Saint's Row IV: Re-Elected (2013/2022) - Review

 If you're not around to play a game series from the beginning for whatever reason, after a few years you'll be stuck with the first world problem of trying to figure out where to begin. The internet is shock-full of lists asking "which Castlevania is the best?" and "Which Super Mario game should I start with?". There are a lot of thing to factor in here - the series might have crossed over platforms you don't even have access to anymore. It might have evolved through different genres, meaning you have to figure out which ones suit your tastes. It might be unclear how much the games reference each other, meaning you have to start from the beginning to enjoy later parts more.

I've managed to end up having to make this choice recently with not just one but two games I am currently playing. Taking on the Assassin's Creed series I had over two handful of games to choose from (you can click the link to see how that went). Looking at the Saint's Row series I fortunately had less than half of that to choose from, but for some reason I went with the latest one (not counting the reboot).

What was my reasoning? Maybe it wasn't deeper than simply being the game that was on discount when I was looking to try it out. When investigating the older games (1 and 2) they also looked a little more serious and a lot more ugly than what I was after. So the choice for me was really between 3 and 4 in the end. 4 won out for unclear reasons and here I am, wondering whether I made the right choice. Can I ever really undo it by playing the third instalment afterwards?

Either way, the fourth game (this being the Re-Elected version, which includes all the DLC) has not been a bad experience. And maybe it could be interesting to read what the game is like for someone who has no previous knowledge of the series and judges it on its own merits alone. If you think so, read on.

Trying to explain the story of SRIV is not easy. Right off the bat it was pretty clear that things had been going on in the earlier games and this was a continuation on that, or at least so I think. There is going to be a lot of assumptions from my side moving forward here, assumptions and straight out guesses. But here we go; You play as a character who is the president of the world. But pretty quickly you learn that there isn't much world to preside over. Alien forces have destroyed it and caught you and your posse, the eponymous "Saints", in their mind game of a simulated world. It's unclear who they are, where they come from or what their motivations are, but these things honestly don't matter so much. In all the confusion one thing stands out clear as day - everything is just an excuse to allow you to try out crazy gameplay.

It's a very dark game, with the occasional neon.

And in this regard SRIV delivers. I am not generally a fan of games that make it their main goal to be weird, games like Goat Simulator for instance, which seem to be designed mainly for those special Youtubers who get their money from screaming a lot on screen.

But I do enjoy a game that takes an odd premise and still manages to build a somewhat interesting story around it, a game like Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a good example of this. While SRIV might lack a bit in the story department, in the sense that you get the feeling that everything is just a "free-for-all"-excuse for more mayhem, it does deliver on heart and character. SRIV has a lot of both.

The character controls well, and I would even dare say excellent when comparing it back-to-back to Assassin's Creed: Unity, which I as mentioned played simultaneously. You get super powers that allow you to jump very high, run very fast, throw huge objects in people's faces and run up the side of buildings. And that is just mentioning a tiny fraction of all the skills you can play around with after a handful of hours into the game. The skills you get can be unlocked with currency, you can unlock other attributes with other currency. Some are found on the stages, some are got by completing quests. There is a lot to keep track off, but it manages to stay fairly easy to understand and use.

The map of the virtual city is littered with objects to interact with. I didn't understand the purpose to having fifteen shops where you could alter the look on your rides, buy a new t-shirt or load up on more ammo, especially not after a short while into the game where it becomes easy and quick to get around the city. Convenience, maybe? There also seem to be quests that are specifically designed for multi-player, somehow, I didn't get a chance to try these.

The game is overall never a challenge on normal mode, probably veered more towards having fun than giving you a real challenge. When I died it was mostly to fooling around and not caring, than genuinely trying to solve something. The only time the game made me scratch my head and reload over and over, was during a quest where I had to fight Giant Paul the Giant Soda Can. That guy blasted me with a laser that was essentially a none-dodgeable one-shot, even on normal difficulty.

You can tell that your character and their gang has a long backstory together, a lot of the quests allude to that. I often felt that it would've been fun to have played the quests and scenarios that this game references first, but the quests often hold up gameplay wise on their own, at least enough to be entertaining even if you don't get that extra oumph from fan service and nostalgia.

And there is a lot of whacky shit to do, that's for sure. I love that the game designers have not held back in the brainstorming sessions. Even character creation allows you to create something with pink chrome skin, if you like that sort of thing. In order to interrupt the virtual world that the alien Zin (as they are called) have created you need to break the code like some Neo on crack. You get to hurl your body, literally, against objects, save Santa from Evil Santa, use all kinds of weird weapons and have a gang of Gingerbread Cookies be your sidekicks. I can't emphasize enough that the pitch document for this game probably just had the words "MORE IS MORE" written in big, bold, red letters.

But generally it works, I am entertained. I like the characters, though I barely know them, and I have fun with the insane things that we get to do. Until at some point I can't help but feeling that even this golden treadmill, is still nothing but a treadmill. Am I asking for a sense of direction in all this mayhem? Maybe. There is just so much to do, so many characters to help and so many virtual pedestrians to run over that it actually manages to feel a bit... empty. When I am given these many toys to play with, I end up feeling like none of them are fun in the long run.

I don't want to tell SRIV to get a grip or to calm down. I think SRIV is doing exactly what it should and it is doing it well. But for us mere mortals it gets a bit overwhelming in the long run. SRIV is an all-you-can-eat buffet where after ten minutes of browsing you realize you're really just interested in the baguettes.

What Remains of Edith Finch (PC) - Review

What is wrong with these people?
(Spoilers!)

I am so happy about the indie-revolution. Because of it, we're seeing a plethora of game-genres emerge (or re-emerge) that I didn't think were possible some 15 years ago. Back then I thought we'd pretty much be stuck with an endless line of Battlefields, FIFA's and Final Fantasies. Now we've got games that are more like toys, like Chuchél, games that are more of everything like Undertale and then we have games that are more like books, like Gone Home and To the Moon. What Remains of Edith Finch falls into the latter category, although for some reason they've been a bit playfully, or spitefully, called "walking-simulators". It's understandable, if you were to traverse a book you'd mostly just do walking and reading, and so it is in these games. Some argue that they can't be called games at all, and I find that discussion a bit beside the point. They're interactive, but they don't have much of gameplay in the sense of being able to fail at things or achieve stuff. It's an experience, and it's inbetween reading and gaming. The fact is I don't know why these games don't fall under the "visual novel" category, because it would be pretty lame if it was solely because you can walk around in them.

I do feel that these games, as I am going to call them nonetheless, fill a niche that a regular book couldn't though. Even with Walking-Simulators I didn't find very enjoyable, like To the Moon, I find it hard to imagine that the story would've been any good if it had been text only and no "gameplay" at all, even if the gameplay is what I found particularly weak. The interactivity of the medium gives life to a story that could've otherwise potentially not been as strong or entertaining. It's only fair that if we have a ton of games where the story only works as the backdrop or excuse for the gameplay the other end of the spectrum would be where the gameplay is only the backdrop or excuse to experience the story.

I know I've said there will be spoilers, and never is that more serious than with these games. They pretty much are their stories, so if you want to play it I strongly suggest doing so before reading this review.

What Remains... is a story about Edith returning to her childhood home to explore her family history. Four generations of Finches have lived and died in the house, and we pretty immediately find out that most of them died very young. This is due to a combination of Kennedy-esque bad luck and what can only be described as criminally neglectful parenting by the Finches. As you uncover more and more of the stories behind these peoples deaths, because that is the narrative of the game, you'll baffle at how no one seemed to learn from past mistakes. So we learn that Molly dies from eating poisonous mistletoe berries, that were kept in her room. Gregory drowns in the bath after his mom leaves him unattended to answer a phone call. Gus is left out in a storm and Calvin falls into the ocean because someone thought it would be a good idea to build a swing set right next to a cliff. Each story, and subsequent death, is experienced through a little mini-game which is different for each character and quite imaginative. It's difficult for me to wrap my head around whether the designers intended for these mini-games and stories to leave me sympathetic or chuckling. There is nothing funny about a toddler drowning in the bath of course, and the mini-game handles the matter quite delicately, but as a parent myself I found it a lot more frustrating than endearing to get to know the Finches. A lot of the time the stories left me thinking "really?", and not necessarily in the "wow, this is so tragic" kind of way.

As Edith you walk around the house and slowly discover each story. I say slowly because sweet macaroni does Edith walk slow. Fortunately it's not something that becomes very annoying, simply because the game rarely requires you to move, or want to move, quickly anyway. But walking up and down stairs is unrealistically slow and I was glad it wasn't something that I had to do often. Speaking of unrealistic, for some reason the designers have some very un-human looking models in the game at places and they really broke my immersion. Overall however the game did an ok job with making me feel like I was visiting a real place, albeit one inhabited by what must've been semi-crazy people. Because of this the game is also perfectly linear, but if you expected something else from this genre then you should've probably gone for one of those "Pick your story"-books instead.

Here are some of the notes I wrote down while playing it;
- Right at the start of the game Edith comments that they all grew tired of eating salmon after her brother started working in the cannery. Let me just say it's impossible to grow tired of salmon, I could eat that all day, every day.
-  If I've done my math correctly, Dawns dad is supposed to be 33 when he dies. He definitely looks like he is around 50 when we play his segment though, so I guess life wasn't kind to him.
- The first Finch (of the game family tree) is Odin, who is from Norway. Bit cliché to name a Scandinavian after Norse Mythology though, innit? Don't think Odin is a very common name in Norway.
- The end credits are really cool! Each name in the development team is accompanied by a picture of them as a kid. I wonder which picture of me I would choose for something like that?

The game is eerily similar to Gone Home, so much so that I had to check which came first to see which game copied the other (Gone Home was released 4 years before What Remains...). What Remains... is a much more fantasical game where Gone Home is a lot more grounded, and I definitely enjoyed the latter more. They're both only about two hours of gameplay however, and What Remains is still worth experiencing if you enjoy these types of games - if nothing else for the pretty far out death stories and they're accompanying mini-games. I will definitely give credit for those mini-games being quite memorable, especially the first one where you as Molly go on a hallucinogenic trip where you end up eating yourself and the last one where you as Lewis end up cutting your head off. Don't say I didn't warn you.

It makes you wonder though, who comes up with the idea of a game that is basically a whole bunch of kids dying in different ways?