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Saints Row IV Spoiler-free Review
First Impressions
I jumped into the Saints Row IV Preview originally after only reading IdolNinja's article after his visit to Volition - purposefully not knowing what to expect. It's no secret that I found parts of Saints Row: The Third a bit underwhelming compared to Saints Row 2. The preview covered a good chunk of open world gameplay, along with the first 6 story missions - and I loved what I found. Now with a chance to play the press build (which should be representative of the final game), I can say: It's fun, you should buy it.
The open world gameplay is similar but there's a lot more activities than in the Preview, the missions I saw are only a small proportion of the story and I can say that this game will keep a fan happy. It is not a perfect game, but for me it is a big improvement over Saints Row: The Third.
Fans of the previous games
I spent a while trying to work out which previous game in the series this game resembles the most. Obviously there's some carry over from Saints Row: The Third (especially the game world), but the game feels quite different. Personally I find that it's an improvement but if you are expecting a clone of Saints Row 2 or Saints Row: The Third, Saints Row IV is not that game. Saints Row IV takes a good chunk of the over-the-top elements from Saints Row: The Third, but the more serious parts of the story feel more like the older games - however it is not a return to the style of Saints Row 2 or Saints Row.
Story
I'm not going to mention any plot points or characters (as this review is spoiler-free!). What I will say is this: Saints Row and Saints Row 2 had more involved stories than Saints Row: The Third. Saints Row IV is a return to more involved storytelling. It's not the same as Saints Row 2 or SR - it is definitely a unique over-the-top style but there is story there and it is good..
Missions
Again, I'm not going to mention any plot points or characters.
I counted about 20 to 25 main story missions (not counting optional sidequests or activities or the few tutorial missions at the very start) and I'm glad to say that unlike Saints Row: The Third, activities are not used throughout the game to fill in for story missions! The story missions are unique missions with some great set pieces and varied gameplay - and there are some sidequests with great plot too. There were a lot of moments that had me laughing out loud and some truely awesome and memorable moments.
The rest of the side-quests are basically a chain of activities or diversions - these typically grant unlocks of some sort - weapons, customisation options, super-power bonuses and more.
Each homie has a couple of missions pretty much dedicated to them including a unique loyalty mission for each major character. These loyalty missions are some of the best missions in the game - and entirely optional - do not skip them or you are missing some of the best parts of the game!
I enjoyed the missions much more than Saints Row: The Third, and I felt that there was more story gameplay to do - and it's all good fun.
Characters
Your favourite Saints Row characters are back and better characterised than in Saints Row: The Third - Shaundi even has more than one emotion!
The core group of Saints are back along with a few new additions to your team - as well as characters from older Saints Row games making appearances as both friend and foe.
Open world and activities
The open world has the standard Saints Row mix of fixed activities (such as Insurance Fraud, Mayhem and more), Stores (Rim Jobs, Friendly Fire, etc) and some new surprises.
Similarly to IdolNinja, my favourite activites are Superpowered Fight Club (this is seriously awesome), Blazing and Mech Mayhem. Insurance Fraud (which I hated in Saints Row 2) is also great fun and hilarious to watch.
Similarly to Saints Row: The Third, there are "targets" on the map as well. These targets are (mainly combat-based) activities. They range from co-op Cat and Mouse - where co-op players hunt each other (I played this with IdolNinja, it's a blast), to Flashpoints and Hotspots. Flashpoints are similiar to Gang Operations in Saints Row: The Third, and Hotspots are much more awesome.
There are no more traditional cribs as in the previous games, but there is an interesting replacement. The previous main use of cribs - for their garages - is mainly avoided in Saints Row 4. When you get in a vehicle you can immediately press a button to save it to your garage. Cars in your garage can be summoned at any time from the phone. I'm sorry to say that as cribs are largely gone, crib customisation is gone too. However, gang customisation is in!
The activities in Saints Row IV are varied and interesting - the most popular older activities are back, such as Insurance Fraud and Mayhem, however there are also some new ones - such as Blazin' - a racing activity based around the super speed and super jump powers. The activities and targets are great fun, especially some of the new target activities.
IdolNinja goes into good detail on the activities in his review, so I won't cover the individual activities twice.
There are a lot more random NPC interactions in the open world too. At one point while writing this review and checking things in game, I was standing around outside a Friendly Fire when an old woman ran up to me and randomly started punching me. If you're causing chaos and murdering random passersby, some of them will pull guns and start shooting at you. IdolNinja mentioned one great instance where he just had some random npc drive up in a truck, park next to him and yell: CHOO CHOO! CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA! CHOO CHOO! and then drive off
There are noticably more different NPC types compared to Saints Row: The Third.
Superpowers and combat
It's no secret that superpowers are a big part of Saints Row IV - you get your first superpowers very early on in the game and you are constantly unlocking new powers and improvements to existing powers until the very end of the game. Superpowers are used for primarily for navigating the world (the super sprint and super jump powers) and combat. The combat in Saints Row IV is well balanced and there's a reasonable variety of weapons. You are very rarely forced to use superpowers if you don't want to (there are some enemies that are very hard if not impossible to kill without them), but trust me: you want to
Superpowers mix well with combat - there's no cumbersome switching between the two - on Keyboard and Mouse the main superpowers are bound to both Q and the Middle Mouse button - so you can seamlessly mix in superpowers between normal shooting or melee.
The weapon variety is impressive - there are at least two human weapons of each type (other than explosives) and at least one Alien weapon of each type. All of these weapons have multiple skins. They're typically split up into a number of totally different appearances for each weapon and then several skins for each model. The different appearances also change some of the Visual FX and sound.
Melee is still useful - even with the mix of superpowers and other weapons - there are some great new melee weapons and there are also superpowered takedowns - similar to the special melee attacks in Saints Row: The Third when the Sprint key is pressed, these are even more outlandish and awesome
Player Customisation
As the Inauguration Station is out, most of you should already be familiar with the player character customisation options - the Inauguration Station appears to have most if not all of the clothing that was in the review copy - nearly all of the clothing from Saints Row: The Third is back, even some of the DLC clothing. There are new clothing items that will allow you more freedom to dress your characters as you want. There are four different types of clothing stores: Planet Zin, Nobody Loves Me, Let's Pretend and Leather and Lace. Sadly there is a fair amount of clothing that's duplicated across these stores, but each store has some unique items.
Rusty's Needle is back too, and while I prefer an untattooed character there are more different tattoos that will hopefully provide some variety for those of you who do like them.
Vehicles
Pretty much all of the Saints Row: The Third vehicles are back (except for the STAG vehicles). There are some additional vehicles returning from Saints Row 2 and some brand new vehicles too. There are several new alien vehicles, including a VTOL, a hoverbike and a tank.
All of my favourites from the previous games are back - cars such as the Hammerhead, the Criminal, the Attrazione, bikes like the Kaneda and helicopters like the Eagle and the Tornado, although my absolute favourite vehicle in Saints Row IV is the Pulse.
When playing it certainly feels like there's a lot more variety of vehicles on the roads.
Unfortunately, boats are now completely absent - however I did not really notice the absence of boats as I didn't use them previously (as there was no real reason to).
Radio
As previously mentioned Radio can be listened to all the time - on foot as well as in cars. In previous games I have only listened to 107.77 The Mixx, and in this game I have continued. The Mixx is much better than it was in Saints Row: The Third (where it was pitiful). Unfortunately the impossibly high level of songs set in Saints Row 2 isn't achieved, but unlike Saints Row: The Third there are many songs I like so I don't keep reaching to turn it off
Performance
Saints Row IV runs well on my machine (see here for my specs) - in fact it runs better than Saints Row: The Third did on the same hardware. I've also tried it on the Mac Mini in that thread (with Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics) and it's surprisingly playable. Smooth framerates at 1920x1200 on the lowest settings (which really don't actually look that bad)!
Summary
In total I think that Saints Row IV is a big improvement over Saints Row: The Third for me. It's not Saints Row 2 but it's not trying to be. I expect to get many hours of fun out of Saints Row IV. It is not a perfect game - part of me still yearns for a Saints Row 2-style game that is not coming.
That said, I think it's a definite improvement over Saints Row: The Third and I genuinely loved playing the story (I played it through twice) and I also enjoyed the open-world gameplay - there's a lot more to do and it's a lot more fun than Saints Row: The Third's was! Steelport still feels a bit generic - it's just feels a bit lacking compared to Saints Row 2's Stilwater - the Nuclear Plant, the prison island, the Stilwater caverns, exploring the airport, the Mall - all great and memorable areas that Saints Row: The Third sadly cannot compare to. It says a lot that I can still navigate Stilwater in Saints Row 2 without a map, yet I struggle to navigate even the high-traffic areas of Steelport without consulting the GPS.
All-in-all, Saints Row IV is a good game that I will enjoy for some time to come. It is a good fun game to play and a definite improvement over the last game in the franchise. We're a modding site and with Volition's help I'm sure we can turn Saints Row IV from the great game that it is into the masterpiece we want
First Impressions
I jumped into the Saints Row IV Preview originally after only reading IdolNinja's article after his visit to Volition - purposefully not knowing what to expect. It's no secret that I found parts of Saints Row: The Third a bit underwhelming compared to Saints Row 2. The preview covered a good chunk of open world gameplay, along with the first 6 story missions - and I loved what I found. Now with a chance to play the press build (which should be representative of the final game), I can say: It's fun, you should buy it.
The open world gameplay is similar but there's a lot more activities than in the Preview, the missions I saw are only a small proportion of the story and I can say that this game will keep a fan happy. It is not a perfect game, but for me it is a big improvement over Saints Row: The Third.
Fans of the previous games
I spent a while trying to work out which previous game in the series this game resembles the most. Obviously there's some carry over from Saints Row: The Third (especially the game world), but the game feels quite different. Personally I find that it's an improvement but if you are expecting a clone of Saints Row 2 or Saints Row: The Third, Saints Row IV is not that game. Saints Row IV takes a good chunk of the over-the-top elements from Saints Row: The Third, but the more serious parts of the story feel more like the older games - however it is not a return to the style of Saints Row 2 or Saints Row.
Story
I'm not going to mention any plot points or characters (as this review is spoiler-free!). What I will say is this: Saints Row and Saints Row 2 had more involved stories than Saints Row: The Third. Saints Row IV is a return to more involved storytelling. It's not the same as Saints Row 2 or SR - it is definitely a unique over-the-top style but there is story there and it is good..
Missions
Again, I'm not going to mention any plot points or characters.
I counted about 20 to 25 main story missions (not counting optional sidequests or activities or the few tutorial missions at the very start) and I'm glad to say that unlike Saints Row: The Third, activities are not used throughout the game to fill in for story missions! The story missions are unique missions with some great set pieces and varied gameplay - and there are some sidequests with great plot too. There were a lot of moments that had me laughing out loud and some truely awesome and memorable moments.
The rest of the side-quests are basically a chain of activities or diversions - these typically grant unlocks of some sort - weapons, customisation options, super-power bonuses and more.
Each homie has a couple of missions pretty much dedicated to them including a unique loyalty mission for each major character. These loyalty missions are some of the best missions in the game - and entirely optional - do not skip them or you are missing some of the best parts of the game!
I enjoyed the missions much more than Saints Row: The Third, and I felt that there was more story gameplay to do - and it's all good fun.
Characters
Your favourite Saints Row characters are back and better characterised than in Saints Row: The Third - Shaundi even has more than one emotion!
The core group of Saints are back along with a few new additions to your team - as well as characters from older Saints Row games making appearances as both friend and foe.
Open world and activities
The open world has the standard Saints Row mix of fixed activities (such as Insurance Fraud, Mayhem and more), Stores (Rim Jobs, Friendly Fire, etc) and some new surprises.
Similarly to IdolNinja, my favourite activites are Superpowered Fight Club (this is seriously awesome), Blazing and Mech Mayhem. Insurance Fraud (which I hated in Saints Row 2) is also great fun and hilarious to watch.
Similarly to Saints Row: The Third, there are "targets" on the map as well. These targets are (mainly combat-based) activities. They range from co-op Cat and Mouse - where co-op players hunt each other (I played this with IdolNinja, it's a blast), to Flashpoints and Hotspots. Flashpoints are similiar to Gang Operations in Saints Row: The Third, and Hotspots are much more awesome.
There are no more traditional cribs as in the previous games, but there is an interesting replacement. The previous main use of cribs - for their garages - is mainly avoided in Saints Row 4. When you get in a vehicle you can immediately press a button to save it to your garage. Cars in your garage can be summoned at any time from the phone. I'm sorry to say that as cribs are largely gone, crib customisation is gone too. However, gang customisation is in!
The activities in Saints Row IV are varied and interesting - the most popular older activities are back, such as Insurance Fraud and Mayhem, however there are also some new ones - such as Blazin' - a racing activity based around the super speed and super jump powers. The activities and targets are great fun, especially some of the new target activities.
IdolNinja goes into good detail on the activities in his review, so I won't cover the individual activities twice.
There are a lot more random NPC interactions in the open world too. At one point while writing this review and checking things in game, I was standing around outside a Friendly Fire when an old woman ran up to me and randomly started punching me. If you're causing chaos and murdering random passersby, some of them will pull guns and start shooting at you. IdolNinja mentioned one great instance where he just had some random npc drive up in a truck, park next to him and yell: CHOO CHOO! CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA! CHOO CHOO! and then drive off
There are noticably more different NPC types compared to Saints Row: The Third.
Superpowers and combat
It's no secret that superpowers are a big part of Saints Row IV - you get your first superpowers very early on in the game and you are constantly unlocking new powers and improvements to existing powers until the very end of the game. Superpowers are used for primarily for navigating the world (the super sprint and super jump powers) and combat. The combat in Saints Row IV is well balanced and there's a reasonable variety of weapons. You are very rarely forced to use superpowers if you don't want to (there are some enemies that are very hard if not impossible to kill without them), but trust me: you want to
Superpowers mix well with combat - there's no cumbersome switching between the two - on Keyboard and Mouse the main superpowers are bound to both Q and the Middle Mouse button - so you can seamlessly mix in superpowers between normal shooting or melee.
The weapon variety is impressive - there are at least two human weapons of each type (other than explosives) and at least one Alien weapon of each type. All of these weapons have multiple skins. They're typically split up into a number of totally different appearances for each weapon and then several skins for each model. The different appearances also change some of the Visual FX and sound.
Melee is still useful - even with the mix of superpowers and other weapons - there are some great new melee weapons and there are also superpowered takedowns - similar to the special melee attacks in Saints Row: The Third when the Sprint key is pressed, these are even more outlandish and awesome
Player Customisation
As the Inauguration Station is out, most of you should already be familiar with the player character customisation options - the Inauguration Station appears to have most if not all of the clothing that was in the review copy - nearly all of the clothing from Saints Row: The Third is back, even some of the DLC clothing. There are new clothing items that will allow you more freedom to dress your characters as you want. There are four different types of clothing stores: Planet Zin, Nobody Loves Me, Let's Pretend and Leather and Lace. Sadly there is a fair amount of clothing that's duplicated across these stores, but each store has some unique items.
Rusty's Needle is back too, and while I prefer an untattooed character there are more different tattoos that will hopefully provide some variety for those of you who do like them.
Vehicles
Pretty much all of the Saints Row: The Third vehicles are back (except for the STAG vehicles). There are some additional vehicles returning from Saints Row 2 and some brand new vehicles too. There are several new alien vehicles, including a VTOL, a hoverbike and a tank.
All of my favourites from the previous games are back - cars such as the Hammerhead, the Criminal, the Attrazione, bikes like the Kaneda and helicopters like the Eagle and the Tornado, although my absolute favourite vehicle in Saints Row IV is the Pulse.
When playing it certainly feels like there's a lot more variety of vehicles on the roads.
Unfortunately, boats are now completely absent - however I did not really notice the absence of boats as I didn't use them previously (as there was no real reason to).
Radio
As previously mentioned Radio can be listened to all the time - on foot as well as in cars. In previous games I have only listened to 107.77 The Mixx, and in this game I have continued. The Mixx is much better than it was in Saints Row: The Third (where it was pitiful). Unfortunately the impossibly high level of songs set in Saints Row 2 isn't achieved, but unlike Saints Row: The Third there are many songs I like so I don't keep reaching to turn it off
Performance
Saints Row IV runs well on my machine (see here for my specs) - in fact it runs better than Saints Row: The Third did on the same hardware. I've also tried it on the Mac Mini in that thread (with Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics) and it's surprisingly playable. Smooth framerates at 1920x1200 on the lowest settings (which really don't actually look that bad)!
Summary
In total I think that Saints Row IV is a big improvement over Saints Row: The Third for me. It's not Saints Row 2 but it's not trying to be. I expect to get many hours of fun out of Saints Row IV. It is not a perfect game - part of me still yearns for a Saints Row 2-style game that is not coming.
That said, I think it's a definite improvement over Saints Row: The Third and I genuinely loved playing the story (I played it through twice) and I also enjoyed the open-world gameplay - there's a lot more to do and it's a lot more fun than Saints Row: The Third's was! Steelport still feels a bit generic - it's just feels a bit lacking compared to Saints Row 2's Stilwater - the Nuclear Plant, the prison island, the Stilwater caverns, exploring the airport, the Mall - all great and memorable areas that Saints Row: The Third sadly cannot compare to. It says a lot that I can still navigate Stilwater in Saints Row 2 without a map, yet I struggle to navigate even the high-traffic areas of Steelport without consulting the GPS.
All-in-all, Saints Row IV is a good game that I will enjoy for some time to come. It is a good fun game to play and a definite improvement over the last game in the franchise. We're a modding site and with Volition's help I'm sure we can turn Saints Row IV from the great game that it is into the masterpiece we want
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