Saints Row IV: The Senator Armstrong Cut (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance/ SRIV)

PROLOGUE:
The date is May 2018. Steven Armstrong has just defeated Raiden and partially succeeded in his plans of shifting world politics towards his goals. The Winds of Destruction are all gone and Desperados had too much attention on them. He had to distance himself from them, but still needed someone to do his dirty work. A few months later, Armstrong set his eyes on the Third Street Saints, an ex-street gang / celebrity group, that still does some criminal jobs on the side.
Their leader, Playa, would not cooperate with Armstrong under any circumstances. Plus, he was too much of a wild card. Keeping him around would be too much of a threat either way, so, Armstrong killed him and took over the Third Street Saints as their shadowy leader. Their styles and way of doing things didn’t mix well, but they kept progressing together anyway.
By early 2020, Armstrong was gearing up to become the Republican nominee for the incoming elections. After his assassination attempt, President Hamilton rose to greater heights of popularity. He would have gone for a second term, if it wasn’t for the FOXDIE pandemic of 2020. He died shortly after the first debate. Even with all the quarantine measures, not even the President was safe. Or maybe it was not just a stroke of bad luck…
President Hamilton was a bit of a showman, he had kickstarted the fad of people like celebrities running for political positions, so Armstrong approached beloved actor Keith David, to be his running mate. It was a bit of a joke to him, but actually worked in his favor, bringing in voters from all kinds of demographics. His numbers were even better than Armstrong’s, with many wishing for another FOXDIE death in the White House, so that he would step in as a better President than the one in charge.
On November third, Steven Armstrong became the new President of the United States of America. As soon as he got in the Oval Office, he made a 180 degree turn on the platform he ran on, started abusing his power,. His target was the war economy. Slowly but steadily, waging war as business became less and less profitable, eventually coming to a complete halt. When it was killed off, he turned his gaze on the Constitution, desiring to shape America to his idealized vision of “A Utopia for the Strong”.
Almost three years after his inauguration, even he has trouble managing the political climate. Every cog in the system runs against him, trying to get him out of office,. But surprisingly he doesn’t seem all that mad about it. He is in a good mood, which is not like him at all. Maybe he has something in mind to shift things. Maybe it has to do with Kinzie’s ramblings about an alien invasion happening at any moment…
Nevertheless, he walks towards the white house briefing room, ready to take on whatever (journalistic) attacks they are about to throw at him there…
“Subtlety is for the weak.”
- Hideo Kojima.
A video a long time in the making. Maybe ever since I got Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Back in the day, I remember playing the game, not believing my eyes at the idea of having a corrupt, fat slob of a politician, as the final boss. Appearances were deceiving though and Senator Armstrong ended up stealing the show. It was a shame they killed him off. The man is a national treasure. He had so much more to give, so many Memes left unmade…
But back in 2013, I did find something to fill the demand for “Nanomachine Powered Political Action”. Saints Row IV. I spent days making my Senator Armstrong character before the game came out, with the “Inauguration Station” demo and then went out to buy the game on day 1. It was a blast, but also has its own story to tell. It’s like the Metal Gear Solid 4 of its franchise. It was not exactly the “Senator Armstrong experience”. I wanted to make something to capture just that, but never did…
That is until 2020. When The Last of Us Part II leaks hit, some genius made an “Abby Armstrong” meme, with some of his lines of dialogue and “It has to be this way” playing in the back.
It reminded me of the fun I had with Saints Row IV, playing as Armstrong. Not long after I had bought the game on PC and recreated my character, putting countless hours on it all over again and started making this.
This is definitely the biggest effort I have ever put in a video. I hope you enjoy this as much as much as I did. Thanks for watching.
Thanks to the people of the Saints Row modding community. Many of the things here would not be possible without their mods
www.saintsrowm...
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