Saints Row: The Final Preview

ign.com:

When we got our first real look at Saints Row back in May, we said that the reboot feels like it sits somewhere between Saints Row 2 & 3. That was music to my ears, as I always preferred the (slightly) more serious tone of the second game to the straight-up zaniness of The Third. Now, after having played the first few hours of this new take on the Saints for myself, I'm glad to be able to say that it definitely feels more like an action-comedy from the likes of Matthew Vaughn or James Gunn rather than a straight-up farce from National Lampoon – though it also keeps a healthy dose of the bombastic action that made the later games so fun, too.

At this point, we’ve seen plenty about Saints Row’s extensive customization options, so I won’t spend too much time re-hashing that aside from saying Volition definitely doesn’t seem to be overselling that aspect of it. There are loads—from a wide variety of vehicles and weapons with their own mods, upgrades, and skins, to being able to completely redesign your entire character in a pause menu (technically it’s an app on your in-game smartphone, which has some horrifying in-universe implications, but we’re not going to think too hard about that).

Not every element of previous games’ creators have made it over—you can no longer adjust the pitch of your chosen character's voice, for example, and there’s no “Nolan North” option anymore—but beyond that, it seems the sky’s the limit. I also appreciated that the different voice actors for each option seem to bring a lot of themselves to the performances—sometimes even changing what language your character speaks in.

The overall setup for your takeover of the fictional southwestern burg of Santo Ileso looks to be staying true to the series’