SAINTS ROW IV (2013)

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i understand concessions and how they have to be made, how scopes expand and deflate on a game by game, year by year basis. the beginning of the saints row franchise found itself hoisted up by a modest budget that snowballed in price through saints row two and three, evidence being graphical overhauls, gameplay overhauls, quality of life fixes, and a shiny cg trailer. saints row four, made under the demise of their publisher, is that snowball now deflated, the budget back to shoestrings... and it shows.

originally slotted to be no more than the final dlc to saints row 3, the idea of it then becoming its own full fledged sequel (unfortunately) sprang to life at volition, and that is now what can be played: this sloppy recoating of paint across saints row 3, some fragments left over to save time, others left over thoughtlessly. that is to say: the sandbox is near identical, and so are mechanics dummied out by virtue of the superhero re-branding of the series. but before diving in--again, i understand concessions. it's a sequel no doubt made to the best effort of volition with what they could scrounge together and it is definitely an example of a concept i SHOULD like--taking the previous game and spinning it out into something new and exciting a la ocarina of time (snoozer) to majoras mask (winner). but a critical problem of the series is the inability to let go of its own oot.

saints row 1 and 2 are gang focused sandboxes, the first deathly (dryly) serious and the second an impeccable mixture of serious and goofy, its winning formula being every character playing things straight. saints row 3 is a tipping of that balance in favor of too much goofy, the seriousness now buried under the weight of awful marvel movie inspirations. i'm talking about dialogue, by the way--saints row 4 is the whole superhero aspect of that marvel deal, but its the dialogue of these two later games that is just wholly insufferable, an awful, awful compounding of the very worst forced "comedy" of these sorts of snarky action based movies churned out by wojak muses. everything, absolutely everything, is bait for "humor", but it's the sort of humor that even the third thor movie would hear and frown, embarrassed for saints row's sake. there's particular lines that bug me, but let's talk about the superhero deal for a second.

"POWER FANTASY" were probably two big bolded words smeared on dry erase at volition when beginning this project--not to imply they haven't thought this way with previous games, but saints row 4 in particular is the logical conclusion of such design. imbued with super powers, you can jump and clear entire city blocks in single bounds, glide gracefully across the sky and land right where you plan to, run and dash both down populated streets and up copy and pasted high rises. it is, unapologetically, very, VERY fun. it's a sort of simple pleasure zipping throughout the city gathering up the dozens of power up orbs or whatever-the-fuck-they-call-them scattered around. with regards to combat, you slowly gain the ability to freeze enemies in their place and shatter their (then) remains, crisp 'em up, hoist them into the air and slam them into telephone poles, crash down from earth leveling all vehicles in your path.... quite a lot. and again, it's really fun! there's a very specific sort of joy only saints row 4 can give you with being able to leap off the ground towards an enemy ufo followed by freezing it and leaping off its earthbound frame off to your next destination while an explosion ripples out from behind.

but notice i'm not talking about guns or vehicles. you'd think, with how i'm describing the ridiculously fun superhero themed gameplay, you'd be under the impression that THOSE tools are your bread and butter, right? wrong. not only are guns and vehicles still in this game for whatever fucking reason, they are actively forced upon you in many, many story segments, and it gets real old, real fast. nevermind the fact that the player character can very quickly upgrade themselves into something that makes the flash blush all but rendering cars completely useless, but your superhuman strength begs the question: why shoot anything at all? in the time it takes to select a gun, carefully aim, and shoot, you could instead just dash right up and slam your knuckles down their alien throats. and so, the game artificially forces you into specifically superhuman disabling story segments (S.S.D.S.S for short). these S.S.D.S.S. portions make up legitimately, i'm not joking, more than half of the goddamn campaign. and you know what the worst part of it all is? i mentioned annoying dialogue, and here it is:

"why does everyone keep taking away my superpowers? fuck!"

oh blow me volition. it's impressive that many writers are under the impression that you can have something really awful and annoying as long as you write in so funny dialogue making fun of the situation--a recent example being that ass of a trailer for the outer worlds 2--but here's the rub: if you still DO the annoying bit, then it's not any less annoying. in fact, it's actually much worse because you're actively expressing to the player "yeah, we designed a piece of shit. funny, right?'

not really. and here's another piece of questionable design philosophy: why is this game so smitten with nostalgia for its previous entries? the bulk of the story is spent navigating through pieces of saints row history in callbacks that feel... pointless and insulting. pointless because, okay, did i really gain anything from this diary entry of a gang boss i killed eight years ago? insulting because i'm playing a fucking ridiculous, unfunny, aggravating, bloated designed, copy and pasted, always set at night, shallow, full of itself, piece of shit sequel to an already "just okay" sequel to the single best open world sandbox shooter ever made. so yes, i would consider this insulting, and i would consider a game all about superpowers that constantly limit said superpowers to be bad game design.

but i'm not actively against recommending this game. in fact, here's what i think you should do. play the first handful of story missions until you can ground pound--that caps off the end of your interesting abilities. and then... just run around the city collecting orbs and blowing up enemy camps with your powers. and do it until you've finished or you're bored, and then uninstall the game. that's the prime saints row 4 experience.

... on one last note, there's something really interesting about the way this game's set in a simulation. in games like grand theft auto, mafia, or even previous saints rows, i'll feel a little bad about mowing down rows of grandmas off the street. but because saints row 4 takes place within a fake digital world full of fake digital people, i don't feel even a little bit bad killing npcs. but then, that's kind of ridiculous, right? all of these games are "simulations". maybe if the story had a shred of intrigue to it, it would explore... forget it. this series has already gone to hell (no, really, the expansion for this is in hell).