Ever wondered what it would be like to shoot Satan in the face? Unleash that pent-up murder you’ve kept locked away inside? Well Johnny Gat does just that.

Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell is the 5^th installment to the Saint’s Row franchise, in which you take control of either Johnny Gat or Kinzie Kensington. Following the events of Saints Row 4, which I will leave unspoiled for those who haven’t had a chance to play through it yet, it is Kinzie’s birthday and all the Saints have decided to throw her a birthday party and what better way to celebrate than with an alien artifact Ouija board. Things go from “ha ha” to “oh no” when the leader of the saints gets sucked into hell to marry Jezebel, Satan’s daughter. Now it’s up to Gat and Kinzie to jump into hell and save the boss like any loyal companion would. I won’t spoil too much of the plot here and jump into my main thoughts.

Saint’s Row: Gat Out of Hell is more of an expansion than a full game at $14.99 because the size of it was too large to be a simple DLC (downloadable content) according to the developer. I have to agree that adding it to the already expansive game that Saint’s Row 4 was. The scenery was refreshing from the usual cityscape that players were used to seeing from previous iterations. Everything was dark, dirty and hellish, lots of lava too. There are new characters including some old favorites and favorites from history like Blackbeard. The comedy that veteran players were used to make a return and is just as good. There’s even a special piece of dialogue I’ll keep a secret, but it was a nice breakaway from the usual sarcasm, murderous threats, and dirty puns.

Now I’ll get into the gameplay, which isn’t much different from the full game of Saint’s Row 4. What I mean is, if you’ve played the full game, going into this will be no different. The controls are just as familiar and comfortable to work with as they were before. You have super powers that you gain through various activities and can power up by collecting soul clusters that are scattered through the city. Keep in mind though, if you want to max out all your abilities, there’s over 500 to collect, so get collecting. Mission and activities aren’t much different from the full game, which to be quite honest, doesn’t surprise me. Missions are repetitive, but that isn’t much different from previous Saint’s Row games.  This is an expansion, not a brand new game.

As much as I did like that game, it was not without its bugs and quirks. While playing I ran into 3 critical errors which exited the game to the console dashboard. Now normally that wouldn’t raise any flags for me, but seeing how this is just an expansion, I wonder if this was properly tested and optimized. I’m no expert, but when researching the error codes I received, I learned that they were all game related and not a product of the console misbehaving. There was texture issues occasionally while just running around the city and were exasperated while using certain superpowers, such as super speed. Sometimes while using the super sprint, the camera would just bug out and lose tracking on the character. Those are a few of the weird bugs I encountered during my playtime.

Overall, the game was enjoyable enough to play especially as one of the free games of the month for PlayStation Plus. Although at a $15 price tag, it’s a tad high for the bugs that come with the game. As much fun as I had with it, the game just doesn’t feel like it was given that AAA title finalization. The one thing that left me wanting though, was the two characters that you can swap between at any time. There isn’t much in terms of unique dialogue between the various characters you meet, especially between some former acquaintances. All in all, the game is enjoyable to play if you’re looking for some casual, co-op enabled mayhem, like having your own reclining death chair.