Saints Row IV review


Saints Row IV (360) Neo had nothing on this


With under a month to go before the release of Grand Theft Auto V can its less serious rival clean up with its most outrageous adventure yet?


Saints Row IV is stupid. Its jokes are hit and miss, it suffers from terrible production values, and none of its gameplay elements stand up to close scrutiny. And yet somehow, despite all its manifest faults, it works. Like an inconsistent sketch show you forgive the many failures simply because the successes are so much more memorable and unexpected. Saints Row IV gets away with a lot and that's one of its most endearing qualities.


When the Saints Row series first started out it was a very straightforward Grand Theft Auto clone. Its two main selling points were that it had much better controls than Rockstar's games, particularly in terms of combat, and a character creation tool of unusual complexity. There was very little humour in the first game, and even the second played things relatively straight even as it started [url=http://www.giantsnflofficialauthentic.com/authentic-weston-richburg-jersey.... Richburg Jersey to stray into Michael Bay style action movie implausibility.


But it was with Saints Row: The Third that it finished its transformation into something far more than just an open world gangster simulator. But despite the people cannons, sci fi jet planes, and the obvious desire to seem as outrageous as possible it still seemed to be pulling its punches afraid to take that final step into completely absurdity. That step has now been taken.


With original publisher THQ having gone to the great bargain bin in the sky this is the first Saints Row to be published by new owners Deep Silver, who also acquired original developer Volition. The change in management makes little difference though, especially as Saints Row IV was been underway for some time and even before THQ's demise was upgraded from an expansion pack to a numbered sequel.


The rather unlikely plot for the game is that the main character has been elected president of the US and following an alien invasion he and his gang are kidnapped and placed in a virtual reality world where they have Matrix style superpowers. This is all played strictly for laughs, although the obvious problem is that (and we apologise if this makes you feel old) The Matrix is over a decade old at this point and a parody is about as timely as the Southeastern train service.


There's also the problem that by giving you so many powers and abilities it's very hard for the game to throw up any kind of satisfying challenge. As repetitive as the third person shooting became in the last game it's now almost entirely redundant, as you shoot fireballs and leap tall buildings with a single bound.


And when you're forced back into the real world, with no superpowers, suddenly all the game's other toys such as a giant robot suit very obviously repurposed from Red Faction: Guerrilla seem feeble by comparison.


Saints Row IV (360) bring the (purple) rain


The city of Steelport wasn't very interesting the first time round and although now you can throw cars along its streets, rather than having to just drive them, the layout and design is no more thrilling as a result.


Saints Row's art design has also always been weak, as if everything has just been thrown into the game from some cheap clipart library. Add in some continuing technical problems, especially with the frame rate, and it's obvious that the change of publisher has done nothing to improve the game's budget.


Not that Volition should get off the hook entirely though as their approach to mission design is still as unimaginative as ever and as amusing as the set up may be too often you just end up having to kill waves of brain dead bad guys as they swarm towards you. Something that becomes especially obvious towards the end of the game.


Saints Row IV is bloated and sloppy but its absolute refusal to take itself seriously is reason enough to recommend it in these of days of morosely serious real world simulations. Not only that but the game's co op options remain far more advanced than most other open world games and its character customisation tool is still the best in the business.


And although there are more misses than hits some of the jokes certainly do work. Having to rescue your gang members from a 1960s sitcom world, with the judicious use of a dubstep gun, or from a parody of Splinter Cell is genuinely funny and worth the elaborate set up.


In fact it's the closest thing yet to a proper video game parody, in that it dares to take pot shots at specific games and tropes with some especially meta ones aimed at Mass Effect's melodramatic romance options, given that it's the same voice actor involved in both games. However, it's debatable whether the various gameplay mechanics stolen from Crackdown and Prototype are parodies, homages, or straight up steals.


In the end Saints Row IV feels like one of the lesser Zucker Abrahams parody films, throwing as much as possible at the screen and hoping some of the jokes stick. When it works Saints Row IV is hilarious but at other times it's too ordinary an experience than its absurd set up should allow.


In Short: Unsophisticated and sloppily made but there's a heart of gold beneath the game's erratic exterior, as it successfully skewers some of gaming's more pompous franchises.


Pros: The most successfully funny Saints Row so far, with some razor sharp parodies of other games. The utter lack of realism or plausibility is very refreshing.


Cons: The gameplay and visuals are as unremarkable as ever and Steelport itself was dull the first time around. The hit to miss ratio of the jokes is still very low.


Formats: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PlayStation 3, and PC


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