Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell Review (PS4)

I’ve been wanting to play this game for a while now, since it was announced that it would be released, but just never really had the chance or the time. When I felt like playing something new, I figured I would hook this one up since I bought it a couple of weeks ago, little did I know that it would be free on PS+ so soon after. That’s usually how things go for me, but I’m not complaining. Anyway keep reading to see if it was worth the wait or a total let down.

Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell takes place after the events of Saints Row IV. You’re on the ship celebrating Kinzie’s birthday when all of a sudden the President gets dragged down to Hell. It’s up to Kinzie and Johnny Gat to save the President so he/she isn’t forced to marry Satan’s daughter Jezebel. While down in hell you’ll see some familiar faces along with some new ones. Like any other Saints Row game, it comes with a crazy ass story that’s told in a story book fashion this time around. Will Johnny and Kinzie be able to save the President and stop Satan? Not only that, but you have the chance to take over all of hell and become more powerful than Satan himself. At this point can Saints Row get any crazier?

While this isn’t the sequel that people are waiting for, it’s a pretty cool in between expansion game. While you don’t get to play as your character that can be imported if you played the previous game on the PS4, you get to play as Johnny and Kinzie which I absolutely loved. Not so much the playing Johnny part since I’m not a huge fan of his characters, but I am a huge Kinzie fan and I really enjoyed playing as her. The main story and it’s missions will only take no longer than 5 hours if you’re diligent and while there’s enough challenges and other stuff to keep you occupied in game, the twenty hour play time required for the trophy becomes challenging in itself because after a while the game loses its charm and becomes a hassle to play. While it still follows the same old Saints Row theme and crazy antics, that can only sustain itself for so long. The story is mediocre at best and for me it was told a little too quickly and a resolution came a little too quickly. I did like the surprise twist at the end and I’m hoping that it kind of sets up the next game depending on what choice you made since you had the choice of two different scenarios. Overall it was fun while the story was still active along with all the side quests, but after all that the game soon became boring.

The playability was the same as any other Saints Row game and I was extremely happy that there were no bugs or glitches. The only problem that I encountered, which I never encountered with any other downloaded games, was that when the game said it was fully downloaded and fully installed, it actually wasn’t. It took additional time to install meaning that I was locked out of doing a lot of things that the game wanted me to like main missions and being able to switch between Johnny and Kinzie. This was a major problem for me since the game should have fully downloaded to begin with instead of partially downloading and then continue downloading without even giving me an actual warning. Other than that the game ran smoothly and I enjoyed sprinting around the hell and flying around hell whenever I had the chance to.

The graphics for this game were the typical Saints Row graphics, and I really didn’t see a change from what they were on the PS3 to what they could have done for the PS4. I’m hoping this will change if there ever is a Saints Row V. I really don’t have any complaints in the graphics department though other than everything is constantly dark. I know this game takes place in hell, but I like the change between night and day type thing and constantly playing in a dark environment isn’t really all that fun for me.

What’s a game without trophies these days, and this game has another 46 that you can add to your trophy card. I would say that the trophies are similar to all the other Saints Row games and really aren’t all that difficult to get as long as you play the game and do every single thing the game has to offer. Doing this should take around 23 hours. The only problem I had was with of course, the Co-Op trophy. I played with three different random people before I got some help from someone on my friends list, shout out to LMD. I also want to thank the two people who were actually nice since I came into their game with super powered weapons and all of my super powers to the max and a big BOO to the one person who kicked me out for no reason.

Unfortunately there is Co-Op for this game and it’s required to get one of the trophies which means you have to do it if you want the platinum trophy. While it isn’t bad and everything ran really smoothly, it’s just that this game really isn’t all that active even with it being free because of PS+. Unless you have some friends to play this with for three whole hours, which isn’t really all that much if you think about it, then you’re kind of stuck playing with random people which can last from 1 minute to an hour at best. I mean I spent hundreds of hours playing Mass Effect 3 with the same people as well as Borderlands 2, so if you’re good buddies with someone on your friends list it’s not that bad and it’s another game you can play together. If not, there’s always PSNProfiles.com where there are a bunch of people looking to play the Co-Op or you can even start your own session. When I was playing with people who were actually decent people, I enjoyed running around hell and having someone else to help me wipe out Satan’s minions.

Overall I give this game a 3.5 out of 5.

What’s Great:
+ You get to play as Kinzie this time around, and Johnny, but mostly Kinzie.
+ Crazy Saints Row story to go with a game that is also pretty crazy if you think about it.
+ Smooth gameplay and no bugs or glitches.

What’s Not So Great:
– Story is really short but after the story there is still a bunch to do and without something to keep it interesting, it soon gets really boring.
– The graphics were good for a Saints Row game, but they weren’t impressive.
– The game does not fully download even though it says it does. You’ll have to actually wait a little while longer for the game to download before playing unless you want to be locked out of story missions and switching characters.

This was a nice little tie in for the Saints Row franchise and something to hold off Saints Row fans until the next game comes out, if there is going to be one. I would say that because right now it’s free thanks to PS+, to pick it up and give it a chance even if you’ve never even played Saints Row before. It’s a cool and crazy game and it’s free so why not. If you don’t have PS+ and you haven’t played Saints Row before then it’s kind of a toss-up on whether or not you’ll actually like it. I would wait until there’s a sale for this game and pick it up at a really decent price, but if not I don’t think you’re missing out on that much.