The story behind Saints Row 4 is quite simple, your character has gone from being the mute gangster that rolled through Stillwater shooting up Vice Kings, Ballers, LC's, etc. and having an old run down Chapel as HQ to becoming the President of the United States. The ultimate story of Starting from nothing and making something out of nothing and going further than what anyone expected you to go. Another thing about the story of this game is that Planet Earth is invaded by aliens and everyone is abducted and entered into pods, but we'll get to that soon because I will be talking about other things about the game so if you're on the fence of buying this, you might buy it after reading this.
The game starts with your character, Shaundi and Pierce in a chopper flying over a desert on a mission and the music playing as you are flying to your destination is none other than Long Tall Sally by Little Richard just like in the 1st Helicopter mission of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon and just like in the Predator movie. Then you meet a friend of Saints member/ muscleman Oleg and former KGB agent Asha and the four of you go on an mission to stop a missile that is aiming to destroy the world that reminded me of a Metal Gear Solid mission. Then at the end of the mission your character is climbing the missile that you were trying to stop as it is ascending into the sky, and as you're climbing the missile to disarm it, the music playing in the background is Don't want to miss a thing by Aerosmith. After you disarm and jump off the missile as it explodes in the sky, you crash land into the president's chair in the oval office, prop your feet up onto the desk, put your arms behind your head and relax, THUS beginning the game as the president of the United States.
After that you can choose between a few premade protagonists OR you can use one of the creations that you created using the Inauguration Station(Demo of Saints Row 4) and then the next cut scene you see is your character, Pierce and Ben King (Yes the former leader of SR1's Vice Kings) walking down a long hallway with people chilling in the hallways drinking 40's and smoking weed while there are Strippers galore on so many stripper poles that you would think that it was a Stripper convention going on in DC at that moment. While talking to those two, your character grabs an apple, turns a corner and gives it to an uncaged Tiger, yes you heard me right when i said a TIGER, then your character enters another hallway as you proceed towards the Conference room where all of the press is at asking Kinzie questions about you The President. Then as you walk down the hallway you hear a voice and a figure appear and it's Keith David as the Vice President and he has two bills that needs your viewing but but only one can go through.
One of the bills is the Cure of Cancer and the other is the bill to finally put an end to world hunger and you have to choose which one. After that you continue to walk down the hallway and you get encountered by a person who starts to berate you and say that you are a horrible president, which cues up another multi choice of either choosing the High road which is you punching him in the face OR you can choose the Low road which means you punch him in the nuts and honestly, who doesn't like seeing a funny ass nut shot lol. After that you run into Josh Birk who wants to hang out with the Prez and you have to decide whether to hang out with him and turn him down quietly. After that, you enter the conference room where Shaundi tells you about how a bunch of people including Asha, Matt Miller(Former Leader of the Deckers and now an agent for MI6) and Kinzie believe we are about to be invaded by aliens and as your character starts to deny and blow off these claims, a huge alien invasion begins Thus we get introduced to the Antagonist named Zinyak who is the leader of the Alien race called the Zin.
Zinyak and his army begins to abduct members of your cabinet as well as normal citizens just as well and you start shooting up Zin as you fight your way through the White House. After you get outside, you activate a defense system that is ultimately a combination of every kind of fire arm in the world that it looked like Tony Stark created it for the President. After that you fire down multiple Zin ships and then you crash land into Zinyak's ship and proceed to "try" to stop him but fail and become a prisoner to him and his fleet. I'm going to stop the the walkthrough because I don't want to spoil anymore of the story for you but all I'm going to say is there is so much more crazy shit that happens in the game that you have got to get it. This game has so much fun, over the top things in this game that you will always have a fun time playing this game.
The gameplay in this game is fluid and very easy to comprehend and understand, the graphics on this game looks just like the graphics from SR3, only it's a little more cleaned up. My one gripe that I have with the game is the music that the radio plays when you go around Steelport. It seems like they only have two or three songs per radio station but they are all good songs. I wish that they added more songs to each radio station because there are some missions in the game where you would need a car and have more than two songs on the radio would be a great idea, but then again that's just me.
Now I'm going to talk about one aspects of the game that I was excited for since the last game and that's the introduction of your character having Super Powers. Back when SR3 was out, there was suppose to be a DLC coming out that allows your character to have Super Powers and they can use them throughout Steelport to help you in the game. Then THQ got financial problems, went under and the Super Power DLC was never released for Saints Row 3 until Deep Silver picked up SR and made that DLC the key part of Saints Row 4. The Super powers that you get are Super Jump, Super Speed, Force Field, Death From Above, Blast, Telekenesis, Stomp and Buff and each power has it's own branch of powers within itself so you can customize your powers however you want. But some powers have their limits and you need to give them time to recharge. To upgrade your powers you have to collect clusters which are scattered all over Steelport and these can be used to lengthen certain powers and strengthen them up just as well.
Of course super powers aren't the only things in the game that is able to be upgraded, you can customize your weapons, vehicles, and even your character can be upgraded and customized from health to damage resistance to whether they can wield dual guns or not. Another aspect that I love in this game is that Deep Silver knows that the Saints Row series is meant to be over the top, and is basically a parody of gang like video games. Another thing that i love about it is that in this game they also parody off of other games. For Example, your character and crew are on a space ship and you can talk or romance them just like in the Mass Effect games. Also, just like in Mass Effect, you can perform missions with Crew members that after the mission you gain their loyalty and you earn their trust even more. Another example of SR 4 parodying other video games is in one level you get to play through the level just like it was levels from Streets of Rage and it is packed with the Streets of Rage like music and it even has the muffled voice over talking throughout the level. The last example I will talk about is the mission that you do when you are trying to rescue Asha and in this mission it plays just like a Metal Gear Solid video game, to the point where if you die or mess up, it's game over and you hear Kinzie going, "Boss? Boss? BOSS?" just like in the MGS video games. Also in that mission they have the MGS like noise that happens when stuff happens that catches the attention of the enemy but instead of question marks and exclamation points, you will see "OMG" and "wtf?" over their head and it is very enjoyable.
Now I will talk about a few things that I really enjoyed about the game that I'm really glad that they did what they did. The first thing that I enjoyed was bringing Keith David back for this game because apparently this game was suppose to be the last game and I believe that if this game is the last game that it's only fair that they include Keith David in the game and I love the little tongue in cheek jabs that every character makes at about Keith in that he sounds and looks just like Julius(The character that Keith David voiced during SR1 and SR2). The second thing that I like about the game is how they explained in detail in the game about Johnny Gat coming back and how he didn't die in the Third game but was abducted by Zinyak because Zinyak thought that Johnny Gat was the one human being that could defeat him. The third and final thing that I thought was awesome, cool and sweet at the same time was the Ben King character and the voices behind him. Now everyone that played the first Saints Row game knows that the original voice of Ben was the Late Michael Clark Duncan, but since he died the people of Volition and Deep Silver reached out to Terry Crews(The Old Spice Muscle guy) and had him portray the voice but what I love about that is that during the credits, they have Michael's name credited as one of the voices and next to his name is the "RIP" in parenthesis. Then the other thing that I thought was sweet was during the credits you hear the voice actors singing Biz Markie's Just a friend and as everyone fades out, the last voice you hear is Michael's voice and I thought that was a nice little surprise that they put in there.
Overall I am thoroughly and extremely satisfied with Saints Row 4, I give the game a 9.5 and I highly recommend people to go buy it. The game is $60 or you can wait until the price drops to get it and it is for the 360 and PS3. Okay guys that's all the time I have for today so don't forget to comment, Like, plus 1, share and Donate to the website. Some big things are being planned for Black Chivalrous Nerd but I can't do it without your help. Until next time, LOVE PEACE AND BACON GREASE and Saints 4 Life *Smoke Bombs Out*
