Saints Row IV Additional Thoughts

Saints Row IV and Batman: Arkham Origins have two things in common: They litter the map with crappy collectibles, and they seem to think that adding a short voice clip to grabbing collectibles constitutes a plot and a reward.

Tons of Collectibles is not Content
Saints Row IV is particularly bad for littering the map with lame collectibles. The map is just the map for Saints Row III, and they just stuck glowing spots all over. You have to get ten shinies just to get the smallest possible upgrade. I think the pure number of shinies was part of what hurt the game for me, since I would go slightly out of the way to grab them, and that can double your travel time even if you don't go too far out of the way.

Voice Clips Non-Plot
Other games probably have you do a repetitive task over and over then give you a small voice clip as a reward, but Batman and Saints Row did it so obviously. Once you finish the missions in Batman, you get Barbara Gordon saying, "we make a good team". That's it. In Saints Row, they give you a sound clip at the beginning of each tiny challenge. By the end, the characters even concede that it's repetitive and lame in the clips.

Sexism
Saints Row IV is still sexist, but not nearly as bad as SRIII. Sometimes I forget the part of III where you literally enslave women for use in sex work. Still shocking, especially since none of the characters see it as a problem.

Little Things
It would be nice if you could bind functions in the phone menu to a button. I'd like to be able to summon allies without going through three levels of menus. Or you could have the phone be accessible while playing, like in GTA. Or, allies could automatically spawn with a particular bonus power or something. Also the music is pretty good.

How to Play
There is a way to make the game fun. Drive whenever possible, play with a friend or summon allies at all times, and only do a few side missions. The side missions that aren't loyalty quests are incredibly repetitive, as I mentioned in the voice clips section earlier.