This weekend, I finished the main story of Saints Row IV. I would still rank Grand Theft Auto V as the best open world game in recent history but this game has its own brand of fun. The Saints Row series might have started as a GTA clone but it evolved into something unique in the genre, While GTA V’s story was more grounded in reality, Saints Row IV is an action packed thrill ride with some moments that are stupidly epic. There are parts in this game in which I had a huge grin on my face as my character completed some of the game’s various activities. With the addition of superpowers in the alien simulation of Steelport, Each activity has a new twist to them. With powers, the wave based survival Mayhem activity is a fun way to experiment with power/weapon combos to defeat your enemies. Using a ice blast and following it up with a shotgun shot is a great way to get rid a lot of foes at once. The simulation will occasionally add variety to the waves by making them full of glitched out characters or Genki mascots. Here’s a single round version of Mayhem with only Genkis.
Most open world games use licensed music to fill up their in game radio stations. Saints Row IV does this but uses a couple songs in parts of some missions. If you have played Saints Row The Third, You will be happy to know that you will be singing along with Pierce in the car again. There is also an awesome moment set to Stan Bush’s “The Touch”. Since the game is set mostly in the simulation, You can listen to the radio station when you are out of vehicles also. This is good for those time when you spend a lot of time hunting the game’s collectables. There are a ton of data clusters to collect that you will use to upgrade your powers. Once you get the basic versions of the powers, You can spend some time getting all of the clusters if you want. Normally, I am not a fan of trying to get all of the collectables. This time, I had no problem gathering all of the clusters. They were not extremely hard to get. I think Rockstar and other developers in the genre need to look at what Volition has done with the collectables in this series. They could learn something,
Another thing I enjoyed about my playthrough was the customization of my character. If you follow me on Twitter, You have seen some of my character’s looks throughout the week. If I had to pick a favorite look, The Black Widow like look in the screenshot in this entry is pretty awesome. If Scarlett Johansson is unavailable for the next Avengers film, My character could easily take her place.
Without spoiling the game, I could easily say that the game’s final act is a lot of fun. By this time, My character and the rest of the Saints were fully ready to take down the aliens. Like Mass Effect 2, Completing all of the Loyalty Missions will help you get the good ending. Any mission involving my character and a fellow Saint kicking ass is a great one. The ending to the main story of Saints Row IV is the best ending in the series so far. In Saints Row IV: Re- Elected, The 2 DLC missions are included. I haven’t started them yet but I will do that eventually. For now, I will enjoy my accomplishment of the main story.
If you are a fan of open world games, Saints Row IV is the perfect game for you. If you only have a last gen console, You could probably get the PS3 or 360 version of this game for cheap. For those with PS4s or Xbox Ones, I think Saints Row IV: Re-Elected is a great package for a reasonable price for all of its awesomeness.
Completely Random Gaming 