Saints Row IV (2013)

You want full control? You got it. You want hilarious dialogue by fantastic voice actors, epic Tron and Streets of Rage and Mass Effect nods, really super fun gameplay that even makes the game's collect-a-thon part fun? This is the game. A really, really special game.

But that annoying, unrealiable, absolutely horrible saving system screwed me over 4 times just today. Over and over having to replay the same missions and losing my progress because evidently that SAVING message means nothing, and I have to do it manually to be sure... Really almost made me delete the entire game.

But that's a small issue there. I first played it on Xbox with Xbox Pass where it was fine, I'm only having those issues now that I bought it on PC. I saw on Wikipedia that they're working on a next one and I'm excited.

I'd love to see the same people who wrote this, the same people who designed and programmed it, and the same voice actors, especially my girl Female Voice 3 and my dude Keith David return.

But I can't possibly shout out just two voice actors, because looking at the credits now, this game features some of the biggest stars, and generally peak voice acting talent. Dee Bradley Baker (American Dad and all kinds of cool stuff), Nolan North (every Triple A game), Amanda Winn Lee (from Oni, first game that made me fall in love with this art form), and the rest everyone knows - Troy Baker, that chick from Blood Rayne, etc etc.

Also, can't gloss over the great original, and licensed music. Some amazing classics in there, I can't believe they even managed to get them. Some of that EDM / trap / dubstep on the radios is pretty great too, especially on Four 20. Good stuff all around.