Saints Row IV

Saints Row is a series I adore and they seemed to get better with every installment. The fourth game is the peak in wacky and enjoyable.

The addition of superpowers is just silly, in a good way, and every completed quest feels worthwhile. The only catch is the superpowers makes the game a little too easy at times, obliterating any opposition once everything is attained.

The story is equally fruit loop, taking pot shots at famous media of past and present. A blast from start to finish.

In my opinion the Saints Row games are some of the best games available on any format. They have great gameplay that is SO much fun it's difficult to put the controller down!!! Looking forward to Saints Row 5!

Dunno what the other reviewer was talking about but this game has the whole GTA feel (unashamedly) with a mix of Prototype, Venom, and Infamous (also unashamedly) thrown in for good measure. Nothing is sacred and everything is up for ridicule - and ridiculous - with this timeless gem. Amd that's the beaitty of it. I've played it numerous times to completion and it never gets old. There's a reason they remade it for the PS4 and made the DLC so extensive - gamer demand. Easily one of the funniest and well-acted games I've played as well. Boasting a cast with the likes of Daniel Dae Kim, Keith David, Terry Crews and, of all people, Roddy Piper, what's not to like? Pick it up used from Game Stop for 10 bucks and enjoy.

The ridiculous fun of the series comes to a crescendo in this superhero romp. The game makes good use of the map from the previous game, with enough changes to keep it from seeming stale. Adding super powers speeds up the game-play and helps avoid the dull commutes that mar many sandbox titles. Again the story and characters are funny, which is rare in most games. I would recommend playing Saints Row 3 before you tackle this one as they're deeply linked but be sure to add this one to your wish-list.

Saints Row IV tries to expand on its predecessor by adding new content, new types of missions, new mechanics but keeping too much of everything else as it was.

It seems too generous to call IV a separate game, since it's pretty much more of the same. There are some additions, mostly to do with plot devices and gameplay. Notably, superhuman abilities make things feel more like Prototype than SR3 and add a different layer to moving through the city. Other than that, the action still revolves mainly around driving and shooting, both core mechanics that get ironically dropped to the background since no one wants to shoot a gun when they can throw a fireball or take a joyride when they can run like The Flash.

The fourth installment in the franchise doesn't really add anything incredibly innovative to the table, but if you enjoyed Saints Row: The Third, you can think of this as one huge DLC. The question you need to ask yourself is if you're willing to pay full value for a game that's pretty much identical to its predecessor plus some gimmicky features.

Sure. The main storyline is still whacky, fun to play through and mission design is as good as ever, but sidemissions (which still make about 75% of the content, mind you) get extremely repetitive after a while, as they did in SR3. On the other hand, there's now a cooperative mode and some co-op-only missions that might add some fun if you have a buddy to team up with.

There are also other, somewhat minor imperfections like texture popping due to the old engine not having been fully upgraded to handle the now large-scale movement, graphical glitches, subtitles not matching the script at all and the occasional crash. Mostly, they're not a huge deal but do give out a very unpolished and unfinished feel to what should be a platinum game.

As a final note, there are many references to the previous games in the series, so, if you're a hardcore fan, you might get off on the nostalgia of seeing some old characters make a reappearance.

The bottom line is Saints Row IV trying to cash in on what made Saints Row: The Third great, adding a Matrix-esque twist on gameplay but in the end not having enough substance to warrant paying 50 bucks for something that's pretty much a modded version of the previous game.