Saints Row IV: Game of the Century Edition

Saints Row IV is a third-person open-world action game where you play as the President of the United States dropped into a simulated recreation of Steelport, fighting off an alien empire led by overlord Zinyak. The setup is pure chaos on purpose. Within the first hour you have Super Sprint and Super Jump unlocked, and from that point forward you are functionally a superhero who occasionally remembers guns exist. The power kit includes fire and ice projectile blasts, telekinesis, gravity stomp variants that launch enemies skyward, and a movement system that makes cars feel like they belong in a different game entirely. Collecting data clusters scattered across the map feeds into a skill tree that upgrades both powers and weapons. By the time you hit the mid-game, you are gliding across the entire map in under a minute. The weapon sandbox is where SRIV does its weirdest and most entertaining work. The Dubstep Gun forces enemies to drop everything and dance. The Disintegrator, once fully upgraded, puts almost anything down in one hit. The alien arsenal introduces overheating mechanics as a trade-off for raw power, which gives the gunplay a slightly different rhythm than standard shooters. Weapon customization lets you reskin and upgrade each piece, so you can have a rocket launcher that looks like a guitar case and deals accordingly obscene damage. There are 8 powers total split between active and passive, and mixing them with the gun kit is where the game has its best moments: stomp a crowd into the air, then clean up with a single burst. Here is the honest problem: the game gets trivially easy fast, and it knows it. Critics praised the humor and character customization at launch, but consistently flagged the lack of challenge. Once powers are upgraded to a high enough tier, both the Zin enemy squads and the alien police analogue feel like speed bumps. The side missions, including foot races, Mayhem events, and Insurance Fraud runs, recycle across the map and burn out quickly. The city itself is a reused Steelport from Saints Row: The Third with almost no visual upgrades. The team deliberately skipped graphical improvements, and the perpetual nighttime color palette makes the open world feel gray and flat. If you played SR3 recently, the familiarity will hit you fast and not entirely in a good way. The Game of the Century Edition bundles in 20 DLC packs, including the two story expansions that matter: Enter the Dominatrix and How the Saints Save Christmas. The Dominatrix content adds a self-contained mission pack with heavy meta-humor, and it is legitimately worth the extra time. The downside is that some of the DLC weapons land in your inventory early and break what little balance exists even further. Co-op is drop-in/drop-out and works cleanly for a game of this age, though the PC port has had stability complaints since a later Re-Elected update pushed crossplay support across Steam, Epic, and GOG. Some players reported crashes and broken save behavior post-update, so check the forums before committing a long session. This is not a game designed for people who want a tight feedback loop, a skill ceiling, or any real tension in combat. If you need competitive hooks or a ranked ladder, look elsewhere. What it delivers is a deliberate power fantasy with a genuinely funny script, a wild variety of weird weapons, and a co-op experience that holds up for a playthrough with a friend. The story parodies Mass Effect, The Matrix, and Metal Gear in specific, recognizable ways that land better than you would expect from a game this silly. Play it as the comedy action sandbox it is, accept that you will be overpowered by hour six, and you will have a good time.

Fred · Scout Team

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