After many 100+ hours of Saints Row: The Third, I am finally sitting down to write this review. This review is going to be a long one so if you don't like reading, I am sorry but I can't help myself from writing a whole novel...

To begin I will start off with the story. The story was done well, for the most part, and it flowed and made coherent sense for most of the plot. The story concerns you as the leader of the Third Street Saints crash landing in the town of Steelport after a failed bank heist. Over the course of the game, you take on the three different gangs found in Steelport; The Deckers, Luchadores, and Morningstar. The antagonists are mostly formidable foes, mostly except for the Morningstar main threat which gets neutralized in the beginning of the story. The Morningstar and even some of the Deckers story could have been flushed out and built up more because in the end, they feel like they end up taking a backseat to the Luchadores and Killbane plot-line. In summary, the plot and story are pretty good and provide some entertaining and enjoyable moments throughout, except for the part where the zombies happen. Yeah, that part is just a no from me...

Moving onward, let's talk about the setting of Steelport. In short, it's a pretty well-put-together city, but not as good as Stilwater as there is less variety in the city structure and the districts. After playing in the city for many hours the variety seems to be limited, yeah you've got a central city area, as well as some residential suburban areas and an industrial district but that is about it for the variety. There is a lot less detail and variety than the setting of Stilwater from Saints Row 2. All in all, the setting is adequate enough but feels bleak and dreary in comparison to what I've seen out of Stilwater as there is less variety from both the city and the NPCS and their animations.

Let's talk about character and car customization. Character customization is one of the strong points of Saints Row. It is one of few games with extensive character customization. There is so much flexibility in this area that you can make and be whatever character you want. In addition to the character customization options, there are a number of different clothing options to choose from giving you even more flexibility. Although the car customization options in the garage a slightly fewer compared to games such as Grand Theft Auto V they do a good job of giving you choices when it comes to options and colors. In the same regard, there are also many weapons that you can purchase/unlock to choose from giving you endless options for murder.

To conclude the review Saints Row: The Third is a really good game and although maybe not be as good as the second game it is still a really fun and enjoyable experience as well as a fun and open world game to just let loose and mess around in causing extreme chaos and mayhem. I strongly recommend this game and if you are still reading this review I would encourage you to buy it when it is on sale as I got the game and all the DLC for very cheap and I definitely got my money's worth. In closing, I will just say that this game is something special...

Ever since Mr. Shifty was first announced I had been following the development of the game and even played the beta build back when it was released. It was a fun game and a decently enjoyable experience having similar but also different elements from other games such as Superhot and of course Hotline Miami as already mentioned by others writing reviews of this game... It is just only now on sale that I bought the game and played through the story in its entirety.

To begin, the ability to "shift" or teleport a short distance through walls, obstacles, and bullets is a nice touch and a fresh mechanic in the game. In addition, the combat system and a largely destructible environment full of melee weapons to use against enemies (who have guns) also help to keep the game interesting (at least for the beginning half of the game). The art style and the soundtrack as well were done to a large degree well.

The problem with this game is that the story of the game ends up feeling generic and also too long to the point where the back half ends up feeling like it is dragging because the game mechanics become stale. There is largely no new mechanics or additions to keep the game feeling fresh in the back half and as a result, the game just ends up becoming a boring mess to some extent. I was also kind of disappointed at the difficulty spike, which in this instance on the last few stages of the complete eighteen stages total in the story, seemed to become challenging just because it could, without any real justification to the point where the end of the game was anti-climatic. Also, I do agree with what other people have said about the other mechanic of the game on the slow motion time, which activates when you are going to get hit with a bullet. I also wish that this mechanic could be controlled/triggered by the player and wasn't automatically activated.

All in all, Mr. Shifty still provides a decently enjoyable experience with a unique addition to the top-down action genre that has enough content to stand alone as its own title, despite being plagued by a few details such as the story content. Even though there are some things that disappointed me slightly in the end, I would still recommend this game to anyone who wants to give it a play-through. I would also consider getting it on sale as there is limited replayability. (The only incentive to really replay the levels are the first completion is for the speedrun achievements or to try and get fewer deaths or a perfect run). The game is fairly addictive and entertaining though for the most part in conclusion.

I have played Saints Row IV for many hours and even completed the game in its entirety including all of the achievements, some of them being the annoying collectible ones, for example, all of the data clusters and audio logs of the crew scattered around Steelport. This review will cover a variety of the game’s aspects.

For the most part, the story and characters carry over from the third game in the series as well as there are some new additions to the Saints’ roster including Asha Odekar, and characters returning that appeared in earlier entries such as Benjamin King. This is the entry of the series that I will admit shifted the game into rough waters with regard to the plot and over-the-top craziness. I think that Saints Row The Third walked a balance between humor and seriousness with regard to the plot and gameplay. To some, it may seem like the elements in Saints Row IV take it a little bit too far. In terms of the story, this one is wild. After you take down Cyrus Temple and stop a missile you become the President of the United States (if you didn’t know that is actually what happens), after which the story concerns you trying to stop an alien invasion from the Zin army led by Zinyak after they invade Earth. Overall, I think the story in this one is a bit stronger and more well put together than the third one, although there are some stressful moments that did annoy me a little bit. Hey, at least Johnny Gat is back though.

Moreover, It is also worth noting that most of the game takes place inside a digital simulation of Steelport, which brings the setting down; it is mostly the same recycled map that you know from the previous game, albeit with more vertical towers and other elements added along with the giant spaceship in the sky. In terms of cribs or hideouts, there aren’t really any as the ship outside of the simulation in space becomes your main crib, and you enter the digital simulation through these white gateway portals which can be used to access your vehicle's weapons and outfits that you’ve saved there. It does suck that there are no cribs in the game but I guess it makes sense in terms of the story. Once again, the setting of Steelport feels dull, especially now in this sense as it is an emulation; this just makes the setting feel more bland in many ways as there is a lack of detail in the city and NPCs. Although this is the case, I do like a few of the missions where they bring the plot full circle and acknowledge events from the first two games of the franchise, going back to Stilwater; that was a nice touch and a trip down memory lane.

In regards to the character and car customization, it is pretty much the same as in the third game, although there are a few more options from what I remember. In addition, this game also added the ability to customize the skins on your weapons, which is an element I wish had been added previously in Saints Row: The Third. In addition, it is worth mentioning that there are more vehicles in this game, although I found myself not really needing them. This is because shortly after starting the story you get superpowers and as you play through the storyline you are able to unlock more abilities for the superpowers so you pretty much just end up flying/running everywhere.

All in all, Saints Row IV still captured my interest enough to the point where over the past few years I beat the game on a few different occasions and is a nice acknowledgment of past entries in the series, even if it goes a little off the rails with the whole Zinyak alien invasion plot in the story. If you are a fan of earlier entries in the series such as the previous game, Saints Row: The Third, then this one is maybe worth checking out with your time, as I had a lot of good time playing it. Also, they recently upgraded the game to the Re-Elected Edition and I have heard from others in reviews that it breaks the game and makes it unplayable. I will have to check this at some point because I haven’t launched the game a whole lot since the update to the version with all the DLC content. In summary, I would recommend the game and as far as I know, it goes for relatively cheap Steam sales and is a well-put-together game.