Geekscape Games Previews ‘Saints Row IV’: A Recipe For Fun

Recipe for the most fun you’ll ever have this year:

1 cup of the 1992 movie, Stay Tuned
1/2  cup Crackdown
A dash of Saints Row: The Third
Add a pinch of Keith David, Benjamin King (Only use the muthafuckin’ kind, the other brand has less flava), and Nolan North.
Mix well in a blender with ice.

Finished product should be the best funtini you’ve ever tasted in your life.

Let’s break down this one of a kind recipe, shall we?

1 cup of the movie, Stay Tuned

Many of you are too young to have seen this fine motion picture starring John Ritter. The synopsis of Stay Tuned: a husband and wife get sucked into TV land and try to survive all the 100+ channels of programming in order to escape. Saints Row IV approaches this theme with the way it seamlessly cuts from each scenario. From playing a super soldier that saves the world while Aerosmith’s “Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” plays, to fulfilling your Presidential role of abolishing cancer and bringing the fist of justice to the low road of filibusters. When Saints Row IV switches from Leave it to Beaver land to the virtual reality trap the alien race Zin and its leader Zinyak has the Saints in, that’s when the fun factor really picks up.

1/2 cup of Crackdown

Crackdown is one of my favorite titles for the Xbox 360. Realtime Worlds really crafted the perfect playground of superhuman-like abilities in an open environment. Jumping 30 feet in the air, running faster than any car, and throwing any car that tried to be faster than you gave me the first taste of what true freedom in having fun was like.

Saints Row IV provides nostalgia for those feelings by letting you play like kid in a candy factory with absolutely no rules. Collecting bits of data to upgrade powers such as super jump, super speed, gliding makes me wonder if Crackdown was part of the design document for Saints Row IV. Beating the Wardens, the super soldiers Zinyak has placed in the virtual reality you are trapped in, grants you special abilities to augment the already exuberant fun factor with the other powers. Freezing the aliens which in turn lets me do double damage for a brief period of time is a great way to deal with a groups of enemies. The one things I would want to make things a little more sweeter is being able to shoot while jumping. In Crackdown, raining hell down unsuspecting fools with rockets while free falling never, ever gets old.

A dash of Saints Row: The Third

When Volition decided to stop being serious with the Saints Row franchise and just said, “Fuck it. Let’s see how much dumb shit we can get away with.”, what the world was blessed with was Saints Row: The Third. The humor that was put into Saints Row: The Third was in short, brilliant. If you weren’t laughing, smiling or down right having the best time in an 3rd-person open world game, you had no soul. From the auto-tuned pimp, Zimos, the homage to cheesy action flicks, great voice work and dialogue, perfect use of licensed songs in key moments, Saints Row: The Third was like the perfect storm for fun. You can’t tell me Sublime’s “What I Got” scene wasn’t an amazing moment when you first saw it.

Saints Row IV brings all those things that made Saints Row: The Third great, along for the ride. From what I’ve played of the preview build, Volition knew the exact vibe to carry over into Saints Row IV without going too far into making a parody of itself. If you’re worrying about how Saints Row IV was built around what was suppose to be a standalone expansion for Saints Row:The Third when THQ owned the IP, rest assured that enough care went into changing Enter the Dominatrix that the full game flavor is fresh.

Add a pinch of Keith David, Benjamin King and Nolan North

Nothing pleases the earhole pallets quite like Keith David’s voice. Have a listen for yourself:

Having Keith David play himself as the the Vice President of the United States was a genius move on Volition’s part. Something about that commanding voice of his that could get me to do anything, I mean ANYTHING. Benjamin “Muthafuckin” King. Since Terry Crews is taking over for the late Michael Clark Duncan, I see more outlandish dialogue being said. If Volition was smart, they would throw an Old Spice reference in there for us all.

Now we come to what took up the majority of my time in the preview build of Saints Row IV, Nolan North. Whoever made the call to insert Nolan North as a voice option in the character creation menus, I want to say “I love you”. I must have cycled through all the taunts and compliments that you can pick for your created character five times. There is a specific part in the preview that Kenzi asks you to “just be yourself”. Of course the correct response would be, “you mean Nolan North?” I think I snorted from the laughter from that one line. It shouldn’t have been that funny, but I was riding the high from the start of Saints Row IV and it felt it was never going to stop.

I know that in the future, people will find ways to make this recipe even better than the original. Until that far flung future happens, I suggest you get a taste of Saints Row IV when it releases on August 20 later this year.