Game Review: Saints Row Gat Out of Hell

To say I'm disappointed with the latest installment of Saints Row would be quite an understatement. Having finished the game in what must have been no less than five hours (I didn't keep track; I really didn't care), I'd have to say this is one of the most disappointing games I've ever played.

Gat Out of Hell is the latest installment in the Saints Row series and is a standalone expansion to 2013's Saints Row 4. The game begins with the Saints Row cast celebrating Kinzie (Introduced in Saints Row the Third)'s birthday. Suddenly, a cursed ouija board sucks the president/boss/ruler of humanity/whatever into hell where they are to marry Satan's daughter Jezebel. Determined to get the boss back, Johnny Gat journies into hell with Kinzie (who goes along for no other reason than that it's her birthday) where they meet familiar faces from past SR games and team up with some familiar faces from history. 

At the beginning of the year I had picked up Gat Out of Hell for $20. Before playing it, I chose to do a Saints Row marathon leading up to the latest title. If I had known this was how my little marathon would conclude, I probably would have just finished with SR4. The whole year I spent playing these games and this is how it all concludes: not with a bang but with a whimper.

In prior Saints Row games, you progressed through the story be completing missions. Here, you don't even have to do a single mission to progress. All you have to do is run around causing destruction in Hell which would serve to get Satan's attention or as this game calls it, fill up the "Satan's Wrath" meter. While the game does have some missions (and I use that term loosely), like I said, you don't need to do a single one past getting Blackbeard, Vlad the Impaler, Shakesphere, and Kiki and Viola to join you. 

Let's talk about Blackbeard and the others. If you read that part, you're probably thinking, "Well that sounds awesome! You get to fight alongside Shakesphere and Blackbeard?" ...Well, actually you don't. In previous Saints Row games, you could get assistance from your friends or "homies" as they were referred to. In some cases, you would have to beat certain missions to acquire certain "homies". Here, while the game says they join Johnny, Kinzie, and Dane Vogel (from Saints Row 2) in taking down Satan, they ultimately do nothing. You can't contact them to assist you in combat. How cool would it have been to be fighting with Shakesphere or anyone else who you team up with? Imagine Johnny Gat shooting demons in the face along with Blackbeard impaling one with his swords. That will only remain a dream.

The aforementioned Kinzie serves no real role to the story either and seems to just be there to allow players the chance to play as a female. Anytime a cutscene occurs, even if you're playing as Kinzie most of the time, it'll be Johnny who it focuses on. While not too bad considering the title of the game, why couldn't they have recognized Kinzie's efforts? Why not, say, if you play as Kinzie and a cutscene activates, why not have her be the focus? Maybe the cutscenes could have changed depending on which character you're playing as. It really feels like she was added, again, just to have a female lead despite if she had a role or not.

The city is once again Steelport. Oh wait, I'm sorry, it's now called New Hades. It really doesn't matter what the name is changed to or how different it looks aesthetically. It's still Steelport. Same exact map. By this point, Steelport has now been used in three different Saints Row games with little to no changes. While Stilwater retained some aspects carried over into Saints Row 2, at least there were new areas added in to keep it from becoming to familiar and at least Stilwater was fun to explore. Steelport was never able to capture that same feeling and even as New Hades, it still isn't fun to roam around in. It's still for the most part, a city with no personality. 

Now despite how negative I've sounded so far, there are some positive aspects to the game. The cutscenes are great (if not a bit too exposition heavy) including one part done entirely in song. I won't spoil any of it but it definitely made this game at least slightly better. The voice actress who does Jane Austen, who serves as the game's narrator's voice does a fantastic job and it was always enjoyable to hear her voice. The other voice actors do a pretty good job too but Jane Austen's voice actress just steals the whole thing.

The weapons are as crazy as ever. This time, you get to used weapons such as an armchair with gatling guns underneath the arm rests (and yes, it is as cool as it sounds), a gun which fires exploding frogs, and many more. The unfortunate thing is that while these weapons are pretty fun, they're wasted on such bland enemies. 

Both Johnny and Kinzie are now able to fly. This replaces the glide from Saints Row 4 and is really the only thing that feels that Gat Out of Hell improved on. You also get superpowers again like those in SR4 and like in the prior game, you upgrade your powers by investing objects called Clusters. These make your abilities stronger and can also make the cool down time for the abilities go down quicker. 

Now as much as I didn't enjoy this game, as I got to the end and was about to face off against Satan, I could have at least expected to have a huge epic showdown with the ultimate evil right? Again, no. Even the final battle with Satan himself is underwhelming! He is ridiculously easy to beat so much so that halfway through the battle, I would just stand in one place as Satan and I traded blows. Of course, he sends so many of his minions at you that by the time they're all dead, your health will be back to 100% and you can lather, rinse, repeat. There's no real sense of danger in the final showdown and considering you're supposed to be squaring off against the prince of darkness, that's just not right. 

And lastly, my biggest issue with the game: no ingame radio! The fact that there's no radio to listen to makes this game even more boring. They squandered a perfect opportunity to have some heavy metal, some Bat out of Hell (come on, the title of the game's a direct reference to it), maybe even some Belzeboss by Tenacious D. 

With no real story missions, no music, a tired and worn out city, and not even any kind of customization (one of the things Saints Row is loved for), Gat Out of Hell is hugely disappointing. It has moments where it seems to begin to shine but ultimately it never gets that chance. If you've never played Saints Row 4, it might be a great time but as someone who had played SR4 prior to this, I was hoping for a bit more. As this was a $20 standalone expansion, I didn't expect too much but I still expected something.