Saints Row IV dev walkthrough video shows Crackdown-like orbs, presidency

There are nine minutes of gameplay in this Saints Row IV developer walkthrough, but you really only need about 15 seconds of them: that sweet quarter-minute when the Boss flies and climbs around Virtual Steelport, collecting Crackdown-style power-up orbs. Ohh yeah.

Steelport was an impressively vertical city in Saints Row: The Third, but players spent most of their time on surface streets; put together those alluring power-up orbs with the intrusive new alien architecture, and the high places of the familiar city have a new lease on life.

The rest of the scripted and/or open-world madness is fun, too, though it's a shame we won't have much time to run around Washington D.C. and convert it into Fallout 3's Capital Wasteland ourselves.

Saints Row IV will hit PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on August 20 in North America and August 23 in Europe.