From the first moment youre performing the Stone Cold Stunner on an unwilling alien prison-guard in a frantic escape attempt, to the many others of lobbing vehicles and citizens at groups of thugs, Saints Row IV is escapism personified. Not content with smashing straight through the fourth wall in part III, the fine folks at Volition pulled each and every gamer lucky enough to sit infront of a screen straight into their insane world of in-jokes and batsh*t-crazy ideals for IV, creating an immensely pleasurable cocktail of pop-culture references and absurdly over-the-top scenarios. In a bid to make the most unorthodox title in existence, your custom-created gangster is now the President of the United States (because, why not?) along with having a plot revolve around he or she defending Earth from an alien invasion by developing superpowers that include telekinesis, flame-throwing, and wall running. If you think that sounds crazy, wait until youre piloting an alien ship and What Is Love? comes on the cockpit-radio, or the games entire aesthetic turns into a text adventure, or you start literally bursting apart larger enemies from the inside, Neo-style. Needless to say Saints Row IV is a never-ending cacophony of fun and genuinely hilarious moments that come thick and fast across the entirety of its runtime. With the addition of various celebrity cameos tying the whole attitude together in the most gloriously self-aware way, its a game built from the ground up to celebrate all the most awesomely iconic scenes and stereotypical one-liners we all love.
