Saints Row IV | Super Poderes y mucho cachondeo con estilo propio |

It’s undeniable that there’s been cost-saving after THQ’s troubles post SR3. Deep Silver picked up publishing duties most of the way into development, so the original penny pinching is still present in the game. But what’s incredible is that it doesn’t suffer for it. Sure, it’s the same city, and sure, they re-use a bunch of the last game’s locations (each time with an entertainingly specific justification). But it turns out that matters none, when you’re having more fun with a game than you can remember.

That’s what makes Saints Row IV so absolutely wonderful. It’s not the ghosts of controversy that the series once had, and the promotional materials so desperately wish was still there. It’s not dildo bats, or poorly pixelated winkies. It’s fun. It’s sheer, unbridled, unrestricted fun. It’s a game that boldly lets you do everything you could ever want to, and can survive such freedoms. It’s a game that realises its own potential – that this is a form in which no limitations are necessary, in which conforming to expectations is pointless. Games have the ability to let us live out such mad, explosive, eccentric nonsense, and yet they almost never do. Saints Row IV does, and that makes it incredibly special. That it does it with such panache, such ease, and such ceaselessly entertaining humour, makes it simply one of the most fun games I’ve ever played.