Experience 1001 - SUPER. POWER. FIGHT. CLUB!

This session I figured I should change my outfit to just be Neo from the Matrix. Along with the new outfit I tried out a new activity: Fight Club. This is a fairly challenging sequence of rounds requiring you to take on multiple enemies that also have super powers. I found this to be fun and definitely a good use/practice of the various super powers.

 

The Fight Club activity is introduced with a classy still image as seen below...

I think this game was called Power Stone.

Many of the battles included themed thugs that had super powers but could be easily defeated. One set would be super fast with melee weapons while another had a group with the ability to throw objects at you. It was quite fun. Below you can see that the main character shows no exertion whatsoever in using super powered wrestling moves.

Next move was not to carry him to safety.

Into the chest punch!

I found the best way to defeat the main "boss" of each Fight Club Activity was to just melee attack them. With the exception of the most difficult they all were defeated quickly using the melee tactic.

Another activity that appeared was Mech Mayhem. This is basically like all mayhem activities... just as you could guess... in a mech. Destroy a given value total of stuff within the given time period. The key factor in this is to constantly shoot anything and everything... including street lights and anything else on the sidewalk.

I wish the textures on the BSR were a little nicer... they just don't look great up close.

And for weirdness...

Odd screenshot taken when my character was recovering...

Experience 1000 - Big Stompy Robot!

Up first it's time for uncle sam! Uncle Samantha doesn't look too bad but I swear she might as well be selling fried chicken dressed like this...

Uncle Sambo

After freeing Matt Miller from his prison the Saints didn't bother to pick him up. Kinzie isn't a fan so she figured he could work things out on his own. The main character didn't like Kinzie's choice and decided we should save Matt. This let Kinzie introduce a fun new toy in the game: The Big Stompy Robot (BSR). I'm starting to think that Saints Row 4 is actually a technical demo for their engine so they can license it out for whatever game some developer wants to make.

Fairly standard robot... no big purple phallus or other Saints Row standards...

The BSR initially only had access to jump packs and slamming the ground. As the mission progressed I gained the use of the weapons systems (machine gun and missiles). The BSR was fun for a bit but without much to do beyond just attacking things it wasn't all that interesting in comparison to the madness that is the regular combat gameplay in SR4.

Blastin' aliens is too easy in the mech/herc/BSR/robot/power suit.

After killing enough alien scum to meet the requirements of the mission I grabbed Matt with the BSR and jumped aboard the ship to escape only to have to play a sequence ala Star Wars taking out pursuing enemy fighters. The entire time a shielded ship taunts you but you can't actually do any damage to it. I don't think there was much chance of failing this part of the mission...

Need more power!

After returning to the simulation I had to battle with a Warden... as usual this was fairly easy... freeze and shoot a couple of times and all was well. The Warden battles are becoming easier and easier...

Uncle Sambo!

Raining sparks make the battlefield a bit more epic.

Matt is back but he's sooooooooo lame.

Experience 0111 - This is the End (well not really)

First up in my journey this session I opted to finish up the Mind Over Murder activities. You can see below I'm hurling a garbage truck. The activity is quite frantic with all sorts of mascots trying to gun you down while you wreak havoc (nothing really new for Saints Row).

One carefully aimed garbage truck hurl.

Before moving onto the next mission to save Matt Miller I figured it was time for costume change. The warrior in chaps is a bit awkward but seemed to work out. I looked through the actual full all-in-one outfits and realized that many of them have better components than just buying the individual pieces. There was a full warrior suit using the top armor piece that had a much better lower body (well compared to chaps ...).

Warrior President?

After changing I was off to the virtual world to save Matt Miller. Kinzie actively hacked things as I went through the experience. I found the little jokes about her commands not working (as seen below) quite entertaining but they definitely date me a bit. srkfa is a reference to an old Doom cheat code (idkfa) that gave you all weapons and full ammo. noclip is a more generic cheat code and just refers to allowing characters to pass through objects/walls (originally idclip). I had to first do some classic Atari-style Tank battling.

Drop Tank -- thanks Kinzie.

Up next I had to fight some tanks back in the game's standard 3d mode and then ride a Tron Cycle for a while... could have been a lot more fun honestly (definitely needed more jumps or something... the path was fairly bland).

I think most of the Tron Cycle experience was just for Zinyak to talk over...

Up next Zinyak gave me the option to save Matt or kill myself and save everyone. I of course opted to kill myself ending the game immediately (even played the credits). Apparently in that case Zinyak lied (shocker!).

YES!

Yes Again! (the next part of the text is to "kill yourself")

After the credits ran I had the option to pick again from my choices and opted to save Matt as opposed to quitting/uninstalling the game and writing a review about how short the experience felt. As with SR3 I had the confusing pleasure of playing through a text adventure (with graphics this time though). The experience is fairly linear without any possibility of failure (unlike many older adventure games that killed you if you pressed a key in a certain way). One oddity was that one of the entries I chose used a contraction to which the text adventure indicated it did not understand contractions. This would be acceptable except later one of the valid entries used a contraction. What? Why is that? Weird...

Decent graphics.

One homage I really liked in the text adventure was the music. Clearly someone liked the original Metroid music because I swear it was just about the same tones, but certainly a bit off.

Above left: Bioshock Infinite screenshot

It's probably about time for another outfit change and another mission! (as I think I am out of activities)