Saints Row IV.

by **The_gh0stm4n** Mon 02 Dec 2013, 19:01

Hello all,

Today I'm going to give you my review of "Saints RoW IV", a third-person shooter game.

If you wish, the main topic is about aliens - so you're not only facing human opponents, but also aliens. I'm not giving away too much of the "storyline" (if you want to call it that way). But pretty much at the beginning, you get to customize your protagonist in the game. If you want to change anything about your character beyond that point in the game, you can visit a "plastic surgeon" in the playing world, and pay a small sum of money to make changes (there may be mods/cheats for that, but I haven't really "looked" into that).

Missions in that city, which is explorable, include killing alien squads or even several waves of aliens/other opponents, hijacking vehicles and fighting "wardens": big and powerful alien creatures.

There are also side quests like missions where you have to steer a tank or UFO, and create as much damage (in the city) as possible, in a given amount of time.

By completing missions, you can earn money, with which you can buy all sorts of ability upgrades, clothes, tatoos, and make changes to your character at the plastic surgeon's (as mentioned above). For buying some weapons, you need to have a certain "reputation level" too, which increases as you complete missions. I usually avoid spending money on ammunition; instead I "look for trouble" and fight against the police: then I can pick up the ammunition of the defeated opponents. Very Happy

Another feature is that you can gain access to "superpowers" like jumping extremely high or running very quickly.

Now...the first thing that is striking is that if you already played "Saints Row: The Third" you will probably be disappointed of "Saints Row IV". I would even go as far to say that the main "difference" between the two is that in SR IV, the main gameplay focus is on aliens, "futuristic" vehicles and weapons. Before I started with SR IV, I didn't know the previous installment. Somewhere in-between playing, I decided to download Saints Row The Third.

Another thing to note is that the game seems to be quite easy to complete. I've "only" played it in Normal-difficulty mode, and I often had the impression that the game is not really challenging to me. Even more so, that if you're "smart", you can make gameplay even easier: if you're evading the police and your "notoriety level" is not too high, you can jump up a high building and just stay there until the notoriety level reaches zero again (this trick is more difficult though at a higher notoriety, when the aliens come after you in flying vehicles).

Moreover, if you really feel there are too many opponents in the area, you can try running away with "super-sprint", or if you unlocked the special vehicles, you can summon a tank or a UFO - and then the opponents shouldn't pose too many problems anymore.

It looks like the game developers intended all of that - the gameplay shouldn't be made too difficult, but this is just my impression.

As is often the case with that type of game, there will be some who point out that you are - in one way or another - encouraged to kill civilians too, besides aliens. Indeed, there are purchasable upgrades which cause dead civilians to drop health upgrades, so that when you're low on health, you can kill a civilian and then increase your health bar. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not bothered about this "violence in computer games"-thingy, although there is a very small grain of truth in it. So far, I haven't killed anyone in real-life and don't plan on doing so either. Very Happy

But enough of this off-topic stuff now...

What I like about this game is that it contains a lot of fun; some people might not really like this "childishness" (for a lack of a better word), but feel free to try it yourself.

OK, so far these are my thoughts about this game. Have fun !