Saints Row IV: Re-Elected (PS4)

With Saints Row: The Third I got my first glimpse in to the crazy game world of the Third Street Saints and I absolutely loved it. The crazy all out and over the top style and gameplay was fun and very refreshing. The popular culture references where plentiful and the gaming experience hilarious. Saints Row IV: Re-Elected takes the game series to another level with superpowers and even more influences from other games I played and loved. The result is yet another a fast paced action adventure game and brain candy on the highest level.

I went all out with the superhero thing and chose to run around in a superhero costume.

In the third Saints Row game you couldn't help to compare the game world and the gameplay to GTA even if it´s not the same and doesn't even try to be. Still it is very much the same typ of open-world city game. However, Saints Row IV takes a quite different path and in this installment you'll find influences from both Infamous and Mass Effect. In a very unserious and ironic way it mixes different gameplay and humor into a neat package that is more than a little fun to play. Not everything is very well pulled off and some humor seems a bit forced but fortunately all the WTF moments and popular culture references you'll encounter, surely make up for the bad bits.

Amazingly realistic graphics and gameplay

Saints Row IV continues five years after the last game and you have now been elected President. But peace don't last and soon thereafter there´s an alien invasion on earth and you and your team is now faced with the most powerful enemy you've yet faced, the alien leader, Zinyak. He manages to destroy the earth and you're stuck in a matrix-style simulation of earth instead. With the help of your gang you're able to hack the simulation and gain all sorts of superpowers like, telekinesis, super jump, lightning speed etc. This is what makes Saints Row IV a lot of fun. You can literally jump over buildings or just run along them, which makes even roof tops part of the playable area. Although it also kind of makes driving around in a car seem a bit dull.

What I really like about the game and the game series is the highly customizable character option and the upgrade system. I made a female character in the last game and I really wanted to continue the story with the same character so I made her look almost the same and chose the same voice actress. Just made a few upgrades to her, like a bigger set of lungs... Anyway, having a customizable character just gives more of an immersion than a default character.

The gameplay is very intense and the action is over the top yet challenging and it never feels repetitive aside from some of the side-missions. Like the last game there are also text adventures, racing missions and hacking. The graphics and visuals are not great for a PS4 game but it was originally released on the PS3 so that is forgivable because colors are bright and vivid and the music is great.

What this game accomplishes is what these types of games are supposed to do, make you feel powerful. And if you've always wanted to be a superhero, this is a game for you. Even though anti-hero would be a more appropriate name in this case as the character you play is more of a borderline psychopath than a savior of humanity.

8.5/10