I started playing Saints Row IV a few days ago and am happy to say that I’m finding it really entertaining so far. I will say that unlike the previous iteration of the series, SR IV takes a little bit of time to really get into gear. I found the first couple of levels kind of meh, but soon they introduce game mechanics that are really fun to use, and the humor of the game really begins to fall into place.

To those who aren’t familiar, the Saints Row series started it’s life as a more light hearted version of GTA (I should put my cards on the table and say that I haven’t played the original game but I have played SR2 & 3). Over time the game has gone farther and farther from it’s source material, so that while SR2 was satirical take on the GTA-esq open world crime game, SR3 had developed into an almost action, sci-fi comedy open world game (to take an example, one of the opposing “gangs” in SR3 is a group of goth hackers who carry around giant anime style swords). Saints Row IV keeps a lot of the mechanics from the previous game, but the story basically escapes from the crime genre altogether, as the titular Saints have over the series built them up from a small street gang to a popular corporate brand (complete with it’s own energy drink, Saints Flow) to a world saving organization. In the beginning of SR IV the main character has become the President of the United States. Then aliens attack. Then you get super powers.

Basically what happens is that the aliens capture the most important people on earth (which includes you and your homies) and places them in virtual simulations of the world as a form of storage. Most of the plot involves you breaking the simulations programming (this is where the super powers comes in) in order to allow you and your comrades to escape. All this is presented with a glib self aware attitude that actually makes this entire scenario work. In addition to super powers you are granted access to outlandish weapons like the dubstep gun, which creates a crescendo of electronic sound as it charges up, then unleashes a lethal wave of dubstep forward, damaging your enemies and causing others in the area to dance rhythmically.

One thing I have noticed is that a lot of people (both people who have played the game and prospective players) seemed to be turned off by the silliness of the two most recent iterations of the game. For those who haven’t played the game I would like to say that while the most juvenile aspects of the game are usually the ones that are most talked about (dildo bats etc), a lot of the humor is actually much smarter and self aware than is generally appreciated. Furthermore, while the tone of the game is meant to be silly, it’s not as if it plays out as a video game version of an onion article. It actually does have a cohesive plot and a surprisingly memorable cast of characters.

I kind of think that at least in the world of AAA games, many gamers are too obsessed with games being “serious” (I remember reading on a forum about the experience of one player who’s friends were no longer interested in the Halo franchise because the game “was for kids”, basically castigating it for not being as “serious” as series like Call of Duty).  And because of this when you go to the store you see row after row of gritty military shooters or sci-fi military shooters. Many of them are actually very good but I still feel like the market is over saturated with these types of games, and there aren’t enough titles (in the AAA market at least) that are whimsical or creative or just plain fun. The truth of the matter is the plots of pretty much all AAA games are pretty silly when you really think about them, and it’d be nice to see more games actually embrace that fact. Saints Row IV does that to a T, and that is one of the games great charms.