I don't want to cover too much more of the plot. I feel it's a minefield of spoilers for die-hard Saints fans, but I will touch on the Super Homies. You'll have to complete a series of missions for each of your pals to unlock their super powers. Fighting the Zin accompanied by three super-powered Saints is gaming bliss. It's a bummer that almost all of the Super Homie side missions focus on completing the repetitive open-world events. They become tiresome rather quickly. I don't know how many stores I hacked for Kinzie or how many viruses I injected for Keith David, but it was too damn many.
On a happier note, the critical path missions change things up while experimenting with some gaming genres. SRIV touches on text adventures, stealth games, and offers up a pretty good side-scrolling beat'em up, but these are brief and under-developed. Sadly, the often loose gameplay isn't refined enough to be taking the piss out of anything.
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Two of the high points of SRIV are the wonderful weapons and super powers. Upgrade your speed and jump powers immediately. You'll never have to jack a car again. The customization options on the firearms is absolutely badass. You can change the skins of your firearms to knock-offs of famous movie guns. The SRIV in-house fantasy weapons, like the Inflat-o-Ray and much lauded Dubstep gun are nice, but I was rolling with a gold-plated pulse rifle from Aliens and dual-wielding Robo-Cop pistols. When these were paired with my Freeze Blast and Gravity Stomp I was formidable. When I had a co-op partner we were unstoppable.
Co-op is handled incredibly well, just as it was in SRTT. Two online or system-linked players can co-op every mission and side mission in the game, as well as freely explore the world together or apart. All XP, cache, and collectibles are shared between players and saved to both profiles. Story progress will save so long as you both are on the same mission or have the player with less story progress hosting. SRIV gets a little boring as a solo game. Co-op makes it something special. See it in action in our video review.
Thanks to Locke Vincent for putting this together.
I defeated the game, unlocked the Super Homies, and reclaimed all of Steelport in 24 hours of gameplay. I wasn't rushing. I still have several challenges to complete and hundreds of upgrade clusters to track down, but I already feel like a god amongst men and monsters.
Saints Row IV will keep the fans happy, but it's simply an extension of a game I enjoyed a few years ago.
The Co-Optimus Review of Saints Row IV was based on the Xbox 360 version, which was provided by the publisher.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Play through the entire game with a friend - bring in your own character with all of your customizations and upgrades. Both players keep the spoils of the Saints.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.