REVIEW: Saints Row IV

I have always had a soft spot for the Saints Row series. The humour is never going to feature in a TED talk, but it has always made me laugh, and the games provide a really nice lighthearted alternative to more hardcore options like Call of Duty or (the obvious comparator) GTA.

I jumped into Saints Row 4, full of excitement -but that elation quickly turned to concern. One of the main features of the series has always just how over-the-top it is. Having said that, this game starts with you (‘The Boss’) as… the President of the USA. Yep, the Saints now run the White House.
…and we’ve not got the crazy part yet.
No, that comes when in the opening scene the White House becomes the focal point of an Alien Invasion.

All of this together this was pretty mental, even by Saints Row standards. My next problem came in that in the first few hours nothing felt different to the previous games. I was actually coming close to writing the whole thing off as a punchline looking for a joke. What became apparent as I played on was that the prologue was not a touch on the main game, and what was to come was a lightyear ahead of anything that has been delivered by the series previously.

Immediately after the alien invasion you are abducted and your consciousness is transferred to a computer simulation of Steelport. At the same time, your body is being held in a goopy chamber than makes up part of a giant bioelectric battery.

You begin in the usual Saints Row manner, stealing cars and beating people up with dildos. However, soon the gameplay develops in line with you coming to grips with the simulation. This is helped by the fact that 2 of the Saints have already (inexplicably) escaped from the human slime-prison and are living in a spaceship, hacking the simulation from the outside.

Kinzie in particular uses her computer skills to hack the simulation as you progress. You can help her along by completing side quests such as unlocking towers and beacons, collecting databytes around the map and defeating bosses. In response to this Kinzie slowly manages to provide you with more ways to break the rules. In practice, this means as you go on you learn how to run with super-speed, leap tall buildings in a single bound and use elemental attacks.

Sounding familiar so far? Yeah, it’s the Matrix. It doesn’t pretend its anything else.

Saints Row 4 is a pastiche of the Matrix in the same way Saints Row 2 sent up GTA 3. The crazy thing is, this game ends up being the best video game adaptation of the matrix I’ve ever played. As you progress, unlock new powers and develop your skills, you get an incredible sense of power. You genuinely go from the ‘thug on the street’ feeling of Saints Row 2 & 3, to feeling like a superhero. In fact, the style of play along with the powers and skills makes this feel like a more fun and light-hearted version of PS4 smash hit InFamous: Second Son.

Added to that is the Saints Row staple sense of humour. It is base, and crude, and has me regularly laughing out loud. The self-referential ridiculousness mixed in with constant pop-culture references keeps the game flowing and never lets it feel too stilted or dull. This is helped along by the fact that, beyond the main and side quests, there are a huge range of options for collecting and customising.

You can totally customise your character any way you want, with an insane range of haircuts, various voices and body options to choose from. You can then dress him or her up in whatever style takes your fancy, from hipster causal to bondage gear (or, obviously, full Matrix get-up) using the different shops scattered around the map.

You also have access to a full arsenal with which to arm yourself. You can go classic and sport twin desert eagles or an AK47, or you can treat yourself to the more ‘exotic’ options on offer. Its not just about beating people with dildos anymore. No, now you are able to physically insert an anal probe into your enemy of choice and then shoot them like a firework into the stratosphere.

Likewise, you can use the dubstep gun to turn any combat zone into a Michael Jackson video, or the ‘Murica -which is basically a large assortment of guns and knives strapped together to make one giant crowd destroying superweapon.

You are also given the option to ‘pimp your ride’ and customise the wide selection of cars to your heart’s content, as well as some nifty aircraft to play with.

I cant talk too much about the plot, because it just bounces from one crazy twist to the next, and talking about it will just spoil the effect for you. Just know it takes you through a series of film pastiches including references to Tron, Robocop, Blade Runner, Ghostbusters and more.

The nice thing about this Xbox One remastering is that it comes complete with all weapon and content DLC, as well as expansions ‘Gat out of Hell’ and ‘Enter the Dominatrix’.

Gat out of Hell (as the name suggests) sees the boss of the 5th Street Saints attempting to save their soul from hell …and get out of an arranged marriage with Satan’s daughter. In doing so we discover that Ultior has a branch office in Hell and so we end up on an underworld rampage that focusses the laughs on myths, literature and video games. It starts with a Ouija board on board a spaces ship and soon sees full flight abilities, talking guns and …a musical number.

Enter the Dominatrix goes full mental (because everything up to this point is out of a physics text book) and sees the Simulation Steelport AI being replaced by a rogue dominatrix AI that wants to ‘bend the Boss to her will’ (in every possible meaning of the phrase). However, the story is told as a retrospective documentary framing the Saints as having been staring in one giant film, with each mission being narrated by the characters as different scenes.

A favourite moment for me was starting a mission to take Shaundi to various places on the map only for one of the Saints to ‘pause’ the game and interrupt with “ahh, yeah, man I remember this mission. Escorting Shaundi here there and everywhere. Protecting her while we wait. Man escort missions are so boring…” and ‘fast forwarding’ to the next mission.

Saints Row 4 is loud, brash, crazy and hilarious. You aren’t going to walk away from this having had a life changing experience, but you will have had a bloody good laugh.

If you are a fan of the series, or even if you are just looking for a change of pace from the usual hard nosed shooters and dragon slaying, this is well worth giving a go. Better than that, the fact this comes brimming with so much content makes it a real bargain.