SR IV comes out this Tuesday. I'm super stoked to get it. I know SR:TT was pretty polarizing for the fanbase, but I enjoyed the crap out of it, even though the story was obviously cropped to hell and back. Thankfully, since Volition was sold off to Deep Silver, THQ can't screw things up like they did with SR:TT. I was reading a blog post from one of the modders in the SR community about how bad THQ kept screwing with the direction of SR:TT. Full script re-writes near the end of production, cut sequences, and a bunch of assorted corporate BS. Deep Silver seems to have gone pretty hands off as far as a publishing overlord goes, so I'm pretty excited.

SR IV had its review embargo lifted pretty early, so scores are coming in and it seems to be getting 9/10s all over the place. Most of the reviewers say that the experience is polished, a great satire of games and society in general, as well of itself, and that it's just plain downright fun. It won't win awards for story telling, but when I hear I can get 20+ hours of tangible fun from a sandbox game before I add in the side missions, sign me up.

Trailers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LYfCs5bfyI
Teaser Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQTt6bUZrSU
War for Humanity Trailer (my favorite!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBZKWLK4O5Y
Independence Day Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BWI6iRSLV0
Meet the President Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u-LoWfxgiQ
Gat is Back! Trailer

I've played with the SR IV Inauguration Station on Steam. The customization is identical to SR:TT, which is a good and a bad thing. I really enjoyed the overall shape customization from SR:TT, but it lacked a lot in the clothing department compared to SR 2 (lack of layers etc). Nolan North is a voice option, which I find hilarious. I was also able to upload my SR:TT character into the IS and customize it straight up without having to start from scratch. That's a huge bonus! I was pretty sad to see the tattoos hadn't been improved upon, though. Baby steps I suppose.

More good news is that without THQ interfering, Volition will be making mod tools for the PC release. That should increase the longevity of the game much like mod tools did for GTA: IV. From what I gathered THQ told Volition not to interfere with modders modding previous entries, but not to aid them either. Deep Silver, on the other hand, gave the green light to develop tools. Volition is working with Saintsrowmods.com to make a toolset for SR 2 and SR:TT first as kind of a test bed, and then update the tools for SR IV. I've looked into the file structure of the IS, and it's pretty different from SR:TT, but the files themselves aren't much different since it's the same engine being utilized. I tried dropping in some mod files I had for SR:TT, but it just caused the IS to crash once it tried to load the characters. What I'm hoping is that the final release uses the same layout from SR:TT, and the IS was just reorganized/condensed since it was a stand alone demo of sorts.

Oh yeah! Superpowers! I love super hero games, but I've never been terribly impressed with them. The reviews I've read have given a lot of props to Volition for the seamless inclusion into the series and that they were fun, added a lot of value to the game, and didn't cheapen the experience in the least.

EDIT: for some reason, youtube imbedding isn't working for me. I'll just leave the links up and readdress the imbedding when I have time.

I'm very excited. SR games have been consistently enjoyable. Volition has a great understanding of what makes games FUN, and focuses on that rather than trying to be cinematic or gritty or dramatic or any of the s*** that ruined GTA over the years.

The games' biggest boon is, arguably, drop-in/drop-out coop. Coop missions, coop mayhem, coop nonsense, coop whatever, whenever, with whomever you choose. GTA IV provided limited multiplayer modes, and none of them were very fun for very long. Volition hands you the whole game for play with friends. It multiplies the games' greatness a millionfold. Whatever fun you could have driving around, firing rockets out of your metermaid truck is suddenly a million times more fun with friends.
The other huge plus to SR is that cheats are usable in multiplayer. Invincibility, infiniti ammo, and a friend or two becomes a blast.

I think it's a shame that so many people are put off by the games' crass personalities. There's so much good, clean, cooperative rocket-launching fun to be had even if you never play a single story mission.