothered me all that much. Same dressing on a different salad.

The Tales Of combat system is still one of the most engaging systems in JRPGS.

Now that I'm thinking about it, there are handful of very big jumps in the story that feel like it could have extended game play some. Without spoiling too much there is a part where your heroes split up again, and then in a cutscene it basically goes "hey all this shit happened and now you are here". It happens like 3 times in the game and I feel like it can be pretty jarring. Not enough to make me lost in the story, but enough to make me think "Wait what? When did that happen? Why didn't I play that?". Seems like you could have added a few more hours to the game to make that a bit more seamless. Playing both characters helps a bit, but not as much as I'd like. 

So, getting that out of the way lets get to the meat of the game. I am just gonna say it, the Tales of series has the hands down best core combat mechanic in a JRPG. It's a fast paced, multiplayer, action oriented, active battle system where your direct actions can sway the tide of battle. You can free run and linear move on locked on targets, where you swing your base attacks and use your artes to link up combos for big damage. At first glance it will feel like any of the 3d combat Tales of titles to come before it.

But how it's been altered I feel comes in the layout a bit. The huds are now laid out much like the D-pad instead of just along the bottom. This is intentional for its linking system where you can link up with another character, and they will run support and fight the same enemy with you, each character with their own unique ability such as punching through an enemy block, or recovering you as you deal damage to an enemy. While linked your dealt hits and artes fill a gauge which will allow you to perform a linked attack. Much like say in Chrono Trigger the right arte with the right character will cause them both to team into a big combination attack. Once this gauge maxes out, you can chain together all the linked artes you can execute for big damage.

Always a good idea to figure out who you like to link with, and pick your attacks accordingly
Or, find a partner who best matches up with the attacks you most often use. 

This layout also allows you to to easily switch from one character to another with a single button press. This is something some of the previous Tales games have had, but in this system it feels much simpler and more intuitive. Depending on enemy type or number of them, it was very easy to switch between Jude and Milla to unload the right combo moves to smash my enemies.

It also now includes what I call the "FFX factor." Much like in Final Fantasy X, your whole party moves as a group, so in the heat of battle your reserves are easily available. A quick click of R3 slows down time and allows you to pick who you want to swap out with your d-pad and then pick which of your reserves you want in. Seconds later the two trade places, this is handy if you need to bring in that extra healer, or switch up what magic user you have in the party. Tales games have had fairly similar combat systems in comparison to each other, but this is probably the one I liked the best. 

It's always marveled me how each of these games can have remarkably different sound tracks, yet all manage to sound exactly the same. This has always been a glaring weakness in this franchise in my opinion. Say what you will about some Final Fantasy games, they know how to produce an iconic and memorable soundtrack. I spend all day thinking about it and I probably couldn't hum more than one song from any of the Tales games. Two come to mind, one is a town theme from Tales of Legendia and the other was the theme to Tales of Abyss which isn't even really their song. It was a song called "Karma" by Bump of Chicken.

Graphically, and probably because it focuses a bit on the war between countries, this version of Tales seems to have that more realistic grainy style of graphic to it (as realistic as anime can look anyway), and I'm not entirely sure I care for it. I mean, its not the whole modern shooter pallet of grays and browns, as the game has plenty of colorful scenes and characters. But it feels like a bit of a departure from the cleaner looking and super saturated look that Tales of Graces f  had. Something about Milla's hair seemed off to me too. I don't wanna say the graphics seem dated.... but I don't know.. something just seems off about it.

Some of the characters Mystic Artes get a little out of hand. But so satisfying to land. 

This is also one of the first Tales of games that I can remember that had free camera angle on the world map. Like so many other games you can use the right analog to move the camera around the character, but most often it will be behind you. I didn't notice it at first, but now that I think about it, this is fairly unusual because most of the Tales series uses fixed camera angles that follow the player, usually to show off backgrounds of the locations you visit. Perhaps they went with this style of the costume collectibles you can find along the world map so they can hide them in various places, but I can't think of another Tales that's used it.

In my last Tales review, I made some complaints about the cast being one of the weaker ones in recent memory. This is not the case in Xillia. While there are a few anime sterotypes in this game, there aren't nearly as many as previous. Jude plays reluctant hero, but he's completely lacking in angst for the most part, so he's pretty likable from the word go. Milla plays the fish out of water character, so watching her try to learn how to be human is pretty funny in a lot of scenes. Really I think they only character I didn't like was one of the first villains you meet, Agria.  It's hard to play off the lunatic psychopath without having the voice acting sound hokey, but its usually in short bursts and are not often so its easy to forget.

In addition to the characters being likable, the majority of them are fun to play as well. All of the 4 melee types have lets of different moves that make it easy to pick up and start comboing away at enemies, and even the two magic users (there is technically 4, but two primary) have the right kind moves that make it fun to just hang back and start slinging spells around. This is good for if you are lucky enough to have a friend over, since technically the game can be broken up into 4 player multiplayer. So to have a friend running support with attack magic while you combo away can make fights a lot easier.

But more than anything, there really isn't a lot of angst to go around in this one. Unlike most Final Fantasy titles, the cast is enjoyable and easy to get along with. Aside from one major plot point where one of the leads starts beating people with the angsty stick (something that ends about as quick as it starts{and works in story context}) the majority of the cast is genuinely cheerful and upbeat about their involvement. They have fun little dialog skits like you've seen in previous tales games which flesh out the characters, and none of them come off as particularly grating (sans Teepo, the high pitched voice of the toy).

The traveling skits are back in full force, many of them entertaining.
Some of them, not so much... ugh. Elize's song...

Despite all the changes and additions to the game, it does somehow manage to feel like every other Tales of game that I've played. I suppose that can be seen as a negative, but from where I stand it's really not. I can't think of a Tales game I've played where I had any real negative feelings for. I might not have gotten into poorly translated rom hacks of the older ones, but any localized release I've pretty much fallen in love with.

I actually came up with a realization not to long ago. I grew up with the Final Fantasy franchise from #1 on. and while I found 6, 10, and then 4 to be the best of them, there were a lot more that were good to just ok. I keep faithfully waiting for Squenix to get it right and dish me out a new awesome Final Fantasy game. You know what series I'm not doing that with? Tales. Every one of these games has provided me a solid 60-80+ hours of play with minimal to no disappointment, a fairly frequent release schedule, and are consistently exceptional.

Which is why I've started to realize that I think the Tales of franchise has surpassed Final Fantasy. It feels weird to say because I've been such an avid follower of that series (and will continue to be), yet I see this series kind of get the brushoff because of is heavy anime influence, yet I can't think of another series that has provided me with such consistent satisfaction. If you are one of those people who feel that the Final Fantasy series has been letting you down for the past 12 years, then I invite you to give Tales of Xillia a try. It has been doing a fantastic job of scratching my JRPG itch and I think it will for you too.  Give it a shot, you'll be glad you did.

They still fucking rinse you on DLC costumes though...
5 bucks a head? Fuck you.

Saints Row 4 (XB360): Grand Theft Clone No More.

There are few games that surprised me as much as the Saints Row franchise did. I started with 2, and what I originally though to be just some cheap Grand Theft Auto knockoff, it actually provided me with a much more entertaining gun combat system, and had some really incredible moments. I felt kinda lukewarm towards 3 until the end when I realized how much fun I was actually having. Since then, I've been all in with this series, and the newest installment seems be even more ridiculous than the last..

SAINTS ROW IV: (XB360)

The legacy of the 3rd Street Saints picks up where we left off shortly after the events of Saints Row: The Third. After saving Shaundi and stopping S.T.A.G from wiping out the Saints, the military antagonist Cyrus has defected and acquired a nuke to attack the United States in the hope of wiping out the Saints so America could be rebuilt. After a very Call of Duty: Black Ops style infiltration, you thwart Cyrus and stop the missile. This wins you the favor of the American people which results in the leader of the Saints getting elected president. 

Although there is trouble in paradise as the administration isn't exactly doing well with staying in good favor with the American people. They are slipping in approval, and there is murmuring amongst the saints there might be an attack. As the President approaches a press conference, aliens called the Zin Empire led by their leader Zinyak attack earth, and kidnap the brightest minds the world has to offer. Naturally, the Saint leader responds as they always do, by unloading massive amounts of bullets on them.

The attack however, is a futile attempt as they are easily grounded. Now captured by Zinyak, the player is now trapped and tortured in a Zin simulation of the city of Steelport, and the leader has to fight his way out, save his crew, defeat Zinyak, and save the earth.

Well then. Nice of Saints Row 4 to give us a whole mission before going completely batshit crazy on us. For a minute there I thought it was going to try to pace itself. Silly me. Really though, this actually in a bizarre way kind of comes off as the next logical step for the franchise as a whole.

When Saints Row started, it was basically a clear cut Grand Theft Auto clone, through and through. Saints Row 2 mixed things up by still being clone, but started branch with crazy side missions that seemed bizarre but still within the realm of reality. Saints Row: The Third basically becomes completely unglued, as now your influence and assets allows you to create wanton destruction at whim, but still produced a fun experience.

So now we get to Saints Row 4. Pretty much every aspect of any realistic angle has been tapped, so how does the series push it self further into ludicrousness? You place them into a scenario where you are able to bend realism. By placing the player into a "simulation" this allows the characters basically it removes any limits the game might construct for you. We basically dive into the deep end of the comic spectrum.

This is done incredibly quickly too. Inside of 3 or 4 missions, you earn super speed. This basically does away with any need to ride in a vehicle, ever, at all. Not much long after that, you get a super jump which basically unlocks the entirety of the map for you. As you play through, you start to get extra powers such as Power stomp, freeze blast and others that makes taking down fodder enemies a snap. Game that has always kinda hinged on driving now no longer needs it.

Super Dash, Super Jump, Glide = Sandbox transportation perfection.

If I could best describe it, it plays similar to a Saints Row version of the matrix as far as story is concerned for the most part. And honestly? I am totally OK with that. I can see some people becoming detached with now the hard break with realism, but this is exactly what this game needed to break out of the rut of becoming just another sandbox clone. I've heard the comparison to Prototype or Infamous, and its a fair comparison.

But it actually is a bit more than that. Saint's Row has now come to completely embrace the notion that they are a parody of another game. More so than that now, as they go out of the way to parody a number of other games. As you play along the story, the game will break into missions where it changes the genre of game. Most of the time, its the same Saint's Row you know.

But out of the blue you will be making selections in a Text Adventure, or the aforementioned beginning which gives a very big call of duty vibe. Later in the game you have to go through mission that directly apes the Metal Gear Solid. One of the last ones is a side scrolling street brawler. As if it wasn't goofy enough, the characters actually address that these play out as video game parodies, kinda breaking the 4th wall a bit. I found it to be pretty entertaining.

Fun side note if you didn't catch it. If it wasn't exactly the same, this scene plays
a very similar rendition of the Metroid theme from back on the original nintendo.

There are a handful of shortcomings though. First off, fuck you Volition Games for getting rid of the metal music. Yeah you aren't in the car for very long in this game, but the fact that ALL the metal basically got dropped for dubstep and electronica bothers me. It used to cater to a wide palette of musical tastes. Now its just trying to cram dubstep down my throat. Fuck you. The music in this game I thought was not as good as previous installments, but I guess its a moot point since you will barely be in a vehicle.

It also somehow manages to feel like a copy paste job from Saints Row: The Third despite all the new mechanics. The graphics are pretty much unchanged, the location is basically the same sans a few sci-fi additions, and the most of the missions are retreads of the same missions we've done in the previous games, just with new ways to do them. Its not bad, its just kinda samey. You would figure if the idea in this one was to give you superpowers, you'd be motivated to rely more solely on them then to use them sparingly with the guns you've been using for 3 games.

Mayhem: The vehicle is different, yet at the same time nothing has changed. 

How the story is implemented is kinda bleh for me too. In the Grand Theft Auto style you go to a checkpoint on the screen and it triggers the story event for that moment. In previous Saints Row titles, you would make a call to start the story segment, move to the unlocked checkpoint and get your story cutscene. In Saints Row 4 now you just seem to do missions from a checklist with a minimal montage about it. It feels kinda cut down and I don't as much care for it.

The whole romancing aspect of the game is kinda pointlessly thrown in too. They give the idea like it gives you the option of dating characters, but it basically boils down to "Do you want to fuck: Yes or no." There is no story or build up, you can do it to pretty much any party member without repercussion, and really there is no point to doing it. the whole thing just feels thrown in.

Always liked Kinzie, but she hates vintage... That's a disappointment. 

But that's not to say the cutscenes you get are bad. Surprisingly, this game does a pretty good job of splicing together all the previous games stories into one lose end tying mash-up. It might be polarizing for some people, but personally I liked it a lot because it finally addressed some things with certain characters.

To spoil one bit (because fuck you) when you are doing your mission to rescue Shaundi from the simulation, at on point you replay a previous Shaundi rescue from Saints Row 2. In it, the simulation allows Shaundi to split into two halves and confront each other for how they turned out. While of course not at all in the realm of reality, I really liked getting a little bit of exposition for why she changed so much and watching the confrontation between the two personalities. Used different voice actors for each, which I thought was weird. You can find part of this mission in the video below.

A Shaundi of two worlds.

In addition to things like this, there are also a number of audio logs that can be found throughout the world map as collectibles that flesh out some of the other characters internal monologues that characterize all their motivations as they play 2nd fiddle to the player character. I like them, but honestly these could have been used to really flesh out the games story more, perhaps used in offshoot titles. This entire game really serves as a means to tie up the stories for the entire series, bringing in characters from each version of the game.

One other fun side story note, as per usual the Saints Row series offers a ridiculous amount of customization to your character, so it was naturally easy to reproduce the digital version of myself in game. They added a whole bunch of new costume and clothing selections in addition to a number of the Saints Row: The Third mainstays, but one change I noticed more than any was in the voice acting section.

Most of the voices from 3 return in 4 as just generic Male/Female 1, 2, and 3. But one is actually billed with their name: Nolan North. Yep, that Nolan North, Nathan Drake himself. Funny that he's in the same game as Troy Baker because I felt those two sound the same. But unlike the rest of the stock voice, Nolan has a large number of ad-libs that make him a different experience. Nolan actually plays the character as if he is playing as himself. This to me opened a reason for an alternate playthough because his dialogs are often different, and very entertaining.

So the real question here is, does the detachment form reality make Saints Row better? I think it does. All I could think while I was playing is that this game is so not a GTA clone anymore. After minutes of super jumping and gliding around, and running up the sides of buildings to skim from collectible to collectible, I quickly lost track of the hours as I continued to uber my character.

The Dubstep Gun. IE: The gun I won't use on principal.

The game wasn't exactly a pushover either, even with all these ridiculous new powers the waves and waves of fodder enemies took a bit of finesse to take down. I really think that Saints Row 3 and 4 have one of the best gun combat systems in a game, and the addition of the super powers adds a different level of fun to how they are used. It allowed me to come up with new strategies for taking down a big group of baddies.

There is gonna be a hard shift from the the people who liked the game for being grounded in realism. Well, as grounded in realism as Saint's Row can be. But in completely bulldozing that idea to shift completely over to a comic book style of game I feel is exactly what this game needed to continue to be relevant. While it does feel like a tad of an expansion of Saint's Row: The Third it does more than enough to give me another 30+ hours of entertainment.

And in addition to the new mechanics it brings, it also does a pretty good job of tying up some loose ends, explaining some back stories, and really kind of brings together all three games into one tightly packed adventure. I was very pleased with Saint's Row 4. I might actually venture to say that its the best in the series. Highly recommended, totally worth the 60 bucks.

Was a little disappointed the 50's outfits weren't unlockable, though.