I’ve always been a massive fan of the Saints Row series. I have over 5000 hours clocked on the first 3 games and know every building location by memory. But that all changed when one day, I went to go pick up a copy of the new game, Saints Row IV, at gamestop on day 1. As I approached the store, an old, crusty man ran at me, sweating profusely, scared shitless. He had a thick Australian accent and yelled at me “OI YOU GIT TAKE THIS BLOODY SAINTS GAME IT’S FUCKIN’ TERRIBLE”. He tossed a copy of Saints Row IV at me, and ran off. Thinking nothing other than he was one of those “god I can’t believe this is a clone of the third game” guys, I thought nothing of it and decided to bring it home.
As I opened the case at home, I could feel an eerie presence leak from the disc. On the disc was carved “SAINTS ROW THE SIXTH SIXTH SIXTH”. I assumed that this was another promotion from Deep Silver, similar to their Patriotic pack, and thought nothing of it. I put the game into the console and began to play. The main menu felt off, the music was playing in reverse and the screen’s normal purple color was a reddish color, with what appeared to be hyper-realistic blood dripping down. Upon hitting start, the game immediately booted up, giving no other options and immediately jumping to character creation.
But this was no ordinary character creation, the default character was horribly mutated, and the screen was incredibly dark. A loud white noise was playing in the menu, and hyper-realistic blood was dripping from the ceilings. I took out my phone and took a picture of the face, which I’m attaching to this document. There were only a few options, and I couldn’t change the characters visual look. Eager to hopefully hear the new Nolan North voice, I moved down to the options and tapped voices. However, his name was nowhere to be found, and in its place was “SATAN” in all red caps. I decided to pick the funny Australian voice though, cause I always liked that one.
The game booted into the hallway, and finally I was becoming the president. But it all seemed off. There were no lights on, and only Keith David was standing in the hallway. He has no eyeballs, and hyper-realistic blood was dripping from the sockets. He held two papers, which I assumed were the ones I had seen in promotional videos. Except all they read was “KILL YOURSELF.” Starting to become a little frightened, I frantically picked the first one, only to hear Keith say “A wise choice, hell fucker.”
The game crashed to a black screen, with a white noise playing in it. It started to build up, and then a screen appeared showing only the face of the mutated character. The screen of my TV began to crack, as the noise became louder and louder. Suddenly, the screen shattered, spewing glass everywhere. I screamed frantically trying to get rid of the game. But it was too late, I opened the console, but the disc was gone. It hadn’t even fallen on to the floor, it was completely gone. When I looked back at my Xbox, I noticed that a 666 had been carved into the side. I freaked and through the console outside, running back inside and hiding in my convenient blanket fort that I had made. That night, I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t, the face just kept appearing in my mind. It was one of the scariest things I had ever seen. And until this day, it still has me pretty spooked.