Within the first 10 minutes of Saints Row 4, you’re straddling a nuclear bomb while Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing’ blares in the background, disarming it with your bare hands mid-air in order to prevent it from destroying the United States of ‘Merica. Upon doing so, you crash through the ceiling of the White House, landing in the President’s chair. The words “ADORATION OF AMERICA UNLOCKED!” appear onscreen, followed by “PRESIDENCY UNLOCKED!” It’s not the most conventional way to be elected into office, but since Saints Row The Third took the series in a far zanier direction than its predecessors, Volition’s open-world franchise has transformed itself from a thinly-veiled Grand Theft Auto clone into something much, much more.
Like its predecessor Saints Row 4 is very aware of its target audience, but while The Third was a direct reaction to the post-GTA IV earnestness of the gaming industry, the latest Saints Row seems to be much more confident in its own skin. Rather than being your typical sandbox game with added crazy, Saints Row 4 has turned it up a notch and thrown superpowers into the mix, which work far better in the context of the game than you might imagine. In the preview copy of the game I played, I had the chance to try out three of these powers – the Super Jump, Super Sprint and Ice Blast – all of which altered the gameplay in unique and fun ways.
The Super Jump allowed me to hop from rooftop to rooftop with ease, and can be charged up in order to execute an especially high leap. This worked seamlessly with the Super Sprint, and before long I was bounding my way through Steelport like I’d been doing this superhero thing all of my life. Throw in the aforementioned Ice Blast, which saw me freezing my enemies before blasting them into little pieces with my shotgun, and Saints Row 4 made me feel almost indestructible. Almost.
In order to keep the game balanced, developers Volition have made the enemy threat much more significant this time around. Rather than simply fighting the police and rival gang members, in Saints Row 4 you’re defending the Earth from an alien invasion. While the standard grunt units of your extra-terrestrial foes are still prone to standing around aimlessly, waiting for you to kill them, one larger enemy I faced off against forced me to make good use of all the super powers I had been equipped with, and as I leapt and dashed out of the way of its projectile attacks it felt more like I was playing Infamous than Saints Row.
That’s not to say that the series is in danger of losing its identity – far from it. While Saints Row 4 places the player in the shoes of the US President, don’t expect any Colbert Report-esque political satire here. Volition’s writers keep the humour low-brow, and if The Third failed to make you crack a smile then, judging from what I played of it, its successor is also unlikely to split your sides. The slapstick violence, dick jokes and potty-mouthed dialogue that Saints Row is known for remains in tact, and the alien invasion plot ensures a suitably ludicrous narrative. Think Team America meets Mars Attacks! and you’re halfway there.
While I could have done without playing through a tedious on-rails shooting sequence (even if it did feature a “do a barrel roll!” quip) and an obligatory turret segment, the new superheroic core gameplay of Saints Row 4 seems to have taken the series in an exciting new direction, and after experiencing a taster of it, I can’t wait to super jump and super sprint my way through Steelport again.
Saints Row 4 is released August 20th, 2013 in North America and August 23rd, 2013 in Europe, on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows.
Full disclosure: Crave Online was given one preview build of Saints Row 4 for PC.
