Release Date: 12/9/2013
Genre: Action Adventure
Publisher: Deep Silver
Developer: Volition Inc.
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Players: 1 or 2 Co-op and multiplayer.
Classification: R for REFUSED (in Australia)
When the infamous
Saints
Row the Third was released there were a lot of people asking how
Volition was ever
going to top the semi controlled chaos that was the storyline and the gameplay, but now they’re saying that again about the latest installment.
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| Part of the cast from Saints Row IV from left to right: The Boss, Pierce Washington, Shaundi, Matt Miller, Kinzie and Asha Odekar |
Having not played the original two Saints Row games I found
Saints Row the Third one of the most enjoyable games I have played in awhile, I
rightly considered it a fun alternative to the sometimes tedious realism that
the Grand Theft Auto series creates and does well of course but sometimes you
just need to let loose, and I mean hanging off choppers while shooting a rocket
launcher then parachuting onto the top of a skyscraper then falling off that or
shooting people dressed in animal costumes in a game show entitled “Professor
Genki’s Murder Time Fun Time”. So because of that you could in all regards view
Saints Row the third as a wacky brother to GTA but the next in the series
shakes this theory up quite a bit.
 |
| Oh yep, that's a big ship alright. |
Without spoiling too much yes this time around the leader of
3
Rd Street Saints (aka you) gains presidency of the United States
after stopping a nuclear missile from exploding the country, then the Earth
gets attacked by Aliens and you have to stop them. This was a bit of a drastic
step as I thought as the Saints Row series could have possibly gone from a
humble street gang to taking over two cities to taking over the whole of the
United states in this installment rather than you being president right from the
start then a out-of-nowhere alien invasion. So I guess I feel like they kind of
went a bit further then they should but who knows really there will always be
way to go in the future, not to mention prequels everyone loves prequels even
if it’s going over past game content, actually wait. The usual Saints Row wit
and flair is there obviously, the white house seems more like a party house
with MP’s drinking beer and watching strippers dance on poles installed in the
rooms, on your walk through the halls of congress you get stopped by Keith
David with two documents and you shortly have to decide whether to end world
hunger or cure cancer, gawd, I was playing it at a lan at that point at was so
concerned that I had to walk outside and ask people their advice on my
decision,
how democratically-minded of me.
 |
| Being the president means making difficult decisions. |
Saints
Row IV was originally intended to be an expansion for the previous game but
then changed so that it was a full sequel. This does mean that the graphics
have not exactly changed much since the last installment but in my view the
graphics were fine to begin with, not super trying to be realistic but not
poor-looking either. Also the quality of the graphics is far less a topic of
conversation than the eye candy on offer, the city of Steelport is pretty much
the same as it was before but the inclusion of the alien buildings and ships
and also the interior of the Alien vessels look pretty cool, not to mention the
massive alien ship hovering over the centre of the city, though the ship which
acts as your home when you’re not in the simulation does look kind of bland. As
the city is supposed to be a “computer simulation” of itself you do notice many
things that denote that for example there are matrix references with the water
and parts of the landscape and buildings turning into 1’s and zero’s on certain
occasions and cars and people sometimes ‘bug out’ by flipping around or the
models suddenly twisting into wrong sizes and contorted shapes. The city is
still as fully functioning as it was in the previous game with normal
‘simulated’ inhabitants etc the major changes are all the statues, billboards,
posters, some stores and general signs and advertisements are all changed to a
general theme of fear and submission by the alien invaders and their leader,
the main antagonist Zinyak.
 |
| Looks like something from an Orson Welles film |
Probably the most drastic change in the gameplay is the way
you move around the city right from the start in this new simulation you are
given superpowers that allow you to sprint faster than cars and jump as tall as
houses and small buildings this along with other powers that you receive over
time that help you move around such as wall jumping/running and air “dashing”
and gliding quickly makes using actual vehicles seem pointless, even more
pointless by the fact that to upgrade these powers you need to collect data
clusters which are scattered throughout the city that you can spend as a
currency for upgrading your current powers and when you acquire new ones
through doing the story missions. Collecting these is heaps of fun and you jump
and glide and dash across the city and even at the start where your power
aren’t that good it’s much more practical and rewarding to jump and sprint
across the landscape collecting data clusters to get better powers then driving
a fast car there for the sake of efficiency which will be made redundant when
you get better powers anyway. As you progress you unlock more powers such as
the ability to throw energy blasts and objects around with telekinesis and one
of my personal favourites is the ability to charge down to the ground from
above superman style and create a huge shockwave.
 |
| Gliding through the air, probably my favorite thing to do in the game, you can see some data clusters on the top of those smokestacks. |
A feature that has made a return from the previous game is
your “hub” which now instead of it being your phone is now just a hub where you
access things like the map, your ‘quests’, your normal and power upgrades menu,
ability to phone homies etc and your money laundering account is now your
‘cache’ but works relatively the same way. Basically most of the hub menu
features have returned including the upgrades menu where you can upgrade your
health/stamina/weapons/homies etc and you can also increase your strength i.e.
the power of your punches and how far you can throw people. The character
creation is a bit less extravagant this time but you can still go pretty crazy
I just tried out the randomizer a few times then managed to come up with a guy
who I think looked exactly like my character from the previous game when I gave
him the “clean cut” haircut he had before which was kind of weird though I
don’t remember him having eyes that big, but meh there’s your usual array of
modifiers so you can create your own crazy avatar. The simulation of the city
of Steelport basically has basically the exact same layout and shops inc
plastic surgery, tattoos, street and fetish clothes etc
as before though the Saints hideouts have
been removed and the “Planet Saints” shops have been changed to “Planet Zin”
though you can still get all the regular saints gear from there. I was going to
go my usual jeans, skate shoes, trilby and purple dressing gown but decided to
go with a jacket, shirt and tie this time being the president and all and it
worked quite well, I didn’t really experiment much with clothes after that I
just go with what works really.
Even with having all these awesome powers I was still
interested in seeing what was to offer with the
weapons as
I’d heard of some of the Alien weapons inc the
Abducto-matic and the
Inflato-Ray.
You do use the Alien weapons throughout the story mode and they are ok I spose,
there is an alien version of each type of weapon but I decided I’d go with
regular weapons since I’m a human fighting aliens though because most of these
weapons were from the previous game though I went with the police versions of
each rather than the gangster versions I had used before. There are 7
categories of weapons inc Melee, Pistols, SMG’s, Shotguns, Rifles, Explosives
and Special, each category has different sub classes i.e. semi automatic and
pump-action shotguns and each sub-category has various models of itself for
example a water pistol model for a rifle. This makes quite a large selection of
weapons available not to mention the new special weapons which aside from the
usual flamethrowers and grenade launchers there is the addition of the Lasergun
and Minethrower arms used by Alien enemies. Though my most favourite
weapon would no doubt be the infamous
Dubstep
Gun as not only does the gun fire “wub” blasts to the beat of the song it
plays, these blasts can also be upgraded to explode creating massive damage,
this gun uses no ammo but requires a charge to fire and pedestrians dance to
the music when firing, seriously what could be better?
I was also thinking whether I would use the car shop again
and I did right at the start to create my little smartcar that I loved so much
from the previous game in the Saints Row style but realised almost immediately
after that that I shouldn’t have wasted so much money as I wasn’t going to need
a car at all, and even if I did need a car you get that many vehicles to use in
your garage (inc flying vehicles) for free from doing the story missions so
that using the save-a-car system is a novelty thing at best. Also now when you
dial-a-car from your hub it just warps you straight into it so there’s another
thing about vehicles that has been automated. Apart from the new alien vehicles
(and some new city vehicles) everything is pretty much the same as before and
as you do various missions you unlock new Alien and novelty vehicles mostly
from the previous game which have little or no significance for this one. I can
honestly say that the vehicles are really in this just for looks, for you at
least.
 |
| I'll say it, these things are really OP |
The gameplay works in a very similar manner to the previous
game, in the simulation you have “entry/exit points” rather than hideouts that
let you go to and from the Zin ship you have stolen. The activities are
different this time around with the exception of Tank Destruction and Fraud
which has become much easier now with the ability to launch yourself high in
the air, the activities mostly revolve around using your superpowers which
include super sprinting across a mapped course and a simulated racetrack
dodging barriers
Battletoads style,
jumping and running up tower platforms, using your telekinesis to hurl objects
in a new Professor Genki game as well as the Genki superpower showdown which is
like some sort of super power WWE style wrestling match. As I mentioned before
there are lots of data clusters for upgrading your powers scattered around the
world and sometimes you need to use powers like telekinesis and super stomp in
order to get at them, there is also statues of Zinyak to destroy and various
audio logs which contain quotes from the characters.
 |
| Professor Genki's M.O.M, where you must pick up and throw the correct objects which is either humans, cars or Genki heads into the correct spinning hoops. |
The sound and music in Saints Row is excellently
over-the-top, the pulsating beats and pounding dubstep soundtrack to the game
menu mixes well with the classical music remixes and I was more than often
physically dancing to some of them, especially
this one. The game
includes a small range of radio stations with fully licensed songs, some of
which are used to great effect in story missions especially Haddaway’s
What is Love during a
scene when you’re flying the ship. As I mentioned before because it’s almost
unnecessary to drive vehicles Volition decided that because you spent the
majority of your time in the simulation they have made it so you can listen to
the radio while on foot, and this actually creates some great moments where
you’re shooting up enemies to
Blur’s
‘Song 2’ or flying a helicopter to ‘Flight of the Valkyries’. Probably my most
favourite station is the Klassik 102.4 which is interestingly hosted by Zinyak
himself, this station has lots of great classics my favourite being Jacques
Offenbach’s,
Orpheus in
the Underworld: Infernal Gallop which creates a hilarious soundtrack when
doing anything really. The voice acting in Saints Row is great, I liked the
first male voice and I love making a character that fits it so well, there’s
some interesting celebrities in some of the cameo roles.
 |
| What is love! baby don't hurt me.... |
There have been many games that have
stirred
controversy over the years and the
Saints Row series
is today’s prime example. The game was refused classification in Australia due
to the
Rectifier Probe
weapon (which was removed from the game) and the “Girls night out” mission
where Shaundi and the player consume alien drugs and receive superpowers, this
though was still in the game, the one I played at least. Though this was minor
in my view, though the game has a large focus on sex and sleaze and there is
plenty of scantily clad women around though there is no actual on screen sex,
you can have sex with any of your ‘crew members’ aboard the ship (this is amusingly referred to as "romancing your crew member") and this is obviously off screen. A few times
throughout the game I noticed that they would have been a bit more enjoyable
playing as a female character and after I had finished the game I did start out
with one just to quickly see the differences, it’s an invigorating way to play the
game if anything though it’s a real change to the way I usually play.
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| The banned rectifier probe (pictured with another classy looking melee weapon), I don't have a screenshot of how it works but you get the idea. I don't know about you but I prefer the lazer samurai sword. |
I enjoyed my pants off (not literally) of Saints Row IV
there was just something so exhilarating and free of bounding, gliding and
zooming over the landscape, the story is heaps on fun to play and each mission
no matter what type of thing it is parodying there’s always that sense of
Saints Row wit and flair. The game does have a bit of the GTA syndrome that
when you do finish the story mode there’s little to do (challenges) etc though
you can re-do almost any mission you like (to an extent). This series
represents some of the best things gaming has to offer, chaos, freedom and fun
and that’s what it’s all about.
JD
Free as a flying
squirrel.
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