Leave It to The Saints!

Paradoxically, Saints Row IV is both the same as, and more than, its predecessor. If The Third's brand of rampant silliness wasn't your cup of tea, this romp through the White House, outer space, and The Matrix won't change your mind. If you weren't a fan of the last game's overpowering sense of empowerment, this iteration's literal superpower abilities are unlikely to ease your mood. And if you didn't appreciate The Penetrator last time, well, you should probably avoid the "Romance" button when you interact with your crew.

But while Saints Row IV doesn't exactly venture out of its comfort zone, it takes the boundaries pushed by The Third and pushes them even farther. Think the Airstrike and Apoca-Fist were cool? Wait until you get a load of the Disintegrator, the Abduction Gun, and of course the dance-party-inducing Dubstep Gun. Have fun flying a laser-spewing VTOL jet around Steelport? Try running up the side of a building, then plummeting to the ground in a massive shockwave. Where there were once flamboyant gang members and suicidal cops, now there are hordes of aliens and their robot warriors. The Insurance Fraud activity goes up to 11 when you can run into cars at super-speed, and there are three different variants of the Mayhem activity, including one where you drive a weaponized mech suit. Campaign missions include a tongue-barely-in-cheek parody of contemporary military shooters, an outright send-up of Metal Gear Solid, and a technologically-inspiring custom rendition of Streets of Rage -- not to mention plenty of choice musical interludes from the likes of Aerosmith and Thin Lizzy.

Of course, if you're hoping for a dramatic, epic narrative, you're barking up the wrong tree. But Saints Row IV's story does manage to string the game's mechanics along, while providing ample entertainment all the while. Whether you're punching a senator or brawling with a giant can of Saints Flow, campaign missions never slack on their sense of humor, and are just genius in their irreverence. Every time you might think, wait, why doesn't the villain just stop me?- sidekicks immediately dismiss the idea as stupid. Keith David (played by Keith David) gets called out for sounding remarkably like Julius Little. Speaking of which -- although you don't need to have played the older games to get the gist of IV's story, you'll get even more out of it by knowing the contexts for throwback characters like "Fun" Shaundi and Benjamin "Motherfucking" King.

But the real lynchpin of the game is its world, which, while architecturally familiar, is more dense with activity than ever. While you traipse around town doing missions and activities, you'll run into a bevy of collectibles -- including Crackdown style "data cluster" power-ups that go toward superpower upgrades. New in-game challenges include a ton of fun meta-achievements, from destroying statues of the evil alien overlord, to punting his goons with super-kicks. The real surprise, to me, about this version of Steelport was how awesome it felt to navigate the city with super-powered sprints and jumps. Other than missions that required it, I probably only drove a car two or three times; and considering how much I love vehicular manslaughter, that counts for a lot. (It helps that you no longer need to be in a car to listen to the radio, so I could blare the game's electro-house station while I cavorted around.)

If there's one thing about Saints Row IV I'm disappointed in, it's the co-op game -- which I'd never bothered with in The Third, but I assume is basically similar. The co-op-specific activities are dull, and the missions in general don't get any benefit from having a second player. Really, two players are going to have much more fun just playing separate campaigns by themselves.

My usual glogging pattern would have had me making a post about SR4 sometime around its release the other week. But every time - literally, each individual time - I considered writing about the game, I ended up playing it instead. Even after I'd finished it! (I played through the full story twice.) Saints Row IV may not break much new ground, but it takes everything I loved about The Third and makes it outlandishly, unbelievably better.

Better than: Saints Row: The Third, and - hell - Red Faction: Guerrilla
Not as good as: if I could also ram through buildings! Come on, guys!
Grand Theft Auto may not have to move over: but it'd better get comfortable with the idea of Saints Row out-over-the-topping it, for the foreseeable future.

Progress: Finished all missions (twice), 100% completion.