As an open-world game, the Saints Row series borrows many ideas and gameplay elements from the Grand Theft Auto series. However, Saints Row IV sets itself apart with over-the-top humor and fast-paced gameplay. 

The game sends your custom character on a mission to take out a terrorist leader who seeks to launch nuclear missiles at Washington, D.C. At the end, your character jumps on a launched missile and climbs it to disarm it. 

While you’re climbing up the flying missile, sad music plays, and your teammates share stories about your life over the radio, parodying a hero’s death scene from action movies. 

Once your character disarms the missile, he falls through the roof of the White House and into the President’s chair. That’s when your character becomes the President for his deed.

Among Saint’s Row’s absurd twists is an alien invasion that makes for interesting gameplay when your character is placed into a simulation of what appears to be an over-ecstatic 1950s neighborhood.

The city from the previous game is brought back but changed with alien installments and data clusters hidden around the city for you to collect. Your friend Kinzie attempts to hack and modify the simulation on the outside, which creates a fresh gameplay element.

These hacked-in elements can be incredibly fun but make the game too easy. New to the series are superpowers which can be earned in the simulation. They allow you to run at a super speed and jump very high, among other things. 

These powers add to the game’s over-the-top, high-speed feeling. However, when you gain these powers, vehicles almost become useless, and any time you spent upgrading them seems to have little point later on.

Superpowers, as well as the new health system, mean that players must try hard if they want to die. While fun at first, the lack of challenge gets boring at times. Health does not regenerate during combat, but enemies drop health pickups like candy from a piñata. This adds to the many alien weapons that can be picked up from enemies and gives you close-to-unlimited health and ammo during firefights. 

Much of the humor in the game comes from the game parodying other genres of games or even the video game industry itself. 

An example of poking fun at the industry is how the game parodies Nolan North. North is well known in the video game industry for voicing a very large number of characters and has become a joke for being in so many games with an instantly recognizable voice. When creating your character you have the options “Male voice 1-3” “Female voice 1-3” or “Nolan North.”

The activity challenges in Saints Row IV are a fun plus. These activities, which are scattered throughout the city, vary from collecting items, co-op activities and (a personal favorite) that allows you to do as much damage as you can in two minutes with a gun that shoots miniature black holes.

Despite all the parodies and humor thrown into the game, Saints Row IV manages to not be all about the humor. The story is well thought out and entertaining, and the characters you meet along the way—many returning from the third game in the series where they were minor—are well fleshed out by the end of the game.