Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Experience 1111 - Favorite Screenshots

Here are some of my favorite screens captured during my playthrough of Saints Row IV. Beware that if you expand this post the images are HUGE. (though I would have liked to upload the 1920x1200 versions, google decided to scale all my images... so you get 1600x1000)


Monday, October 14, 2013

Experience 1110 - 10011100

Spoiler Alert! (ie. this is the end of the game)

Whoops apparently everything was not well. Kinzie was taken prisoner so I could play through her nightmare. Strangely her nightmare looked a lot like my own character's with the exception of involving an old nemesis from SR3 named Cyrus. For some reason Kinzie has a lot of hate for Cyrus... a LOT of hate.

I know this! It's Linux.
The mission to save Kinzie in 50s land was very nonsensical. I have no clue what in the world the implication was. Kinzie might as well have been a walking corpse. I was confused. I also had the displeasure of using the dubstep gun which didn't really make sense to me. Finally I had to battle these crazy propaganda cars that just continuously ran me over. Overall this was not fun.

Kinzie dances a bit in the 50s world because... I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON.
After the mission Kinzie's secondary mission was to go after Cyrus. Again I have no clue why she became hell bent on taking him out. I guess everyone needs something to go after in this game...

'merica weapon blasting fire at the enemy.
With Kinzie back to safety and Cyrus out of the picture it was time to take on THE FINAL MISSION(s).

The first step was to build a key. This key required numerous components in the virtual world to create a key for CID to use to shut down the simulation. So I went around battling in the simulation collecting parts.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

This is how people used to install expansion cards into their computers: by punching them in.
Up next we had to take the key to the old Saints tower in the middle of the city. This began with an RPG blasting sequence that was fairly easy and fun (surprised there weren't more in the game!). Up next I had to play defense for CID while he used is 80286 CPU to calculate 1 + 2.

Nearly final "protect the thing from being exploded" task.

Up next I had to protect a number of portals so they could open and release all sorts of allies to annoy the Zin in the simulation. This was one of the rare instances where I failed a mission. I failed to protect the last portal on the first try... it didn't help that the portal was already damaged when I arrived.

UFO goes boom.
The final portal released Paul. He's fairly tough based on my prior experience so he'll probably do the job of bothering the Zin nicely. Unfortunately I never did get to watch and appreciate Paul in action laying waste to the Zin.

Paul should have been a playable character.

In the final sequence, where you have the direct assistance of your companions, you have to play defense for them. Unfortunately I had failed to upgrade ANY of the alien weapons (assuming that the upgrades apply outside of the simulation... knowing this game they do). This meant I was actually down to about 0 health and surrounded by the enemies when the defense sequence decided to end (I'm guessing it was based on a timer of some sort). Note to self: Be sure to upgrade ALL the weapons.

The last run and gun sequence of the game involves a lot of explosions and is a pain due to the onslaught of enemies.

Finally I put on some Power Armor and jumped into a huge shaft to dodge flaming wreckage on my way to meet my fate against Zinyak.

Dead Space screenshot?
"... and finally we meet again Zinyak."

Sup.

Fighting Zinyak directly would be too easy so instead he got into his own huge stompy robot and proceeded to call in reinforcements to make taking him out difficult. They also forced a little bit of telekinesis in the battle to make sure you put those skills to use!

While in this huge stompy robot I don't recall once being physically hit by Zinyak...
In the end the Saints showed up and helped out... I think they helped at least.



Taking my place on the throne... not really sure I'm the best leader for the galaxy.

The title of this entry is in reference to a binary number seen in variious UI screens in the background. It's nothing of real significance that I know of... (in base 10 it's 156)

... and then there's the dance sequence ...

... and now I am done with Saints Row IV. I'll add one final post with the raw images of my favorite screenshots as png files unless blogger indicates I'm eating up too much space. Quite the journey and certainly a fun game to play through!

Experience 1101 - The enemy of my enemy was my friend but now he is my enemy's friend -a bit later- but after feeling guilty he's just back to being the enemy of my enemy and not so much my friend.

Up first I went audio log hunting. This is mostly useless information and just the "completionist" in me taking over my experience. Unfortunately not all of the actual collectables are available until late in the game. This was the case as I scoured for things that had not yet even been placed into the world. I had to actually progress further in the game a few missions to collect the last few collectables.

After way too much time gathering audio logs I decided it was time to put on the "ending the game soon" outfit from SR3 -- The Cardinal. The save game "complete" percentage made it clear the game was coming to a close.

The left half is a bit pixelated due to the in-game filtering to remind the player that this is a virtual world inside a virtual word.
The first mission I took one would have been the last if things went according to plan...

Other than Gat is in this game?

The Saints gathered to start the final assault only to be attacked themselves. The Zin poured into the "secret" Saints warehouse with a new weapon that could disable the super powers used throughout the game. The assault was particularly annoying because a number of tanks could only be affected by missiles... something that never really seemed to apply in the rest of the game (although I didn't battle too many tanks in my experience...).

After escaping the assault I had to protect the Saints driving in a car by using a very well armed helicopter.

Missiles that curve a lot certainly look cool visually.
The saints escaped and then we ended up in a shooting gallery... well the Genki activity but this time the contestants were hordes of Zin soldiers that we had to mow down. We escaped and stole a Genki-mobile and everything was progressing well (I guess...). Then just when things were working out we hit a snag...

Zinyak certainly did more than just hold Kinzie up in the air...

Then the Zin attacked the ship in the "real" world. They were already in the process of hurdling it into the sun when we woke up and fought back. We returned a couple of explosive gifts attached to the ship to the enemy ship attached/guiding ours into the sun. We broke off and I am assuming veered away from the sun... though that never really was made completely clear... I would have expected a cutscene of the ship flying to safety.

Even this image is hard to look at.

In various media outlets and even the game itself they reference "Benjamin !$%^-ing King" ... but really it should be "Keith !$%^-ing David" ... and on another note the super version of Benjamin King doesn't look like Benjamin King. He looks like Morpheus from the Matrix and apparently lost quite a bit of weight.

Apparently the whole reason things went awry in the virtual world was that "Keith !$%^-ing David" turned on us for the promise of leading the virtual world (which is totally confusing among other things).

Oh make your enemy your friend... seems easy enough.
I trusted "Keith !$%^-ing David" to be my VP!

I knew there was something wrong with "Keith !$%^-ing David" ... he was the only one to NOT take part in the Romance activity.
Anyway... "Keith !$%^-ing David" ends up turning on Zinyak for some reason. So then you end up in his "nightmare" scenario which for some reason involves Rowdy Roddy Piper brawling with "Keith !$%^-ing David."

Piper apparently shows up where he is needed... like in the middle of Saints Row games.
After watching Piper and "Keith !$%^-ing David" brawl for a while it was time to head to the roof and shoot stuff for a bit.

Very stylish mid-battle almost silhouette.

"Keith !$%^-ing David" is back on our side and the game continues! That was a weird turn in the story that added very little to the overall experience. I would figure the Saints would have tossed "Keith !$%^-ing David" into space.