First Thoughts on “Saint’s Row IV”

So, after pondering it after finishing “Saint’s Row the Third”, I decided to start and play “Saint’s Row IV”. I had a version with much of the DLC as well as “Gat Out of Hell”, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t download that pack and it expired in January, so I only have the base game plus the more generic DLC. I then started playing the game and …

… I like it a lot better than “Saint’s Row the Third”.

The biggest issue I had with “Saint’s Row the Third” was that it was pretty much an open-world action-shooter type of game, and that’s not my sort of game. Because “Saint’s Row IV” is set inside a simulation, it actually changes to primarily a superhero game, as the main character gets powers early and is expected to use them often. And superhero games are definitely my sort of game. I really, really enjoy jumping around the city, which reminds me of using superjump in “City of Heroes” (sniff). But, really, the travel powers reminds me of the various powers in DC Universe Online only, well, good. You can hop and sprint up walls and the like, run across the city, or jump like the Hulk across the city. Despite spending all my time in the cars in “Saint’s Row the Third”, I barely drive them in this one, other than in the car stealing activities.

As usual, I spent most of my time doing activities and hacking the shops, only doing the primary missions when I ran out of other things to do. I also completed most of the secondary missions first and also have finished “Enter the Dominatrix” and “The Saint’s Save Christmas”. This, as usual, has given me significant cache and XP which so far is helping me to beat the missions without too much fuss. We’ll see if that carries on as I get deeper into the story missions.

Also as usual, I’m not that fond of the activities themselves. I liked the flashpoint type activities, and finished most of them. My favourite was the tower climbing, and I regret that there weren’t more of them in the game. My least favourite were the hotspots, mostly because when facing the aliens it was often quite difficult to see where the aliens attacking you were, making it quite frustrating. As I said, I’ve completed the one-offs but haven’t advanced the activities past Easy unless I was forced to by a main mission.

So far, I’m really enjoying the game. I just hope I don’t get stuck in it on later or harder missions.