Saints Row IV

Saints Row IV isn't the "Game of the Generation," but its best moments are more fun than almost everything else on PS3.

Saving Steelport may not be quite as novel of an experience this time around, but an arsenal of new abilities and weapons ensures that you are doing it with more style and spectacle than ever before.

Saints Row IV is a video game unlike any you've played before with a rich story, sharp sense of humor and unique mechanics. It's only held back by a lack of variety and the need for a bit more polish.

Seriously, Saints Row is filling a gap in the industry. Too many games on the market are melodramatic doom and gloom. It is refreshing to know that games such as Saints Row IV are built on the idea that people should have some f@$^ing fun while playing a game.

The new super abilities and weaponry makes for a ceaselessly fun experience, even if the gameplay does tend to drag at times. The appreciated creativity and inventiveness is what saves the day; the often unique and twisted mission types, the overarching desire to enforce your own brand of justice, the world itself, etc.

If you want good fun, Saints Row IV is the right choice.

While Saints Row IV might be crass, stupid and a bit ugly in places, it’s a lot of fun. Expect to lose yourself ‘til the early hours with this. [October 2013, p74]

Despite feeling like an expansion to Saints Row: The Third, the ridiculous story missions and the excellently-implemented superpowers make Saints Row IV an enormous amount of fun.

Saints Row 4 is a full of attempts to entertain you in the most bizarre ways. The game doesn’t always succeed in doing so, but thanks to the over the top action and breaking with genre conventions fun is still guaranteed. Every now and then the gameplay seems to fall victim to the shallowness of it all, but then the game surprises you with a dose of charm and enthusiasm.

Saints Row IV does everything in its presidential power to create a sandbox experience that constantly rewards and always surprises – and it succeeds. Despite the reused assets, a few questionable design choices, and the sometimes shaky technical performance, there’s still nothing in gaming quite like mowing down alien scum in a nitrous-charged golf cart, all while blasting Haddaway’s What Is Love from the radio. That’s what makes Saints Row special.

That should tell you all you need to know about how Volition This is a good game with solid principles, tight control functions, and awesome presentation. It just might be a little too insane for it's own good. Saints fans shouldn't hesitate picking this one up. For those that haven't liked the series to this point, I don't think there is any aspect to IV that would make them jump on the crazy train now.

Saints Row 4 may not be perfect, but it will, at least, be remembered for its brazen video game parodies, over-the-top set pieces and outrageous weaponry, rather than being a poor man's GTA. This, in itself, is a certifiable step in the right direction.

An empowering, open game, with plenty for everyone to love, and perhaps most importantly, it’s just a ridiculous amount of fun. Unfortunately a number of small bugs and a short campaign length put the brakes on this fun experience a lot sooner than I would have liked.

Saints Row IV offers varied missions and content, even though you will never stop feeling like this is just an expansion pack. The characters' charm and mischievous sense of humor will suit any fan of the saga, although the absence of any real novelty (both in the playability and graphics department) makes Saints Row IV a less satisfactory game than expected.

Luckily the game's biggest strengths still hold up well, namely the armory of wicked crazy weapons, the variety of goofy enemies to fight - from Deckers to Matriarchs - and the absolute freedom to do whatever the hell you want to. [September p. 68]

Supplementing the streets with glowing collectibles and earning the use of a weaponized dildo (yes, you read that right) can only take you so far before one begins to wonder why Bruce Campbell wasn’t hired to voice the main character.

Saints Row 4 takes a turn towards TPS through a scenario change. As President of the United States, the game will put you in a hero role which will make the gameplay deviate towards a gaming experience closer to Prototype than to it's own ancestors. The legacy is not forgotten as the crazy side of things is still pretty much a central point, and of course the specific sense of humor which is the game's signature. With a main quest taking around 15 hours and many more side missions providing a wealthy lifetime, Saints Row is grieved by lots of small faults, chief among them the awful graphics it displays.

Saints Row IV's crazy missions, fun superpowers, and funny writing make it an enjoyable way to live out your destructive fantasies.

Just browsing the vast selection of characters other players have uploaded is at least an hour or two of good entertainment.

Saints Row IV continues the franchise's trend of gradually descending into insanity. This episode features the absurd and varied gameplay we've come to know and love, and adds super powers to the mix. There's definitely a lack of innovation and the visuals were not all that impressive, but none of this is truly gamebreaking. One thing is sure: you'll have a lot of fun playing this game, especially if you're a fan of the series.

A really fun game but it’s nothing at all original. Perhaps that shouldn’t be said about something that’s one of gaming’s few examples of a parody, but it really falters at the times it tries to do something entirely original, whether that difference be within its own series, genre or gaming as a whole.

While Saints Row IV is far from a complete disappointment, the game wants for genuine advancements, settling for dumb fun in place of cutting-edge thrills.

Saints Row IV doesn’t play like a sequel so much as an expansion pack, substituting huge quantities of diversions and weaponry for an engaging campaign. With Steelport recycled and the lack of challenge, it doesn’t offer much beyond short-lived thrills through wanton destruction and the occasionally humorous moment wrapped in science fiction tropes.

Occasionally excellent, often mired in mediocrity, Saints Row 4 is inferior to Red Dead Redemption and even five-year-old GTA IV in almost every way. And while you’re always likely to miss when comin’ at the kings, Volition’s effort still falls short of the more cohesive Sleeping Dogs, the expansive frolicking on Just Cause 2’s Panau and the polished pantomime of Infamous 2.