Saints Row IV Review

I remember many years ago, video games were considered by a lot of people to be a fad and were meant for little kids. Now, video games make more money than any other form of media and have since been called an art form. I attribute this to the fact that games have matured a lot over the years. While there were several serious games back in the day we seem to have more now than we did then. For example two of the biggest games this year have been The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite, very mature and very serious games that received acclaim and have been called modern day masterpieces. All I can say about Saints Row IV is that it's not a mature and serious game. No matter how I spin it, SR4 will sound stupid. You play the leader of the Third Street Saints, a once small time gang turned cultural icon. Somehow you end up becoming the president of the United States, and during the begging of your second term Earth gets invaded by aliens. You are then abducted and placed into a virtual reality simulator, after a while one of your closest friends who is a hacker helps you enter and leave the simulation at will. You plan on taking over the simulation to release everyone else trapped in it, and to help that you get super powers. This game is stupid, very stupid. There's no other way to put it. What the Naked Gun is to movies, Saints Row IV is to video games. It doesn't take its self serious in any way possible. The most obvious form of its stupidity would be the insane yet hilarious story. The whole virtual reality thing is just an excuse to give you super powers, which I will admit are really f*cking awesome. A problem that a lot of people have with open world games like Saints Row would be traversing around the map. Usually your only two options would be fast travel or driving/walking around the map. The problem is fast travel is that its quick but you miss everything in between where you’re traveling, and getting there by car takes too long. But your powers in Saints Row IV allow you run as fast as the game can render and jump over buildings with a single jump, traveling from point A to point B is fun and fast. One thing that disappointed me about the previous game Saints Row the Third was the weapon selection. There were a couple classes of weapons and each one had only like three choices and could only be upgraded three or four times. In Saints Row IV there are about the same number of weapons but they are much more customizable and can be upgraded in several categories. There are also more interesting weapons, for example there is a gun that shoots dubstep. I don't know how that's a thing but it's awesome, one of my gaming highlights of the year has been killing aliens with dubstep. Another fun aspect of the game are the number of cultural references there are. The whole virtual reality thing is a throwback to the Matrix. They even make fun of Mass Effect and its whole "romance" structure. And its stuff like that that made me laugh on more than one occasion. There's one real major problem with this game that has bothered and disappointed me since I started playing it, the graphics are terrible. To be honest, they're actually worse than the previous game that came out two years ago. It's 2013; graphics like this should be a thing of the past. The other problem I have with the game is that I don't actually think it's as fun as the previous game, Saints Row the Third was such a surprise and a complete overhaul of the series. The franchise turned from a GTA clone into an original and enjoyable game. Saints Row IV is still a great time but didn't have the same shock and awe like the last game. One of my biggest concerns about Saints Row IV was that it was going to be more of a glorified expansion than a whole new game. Originally it was based off of a DLC pack for Saints Row the Third. While the game is similar, I can assure you that it is a new game and not a rehashing of the last one. I loved Saints Row IV, it's the most fun I've had playing a game this year. While I love that video games have come so far and are considered a serious art form, it's still cool to see some ridiculous games every once in a while. While it doesn't quite live up to its predecessor, Saints Row IV is one of the most enjoyable games released this year. 

4/5 Stars