Saints Row 4 in the test: In the latest Saints Row her again visited the city of Steelport, but this time everything is different! The venue of the wrong open-world title is just a virtual world and your character suddenly has super powers! But is that enough to maintain the long term?
Saints Row 4 you can expect a really unconventional open-world title. Originally planned as a downloadable pack for Part 3, the game idea developed such a life of its own that developer Volition decided to make a game out of it own. But then it was really thick: publisher THQ and Volition owner went bankrupt earlier this year and the studio walked along with his game brands in the hands of Koch Media. There were extremely unfavorable circumstances in which Saints Row 4 was born. And it shows in the title: production and technology act stale and we were 4 in spite of the title the impression not going to gamble an extensive DLC here. The good news: Despite the game runs great!
At the beginning it is really thick!
In the tradition of the series, the story of Saints Row 4 is abundantly silly and generously adorned with all sorts of nonsense. Your character, free buildable as in the predecessor in every imaginable aspect is risen from the mob boss for President of the United States. Will you defeat hunger in the world, or rather cancer? These are the questions you beat you around in fun start to the game. But that is closing soon, because the nasty alien race Zin incident on the earth, the world population is trapped on their spaceship and beyond the blue planet. Henceforth, you spend the majority of playing time in a virtual version of Steelport - as known from the movie Matrix, only populated by all sorts of alien captors. Just as in the previous city serves despite alien influence mainly as a playground for your game overpowering figure. Which now dominates because they are not in the real world is just on the way, some crass new tricks!
Known game, new paint
Quite fast in the course of the story you get a colorful repertoire of super powers. Similar to Prototype 2 you throw fireballs, swirls telekinetically cars through the air, run up walls of houses or slides long distances through the air. It is amazing how these elements change the feel, and we now understand why the creators made a full-price title regardless of their DLC idea. Nevertheless, the game world is, despite some modifications Alien broadly still Steelport from Saints Row 3 Many weapons, cars and clothes were unchanged and also many side quests return to known form. Gang-bases have become alien hotspots, but the procedure remains the same: you must complete all objectives to win the zone for you. Havoc also challenges the position or hold it against several waves of enemies return. Here, the super powers at least bring variety to the game.
Saints Row 4 - Super, these forces!
It has already einzuheizen what the pesky alien breeding with fireballs and huge ramming attacks from a great height, rather than with machine gun and shotgun. And it will not get bored so fast to jump with giant leaps over houses or crossing the individual districts Steel ports in the Super Sprint - especially if one appreciates him with a Tornado function so that cars and pedestrians are pulled from your pace. Later, there is even a fire or electric aura for more chaos. In general it can permanently unlock something, pick, tick, shop and improve. Here opens their businesses through hacking mini-game, where does their contract killings or simple race, anywhere in the game world are hundreds of brilliant blue scattered fragments of data, which makes it even better your super powers. Those who have a strong collection and completeness engines will not release the gamepad so fast. Yes, the gamepad! Although the title of controls okay with mouse and keyboard, we perceive a classic Konsolenpad but clearly better than the input device, particularly since the interface is fully designed.
No one is overwhelmed
With all our thieving pleasure in the silly alien weapons, the furious super powers or bizarre moments in the game, such as when we need to cut down a living toilet bowl or rubber doll - really challenging or compelling the title is never. The numerous missions consist mostly of fairly simple tasks together: Go to location X, Y defeat enemies, protect person Z. And not all of the long side and unlock tasks is entertaining. Hardly a game element is really demanding, the missions are mostly staged quite clumsy and run maybe because of the new super powers a little too uniform: while you could offer variety, the predecessor with different emission vehicles and weapons, it is now almost constantly on your superior special abilities. While diving at the end of the game to also properly challenging opponents, but no real depth also creates. Rather, we felt that the ongoing alien replenishment with time as quite a burden.
Shallower, successful fun
As well, the humor in the game is right. And what he lacks in range, he makes up for with madness and many surprises. So your character awakens in Story Progression from their matrix sleeping, pirates an alien spaceship and brings the old gang back together. From then on her travels repeatedly between the virtual Steelport and the spaceship back and forth, provides you wonderfully nasty war of words with your colleagues and always saves new comrades from their prisons. Here you always rises in the simulation of the primal fears of the prisoners and this is often wonderfully oblique. Time you are experiencing a silly Metal Gear Solid parody, even a 2D fighting game, or even a text adventure. All this could indeed be playful refined, the excellent English dub makes the betting but loose. You have the choice of seven votes for your character, including Nolan North, voice, THE male heroes in video games. Given such a high profile and successful setting for us is the lack of German language edition bearable - but why does the Tital only with good English skills a lot of fun
Also technically very familiar
The graphics of the open-world adventure seems a little stale, but overall can be seen. Although environment details and textures could be better, but there are a variety of modern effects - especially from the explosions look great. And the performance of the game on a middle-class PCs is satisfactory. If you have a graphics card with Nvidia's Kepler chip, also welcomes TXAA anti-aliasing. Even with the appearance you see Saints Row 4 so that there is extra content rather than truly new game. It will probably be only the fifth part would still be conclusive despite a destroyed Earth.
Why? We do not want to betray better. For this we tell you our overall impression: Saints Row 4 is a good game. Nothing more, nothing less. It better not come off, it owes to the recycling of known violent content and game elements as well as the rather undemanding gameplay. That it does not come off worse, it owes its wrong humor and the fact that it's fun to let off steam so right with the super powers and alien weapons. And even if it is a rather shallow fun, Saints Row 4 offers the 4 so we need to show respect for this title yet.
Saints Row 4 Conclusion
That's a crazy story, like a whole new game was out of the planned DLC Enter the Dominatrix for the third Saints Row. You notice on Saints Row 4, that it was never intended as a full-price title, and somehow I might have been even happier for the previous with the super powers DLC. Download the package as new superpowers have also been fun and I had a lot more DLC forgiven. As a full-price game, the thing works as well, but just not really brilliant. After all, I am glad that it still goes on after THQ broke with the series, and am curious if and how Volition will continue the sympathetic-trashy series.
