 The Saints are back for another round of incessant violence and cartoon-esque humor, but does Gadot of Hell feel like a standalone title, or merely retextured assets in the form of DLC? After the conclusion of Saints Row 4, the gang finds itself celebrating Kinsey's birthday. A mysterious witch board is brought out, and sure enough, they connect with the spirit world. Saints looking to marry off his daughter Jezbel and find someone to lead his armies, and the boss just so happens to fit the bill. Next into the underworld, Johnny and Kinsey rush to save their friend, an exact little revenge along the way. Anyone who's played Saints Row 4 will be familiar with most of the game's mechanics. You first dive into the game as a regular Joe, but upon receiving Satan's halo, gain the abilities to blaze across the streets, leap across buildings, and execute a variety of special attacks. What's different this time around is the addition of flight, and boy is it fantastic. Once in Hell, the Saints meet up with Dane Vogel, an old antagonist from the series. After his death, he began devising a way to take down Satan. Scattered around the map are various characters such as Blackbeard, Vlad the Impaler, and even William Shakespeare. By completing activities and helping them obtain a piece of the pie that is Hell, you begin to gain Satan's attention. Now unlike previous Saints Row games, the plot isn't driven forward by completing specific quests, rather each act ends when Satan's rage meter fills up. This makes things more interesting as players can choose quests based on various upgrades and weapons they'll receive, rather than merely completing missions because they are prerequisites to reaching the end. The problem is that these side characters aren't really well developed over the course of the story. You learn a bit about their backstory and you help them claim some territory, but their existence in the game's universe feels meaningless. Loyalty quests consist of just a bunch of activities bundled together rather than the unique missions we got in Saints Row 4 that helped characterize the crew. It leaves one to wonder if perhaps Volition had greater plans to expand their storylines, but were limited by time constraints. Unfortunately as a result, the final act of the game feels like a repetitious cycle of fluff used to stretch the game time. The controls are pretty straightforward, but like its predecessor, traversing the land only becomes fun once you've actually leveled up your abilities. It's unfortunate that the world seems to be designed this way, but thankfully you can upgrade your stats relatively quickly. Within the first about hour and a half of gameplay, you're able to max out the most important powers, and that's because of the new flight mechanic which is just so much darn fun. In Saints Row 4, you had to collect data clusters atop buildings and along walls, and doing so felt almost like a punishment as the process was slow and repetitive and distracting. However, in Get Out Of Hell, most of the soul clusters are suspended in the air, so you can easily grab like 20 or 30 of them without ever touching the ground. Major kudos for strategically placing these in areas that allow players to marvel at the exceptional world design. Diving in and out of buildings, ducking under bridges, gliding over lava, and speeding through tunnels is a thrill. And I think I actually spent more time collecting clusters than anything else in the game. I can honestly say that I have never had this much fun traversing a world. All the main activity types are back, from races to destruction to insurance fraud. Now, while a lot of it may feel like just retextured versions of the same, there's enough charm and personality in the design to make things feel fresh. Added to the fold are new games such as Salvation, where you must save souls before they die or are consumed. There's even a game where you smack a bunch of frustrated philosophy majors and jocks into rings for points. Completing certain objectives unlocks special weapons representing the seven deadly sins, such as a lazy boy equipped with gatling guns and rockets for sloth. All the powers are essentially the same as in Saints Row 4, with some minor thematic tweaks. Inside of throwing ice, you can launch an attack that turns people to stone. Or as burned souls, and the ground stop is virtually unchanged. The only difference is that telekinesis has been replaced with the ability to spawn creatures. While rarely used, this is convenient for when hordes of enemies are being thrown at you. The weapons are interesting and colorful, but by default are virtually useless. Because of the importance of the new flight mechanic, any currency obtained from missions is often spent on increasing stamina and health. The average player will only have enough loose change to fully upgrade a single gun or two. It's so often taking down a single enemy means unloading a full clip or two into them. Unfortunately, virtually all customization has been dropped, which is a shame. Weapon stores have been reduced to vending machines, and there's no way to modify clothing or get sweet hellish tats. This feels like another missed opportunity as the only thing you can really do is swap between Johnny Gat and Kinsey, and change the color of your wings. Given the size of the game, this is acceptable, but customization has become something people have come to expect from the franchise. The world itself is beautifully designed. From downtown to the entertainment district, every section has its own unique feel, and while the game can't compare graphically to some of the stellar titles of the current generation, it would be wrong to ignore the incredible attention to detail. While the missions themselves don't do a great job of highlighting it at all, the various flight challenges allows for a nice means to observe the beautiful landscape. It's one key thing that seems to be missing and get out of hell, and that's the personality of past titles. Sancero 4 is dense with tons of pop culture references, parodying franchises such as The Matrix, Mass Effect, and Fallout. However, besides a particular spectacular cutscene worthy of a Disney movie, and a few pokes here and there, it feels rather dry. Now you get a bit from the mindless ghouls walking along the streets and casually crashing cars into buildings, comedically attempting to emulate the living, but overall the experience doesn't live up to its predecessors. Overall, there are many aspects of Gadot of Hell that franchise regulars will be disappointed about, from the lack of character development and customization to a story that feels like a chapter of a grander novel rather than a standalone narrative. That being said, at a $20 price point and clocking in at least five hours of gameplay, some of the shortcomings can be ignored. What really saves this game, though, is the flight mechanic, which makes this game one of the funnest open world titles I have ever played. And that's what it should all boil down to, despite its flaws every minute was still a blast. If you have some change to spare, it's well worth the money. Saints Row, Gadot of Hell, gets a 7.8 out of 10. One night with any lover, but you have to punch a panda. Do you do it? Ooh, good question. So your secrets, if you really look at yourself, you will be speechless. What happened to being doctors and teachers? What happened to being your brother's keeper? Nowadays, kids won't worry to bother me.