Saints Row IV picks up where ‘The Third’ left off, sort of. It’s set a few years after ‘The Third’ and after a very daring stunt to disarm a nuke in the prologue mission, you go from the most powerful gang member to the most powerful man in the world, thus becoming the President of the United States of America. Only right considering you have taken over Stillwater and Steelport, may as well take the whole country, right?

The daring disarming of a launched nuclear missile, while Aerosmith ‘don’t wanna miss a thing’ plays in the background. You save the United States from turning into nothing more than a cloud of dust, or actually saving itself according the mad man that launched it. After such an act of heroism, it’s only right that you become the leader of the free world.

During the short time you play in the White House, you get abducted by Zinyak and the Zins  (an alien race hell bend on destruction), basically intergalactic versions of the Saints. Zinyak places you in a simulation of Steelport, you escape with Kenzie. Having done so, you now have to rescue your other ‘homies’ from Zinyak and the Zins.

The only way you can save your fellow Saints is by going back into the simulation and freeing them from their own simulations. Luckily you have the computer genius Kenzie with you to help you as you go a long in this computerised adult theme park of the world of Steelport.

In between the quests to free your purple wearing comrades, you get to do the usual things that you can expect to do in a Saints Row game. You can steal cars, murder people for the hell of it, run around buck naked and walk into gun stores and buy guns without a permit (Steelport is a lot like any city in the US really), only now you get some neat new ‘features’. The features I speak of are the super powers you obtain by defeating the Zin Wardens sent to prevent you from accomplishing your mission.

The missions, or quests to free your fellow Saints consist of doing little tasks that let Kenzie know where each of your homies are hidden in the Matrix like world. Once a comrade is found, you then get placed in to their simulation (or nightmares) to retrieve them. These sections of the game often bring back some great gaming and film nostalgia with homage being paid to the likes of Ghostbusters and Streets of Rage to name a few.

Your homies are the same wise cracking a-holes that you have come to love throughout your journey of Saints Row. Like always, you pick up some new faces and lose some old ones, that’s the thug life for you. Hell, even Zinyak (the bad guy) is quite charming and funny, he even joins in with a sing-song too.

To help doing the tasks, you’re given superpowers that allow you to shoot fire and ice balls, jump to ridiculous heights and fly over buildings with the wind blowing against your naked testicles (Yep, I ran around naked the whole time), set yourself on fire and run around setting others around you on fire. With the super powers, roaming the simulation of the fictional city Steelport just got easier, and more fun. These can’t be used while in another Saints simulation, you can only use these while in the simulation of Steelport.

There are more imaginative weapons in Saints Row IV, with the addition of Aliens as you can now use their technology such as the Xenoblaster, and alien SMG and the Dominator, which is an alien rifle. There is also the Inflat-o-Ray, that enlarges the head of what ever you’re aiming at until it bursts. You get these crazy weapons as well as the standard weapons you’ve come to expect in a Saints Row game.

Saints Row IV may not be the prettiest game on the shelves and does come with the odd little glitch here and there, but there is nothing major. But Let’s face it, none of the Saints Row games have ever been (nor did it need to be) one of the best looking games. The one thing that Saints Row has always been is really, really entertaining and fun to play. And that’s arguably the most important job of any game, right?

As much as I enjoyed playing through Saints Row IV. I will say that it feels like it could have easily been an expansion for Saints Row: The Third. Saints Row IV first started out as the Enter the Dominatrix DLC for Saints Row: The Third which was cancelled, but this is with loads more content than your average sized DLC as was originally planned. There is enough content to justify it being a sequel, standalone game and full price. You just kind of forget part of Saints Row IV was once DLC for Saints Row: The Third and just have a massive giggle at everything that this game throws at you.

There’s plenty to do in this game. You have the missions, homies missions and loyalty missions. There are activities to partake in as with previous Saints games, but this time with an Alien twist, or you can even just wander around causing havoc, or spending time stalking the collectibles like in previous Saints games.

The collectibles add to the story, so if you collect the audio logs you get a little insight to a characters background, or collecting the ‘data clusters’ you’ll get to buy upgrades/elements for your super powers.

Volition has made sure that you’ll never get bored of playing Saints Row. It’s never taken itself that seriously, and has always been highly entertaining. The first two Saints Row games could have easily been mistaken for GTA copycats. Thankfully, the same can’t be said for the latter two instalments of Volitions incredibly ludicrous open-world action shooter, and it makes you want to keep returning for more.

And If you thought Saints Row: The Third was nuts, you’ve not seen anything until you’ve seen what happens when Aliens abduct a sociopathic President (and his homies), who then obtains super powers and a plethora of insanely imaginative super weapons.

Saints Row just got bigger, louder, and even more ridiculous than ever!

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