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.