Hail to the Saints!
After conquering all he/she/you set out to do as leader of the infamous Saints in Saints Row: The Third, what the most logical step for a gang leader to take? Why, to become the next president of the free world, of course!
Yes, it's true; in Saints Row 4, the leader of the Saints has been elected as President of the United States, and the rest of the Saints are the newly appointed Cabinet members. Not long after everyone has sworn their oaths and taken office, a race of aliens called Zen beams down to earth and kidnaps the Saints. Of course the President doesn't stay captured for long, and now it's part of the presidential duties to stop the aliens, rescue the Saints, and perhaps kill voters along the way.
But it wouldn't be a Saints Row game without some insanity, right? Well, how about the fact that the player now has superpowers? It makes it easier to combat the aliens if one has superpowers, after all. These powers include super running speed, gliding, the ability to leap tall buildings with a single bound, ice freezing powers, and telekinesis. Probably one of the most amusing uses I saw for telekinesis during this demonstration was the President—dressed as Uncle Sam, no less—hurling a hapless citizen toward some alien scum, thereby effectively killing both on contact.
Speaking of costumes, Volition has tremendously enhanced how players can customize the look of their characters. Not only can players pick costumes, such as Uncle Sam garb, but they can also customize the look of their weapons as well as upgrade them. These modifications to the weapons are purely cosmetic, so no matter how ridiculous a grenade launcher looks (as depicted below), it will still fire and wreak as much havok as your typical grenade launcher.
The Volition representatives on-site said that they wanted players to be able to have their characters look however they wanted, down to the weaponry. So if you want your character to look Victorian, your weapons can look Victorian as well.
But don't worry; Volition is adding the ridiculous weapons the game is known for on top of the ridiculous looks you can bestow upon them. They only showed us two of these new weapons, but they garnered a number of laughs across the room when they were presented. The first was the inflatable weapon, which literally inflates victims to comic proportions until they explode. The second was my favorite, and possible the favorite of everyone in the room—the dubstep gun. This gun literally fires the booming sounds of dubstep at its targets, prompting everyone to pretty much dance to death or be beaten down the with harsh beats. No matter how many times we saw this weapon getting used or how long the presenter used it, we could not stop laughing.
Since this game has the added dimension of superpowers, which includes the abilities to glide and leap buildings, the open world of Saints Row 4 is significantly larger than that of Saints Row: The Third, simply bcause the open world has now grown vertically. Players can expect the "critical path" of the game to last as long as Saints Row: The Third, but those who foray into the extra exploration and mayhem of the open world will definitely squeeze the most bang from the buck.
Saints Row 4 will release on August 20, 2013 for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. It will not be a next-gen title.
