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Saints Row IV Review Thread

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davewiththeid

Neo Member
Longtime lurker here to post my review. (I write about games for Lee Enterprises newspapers. I also don't give scores, just one-sentence reviews.)

Co-sign on a lot of what's been said. Jumping around, flying and dive-bombing is just fun as hell. Performance did kind of drag on 360. And Laura Bailey is a kickass voice talent.
 
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Gbraga

Member
piratepwnsninja said:
I run it at 1920x1200, full screen here at work on a 470, maxed out, so it must be something weird with that card.
Click to expand...

That's good to know. Not day one to me since I'm still playing through The Third, but I'll definitely buy it.

And I was surprised by how pretty The Third is, wasn't expecting that. And DAT KITTY BACKPACK
 
D

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
v0mitg0d said:
Should I put this here or the official thread? Guessing here. Ok here we go. Remember these are just my opinions--not facts. It's subjective and my opinions may not be like other reviewers.

  • Saints Row 4 is just a wonderfully huge sandbox of absolute gameplay joy. It's bigger than life, and there's no way you're prepared for it.
  • For the other Crackdown fans out there, this is the closest thing we've got to a Crackdown 3...at least until it's official announcements. For me it is, by far, more enjoyable than Crackdown 2.
  • The game really nails traversal. It's more exciting than anything else out there, including inFAMOUS and Prototype. It's nothing but pure joy to jump and soar around looking for events and collectibles.
  • I played it on the PC and it looks great with everything cranked up, however I recommend the low setting for ambient occlusion. Everything else maxed out.
  • Indeed the game crashed on my 3 times out of 20+ hours of gameplay. Since I've had my review copy the game has been patched twice already. No crashes since second patch.
  • The narrative is campy & mostly fun--kinda like a snowcone--but make no mistake, SR4 is mostly about it's smattering of absurd gameplay/mechanics.
  • One of the thing is does well is mock other games like the Mass Effect series. It's great, you'll see.
  • Saints Row 4 comes at a great time. Between The Last of Us & other serious games, it's a nice little weekend ice-cream treat after a long work week.
  • I did not love all the events. There were 2 in particular I thought we just ok.
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Great impressions. Thanks!

Sidenote: I'll be reviewing the Game of the Generation edition as soon as it comes in, so I'll throw my review for COIN-OP.TV (and the unboxing on youtube.com/coinoptv ) up when I get it done.
 
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Fine Ham Abounds

Member
The RPS review is one of the most ridiculously glowing things I've ever read.

I thought it was kinda weird that the Eurogamer review mentions it being annoying having to restock your ammo. Maybe it was just me, but I thought most of 3's content was actually seriously diminished when I bought Infinite Ammo. I won't be making that mistake again unless there's a way to turn it off.
 
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Bittercup

Member
I like this from the Eurogamer Review: "There's a fine art to being this gloriously dumb, it seems, which pretty much makes Saints Row 4 the Sistine Chapel ceiling of stupidity."
:D

Stealthcobra said:
this is from giantbomb, "The frame rate of Saints Row: The Third wasn't pretty on consoles"

I played quite a bit of SR3 on ps3 and I didnt notice any problems....was i by myself in this?
Click to expand...
Both had very unstable 30fps but if you enabled vsync on the 360 you often got only 20fps and without vsync fps were better but a lot of tearing. The PS3 version had better performance even with vsync always enabled.
 
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Can Crusher

Banned
antitrop said:
But you can't understand what the reviewer is trying to say?
I can. It's not a ridiculous statement at all. Actually, I pretty much agree with it.

GTA 4 was pretty fucking desperate to be a film.
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You gotta have tunnel vision to believe that GTA is desperately trying to be a film. That's just a thing that those who would rather have a "everything is a joke" game like Saints Row try to sell.

Rockstar simply doesn't seem interested in making a 30 hour long juvenile parody. There's room for both kind of games, and clearly there's simply much more interest in GTA's tone than Saints Row.

I applaud Rockstar for wanting to create interesting characters and tell interesting stories. In the end both Saints Row and GTA want to be great games, they just have different ideas (thankfully).
 
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Count of Monte Sawed-Off

un33dab@dpu$$y
Stealthcobra said:
this is from giantbomb, "The frame rate of Saints Row: The Third wasn't pretty on consoles"

I played quite a bit of SR3 on ps3 and I didnt notice any problems....was i by myself in this?
Click to expand...

I didn't have any framerate issues either. It ran pretty smooth. But if SR4 has enough problems to warrant a drop in score I may have to cancel and wait for a sale.
 
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Fine Ham Abounds

Member
IdolNinja's review is nicely balanced and addresses the pros and cons of the content and gist of the game nicely.

Seriously recommend fans of SR2 give it a read, it's not all candy and roses while at the same time it makes a case for why the game is better than 3.
 
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antitrop

Member
Can Crusher said:
You gotta have tunnel vision to believe that GTA is desperately trying to be a film. That's just a thing that those who would rather have a "everything is a joke" game like Saints Row try to sell.
Click to expand...
Do you think GTA trying to be a film is a negative thing?

I'm not trying to imply that it is. I'm just saying that GTA IV, especially, was clearly trying to be as film-like as was possible for a video game of that nature at the time. So I agree with the quoted writer above.
 
Ploid 3.0

Ploid 3.0

Member
Cars become irrelevant after about two hours. The only reason I ever get in one is if a scripted mission requires it. Because why would I, when I can leap and zoom about far more quickly? And perhaps more importantly, in a way that lets me have far more fun. I have never bestowed this compliment on any game before, but it out-does City Of Heroes for sheer mad pleasure of moving around its environs. It has the perfect leaping and speeding of CoH, combined with the lunatic brute force of Crackdown, making for a game that’s not just fun to play because of its boundless content, but just purely fun to be playing.
Click to expand...

I like this, I always gave Just Cause 2 praise for it's parachute + grappling hook combo allowing me to travel fast and effectively across a huge world. I later downloaded the ability to fly (mod), and it was even better. The parachute + grapple still have uses when you want to position yourself or hover around a enemy stronghold. Cars are nice to have when you're experimenting with stunts/tricks, or just sight seeing in that game. The grapple with the bolo mod makes even more use out of having fun with cars.

Now if the next Volition game is a full out geo mod voxel type splendor, I'll gladly run tanks through their world, chip away at buildings with a truck, to watch it all come crumbling down like Red Faction:G.
 
Y

Yaboosh

Super Sleuth
Can't really read reviews right now, but are half the missions still just those bad side missions disguised as main missions?
 
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davewiththeid

Neo Member
Yaboosh said:
Can't really read reviews right now, but are half the missions still just those bad side missions disguised as main missions?
Click to expand...

Kind of. If you do all the side missions, you take care of all the activities (Mayhem, Trail Blazing, etc.) at the same time. I personally thought they were all pretty fun, except maybe the Mayhem where you can only score by stomping.
 
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Blue_Barry

Member
CopyCat said:
I like this from the Eurogamer Review: "There's a fine art to being this gloriously dumb, it seems, which pretty much makes Saints Row 4 the Sistine Chapel ceiling of stupidity."
:D


Both had very unstable 30fps but if you enabled vsync on the 360 you often got only 20fps and without vsync fps were better but a lot of tearing. The PS3 version had better performance even with vsync always enabled.
Click to expand...

You can turn V Sync on, for console games....? Thats super fucking weird.
 
N

Neiteio

Member
Wow, AWESOME reviews! I thought SR3 set the bar too high, but I see they still managed to make the sequel fresh and fun. I have a deep appreciation for games made by people who love games. Looking forward to this, although I'm thinking I'll play Pikmin 3 first. :)
 
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Deleted member 20415

Unconfirmed Member
Reviews are definitely pushing me to PC over 360... I don't want a performance hit - even if I did play SR3 on 360.

Hopefully someone's doing a pre-order deal somewhere.
 
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GolazoDan

Member
Gonna go for 360 despite the issues that are apparently present. I thought SR3 was fine for the most part and I don't have a PC to contrast against it. I also liked Far Cry 3 on consoles and I was informed about how shitty that was on those platforms so *shrug*.
 
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DanteGhost

Member
Great reviews. It's a shame that it is releasing so close to GTA 5 release date, since I don't have the time to invest in two sandbox games.
 
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