Saints Row

It's an origin story, that's great.

It's an open world, that's great.

It's repetitive, bland, humorless, quirk-less, powerless and a chore to work through the same tired side missions which end up being stripped down versions of previous versions of the same style activities.

I was so excited for a new Saints Row, by looking at the box art and watching the trailers it's a fast paced quirky game with the charm and humor of Saints Row 2, 3 and GooH, it's not that.

Combat is slow but twitchy getting stun locked or completely overrunning enemies after upgrading any weapons, the activities are just scavenger hunts with look through the area and click on the buttons or try to figure out what's a target and what's scenery.

Bad, in all things gameplay, story and character development.

I'm almost ashamed to admit it but I genuinely had some fun while playing Saints Row.

From huge YouTubers like Skill up to major companies like IGN, the reviews are almost entirely negative surrounding this game, and while I totally disagree on people giving this a 10/10 I also equally disagree with the 1/10 reviews. I'm going to break down what worked and what didn't for me and why I found myself enjoying it while still being fully aware of its glaring mistakes.

Bugs: This is the perfect topic to start with, most of the negativity surrounding Saints Row comes from the "overwhelming list of bugs" however most of these issues seem to stem from the PC version of the game while my time on Xbox Series X was relatively bug free. Let me say however the first bug I encountered was right at the start of the game when making your "boss". Upon trying to edit my character the game soft locked me and I could not exit, select or do anything apart from zoom in and out and spin my character. Not a good start at all. I had to resort to loading up the "boss factory" game which allows you to create your character and export them to the full game. This would easily put off the casual gamer who would request a refund. Not a good look to start with. Once the game loaded into the first mission however I progressed normally. The second and only other bug I encountered was a clothing bug which removed your color choices on your characters clothing whenever you purchased a new item. This was mildly frustrating as you had to redo your color choices for your characters outfits each time. Again this was patched in the first update for the game since launch. I was pleasantly surprised that all of the takedown animations showed normally as what I seen online was nonstop comically awkward buggy animations when PC users initiated takedowns.

Story: 5/10 Too short and the storyline is hampered by awful writing and even worse characters who make even the strongest person cringe up into a ball every time they speak. Story missions themselves were relatively fun with lots of action and some cool transitions where a variety of scenarios play out. Particularly like the feature that allows you to start a story mission from anywhere on the map simply by selecting it from your phone, this is an idea other open worlds should take note of.

Writing: 0/10 Probably the worst writing of any game I've ever played. Not only do they fall flat on their face when it comes to trying to tell "jokes" but the game is infected deeply by agenda pushing politically motivated writing that inserts corrupt real world views into a fictional game. This is slimey and manipulative on the highest of levels and every person who does so in all forms of media deserve to be called out for their twisted actions which only serve to fuel the flames of an already turbulent society. Phrases spoke by pedestrians such as "I'm not paying for a border wall" only act to divide and draw you out of the fictional game and leave you feeling anger at how this has became extremely common in modern media especially within video games and movies. Fortunately the media who push these agendas almost always fail and that's what we see with the backlash to this game.

Characters: 1/10 Honestly laughable. Awkward and hysterically bad writing leaves these characters among the most hated in all of gaming based on the online feedback. I have seen nobody who enjoyed these characters or found them entertaining whatsoever.

Map: 8/10 Fantastic. A great sized map that's finds itself in the Goldilocks zone wherein it's big enough to explore and constantly find new areas while also being small enough to makes travelling from one side to the other relatively quick and not a 30 minutes drive like some other games.

The various zones are all unique and offer some great landmarks that really stand out and make the game feel very unique. Cool little features like NPC's setting off fireworks while you drive past especially at night is a nice little addition that I haven't seen in any other game. Nice weather such as sandstorms and was very impressed with the day/night cycle and how it looked with HDR on.

Graphics: 8/10 This is where I disagree with most reviews I've seen. Most say the graphics's aren't great but on Xbox Series X the visuals were very good in my opinion. Brilliant HDR effects and some of the most realistic nighttime scenes I've witnessed in a game. The neon world lights up beautifully and the detail in most of the world and characters is very high. Also the graphics options were brilliant, giving you full control of what mode you wanted to play with 5 different settings to chose from. Personally I went for 1440p Max Framerate as it offers great visuals while trying to also maintain 60fps.

Side missions: 7/10 Can totally see where people are coming from when they say these are repetitive and not fulfilling but from someone who is very OCD and simply has to complete every task in a game these offered the right blend of variety and challenge to keep me playing for a lot longer in-between main missions. Particularly liked the review bomb missions where you leave a bad review for a business and they send lots of bad guys to your location to take you out. These can be pretty difficult early on especially if you dive in at the deep end and leave a 1 star review.

Driving: 6/10 Marmite driving where some will absolutely hate it but I found myself pleasantly surprised. Very arcadey and floaty cars but the addition of the drift and "quick turn" mechanic made it fun to try and master drifting round corners and land the perfect turn. If done successfully you feel like Han from Tokyo drift but if done wrong you plow straight into a wall or off the road. I guess that progression and desire to improving my driving made me appreciate it overall but I do understand people who disliked it. One thing I didn't enjoy was off road driving and most cars instability on this surface.

Gunplay: 6/10 Very average gunplay but I found myself tweaking a few settings, specifically deadzones from 30 down to 10 which improved the shooting experience. I enjoyed the variety of weapons and each felt somewhat unique and having their own special ability adds another level of progression and gameplay. The addition of character perks allow you to experiment with different options such as nades, proximity mines, special takedowns or a health boost. This again adds a little bit more variety however like every games gunplay it does get repetitive when you've played long enough.

Customisation: 10/10 Easily the best part about Saints Row and some of the best customisation I've experienced in any game. Not only is there lots of clothing options for your character to choose from but you can fully change every little detail from color of specific regions of that shirt or pair of jeans but also add different materials. The variety of clothing is also amazing. The same is true for car customisation which is honestly better than most standalone racing games. The options are so large that I can't name them all here but you can change every single little detail of your car including things like rims and rim color, interior, window tint, decals, NoS, off road upgrades, tow attachments and so much more. The variety in paint options was superb and it truly felt like you were creating a totally unique car every time you modified your vehicle. Offering overall car upgrades which improves them in multiple areas such as armor, speed and handling is very nice to have and the option to turn your cars special ability on or off is something that works well. Weapon modifications was just as in depth with a fantastic set of sliders such as metallic which allows you to use the slider to make your weapon look like a nerf gun or like a realistic metal weapon. Particularly liked the option to make your guns gold right from the start without any nasty microtransactions like other games would do.

Music and sound: 4/10 Very poor choice of songs that consists mainly of lesser known artists and music that simply wasn't to my taste. When the radio isn't on the soundtrack that plays is acceptable and offers something other than silence which is nice. The sound itself is very poorly implemented and feels completely off. From vehicle engines sounding ultra quiet to guns sounding non impactful and poorly recorded the sound as a whole feels like it was added by someone who is triggered by loud noises. Certain game audio needs to be ramped up about 2 times especially when it comes to car engines. The character audio is laughably bad and it sounds like the voices belong in a different game. You can clearly hear that the audio was recorded in a sound booth even when the scene calls for speech while someone is outside or talking over ambient noise. Not great at all. 100% needs a patch to adjust levels.

Overall: 6/10 A wild variety of absolutely awful writing, a poor story, embarrassingly cringey characters, but a game that features some decent and fun gameplay, simply astounding customisation and a great map. This leaves Saints Row in such a unique place in my gaming library. A game that I hope fails miserably to stop the disgusting push of political views and agendas into fictional media, to stop companies from releasing a game early to make a quick buck even though it's not fully finished, and to hopefully push the team at Volition to go back to the drawing board and put their full effort into making a much improved Saints Row should they be given the chance. As much as I want to hate this game and everything it stands for I have to admit I found fun along the way and in the future if this game is heavily discounted and several updates have taken place to fix some annoyances and bugs then I would recommend this for some of the most casual base level fun you can have with a game. 6/10.

It's just not that good, either. My score would actually be closer to a 6, but I experienced severe bugs that made completing the campaign almost impossible. This hot mess is lucky she's not getting a 4, but I can't rate it that low because I DID have some fun. Turns out being able to aim down sights and access your weapon-wheel are pretty essential for bombastic comedy violence. When it works, I enjoyed the shallow gameplay because it's exactly the same as SR3&4's, warts and all. I'll revist to clean up the side missions after a couple stability patches. In it's current state, it's a mild chore to power through.

Plot

Reboot of the Saints Row game series, starring a new cast of characters.

Cast

Made by Volition who brought us the Saints Row series dating back to 2006 and Agents of Mayhem. Curiously not familiar with any of the voice cast.

Verdict

Let's get it out the way, Saints Row (2022) killed developer Volition dead. I think Agents of Mayhem had put them on the ropes and Saints Row truly finished them off. But was it deserved? Not exactly no in this guys opinion (Not that anyone deserves to lose their job over such a thing).

Now I never played the original Saints Row, the second I didn't mind but was too invested in GTA but the 3rd? Now that's when I truly fell in love with the series. Saints Row 3 to me was a manic masterpiece of take your brain out entertainment. 4 was enjoyable but felt like a Saints Row 3 expansion pack and Gat Out of Hell was a passable companion piece to the series.

Naturally I was excited for this 2022 game but I was concerned about it being a reboot rather than a new game. I mean, why?! I became further concerned when the first trailer dropped, this looked hokey, lacking the charm and humor that the games had become known for and where was all the craziness!?

Well the reviews came in and it became universally panned. Watching videos I could kind of see why but regardless I ventured in to see for myself and what I found was heartbreaking but not to the extent that everyone was making out.

So let's break it down.

The story? Mediocre and wafer thin. Sure Saints Row isn't exactly known for deep story telling but there was at least something going on and motivation behind the things you were doing. There barely is here at all.

Visuals? Ugly, why does it look so ugly? It looks worse than Saints Row which was released in 2011 and two gaming generations ago. Absolutely unforgivable, ugly and full of screen tears.

Soundtrack? I keep forgetting there is one. Saints Row games have never had the same budget as the likes of GTA but they've still had something. Here? Not so much.

Playability? Cars handle okay, gunplay is adequate but the options are minimal and upgrades really don't feel like they make a difference. Combine that with dreadful skills and weak melee combat and it doesn't feel like it does very well the thing that arguably is most important!

Open world? Now this is the sad one, yes there is an open world as you'd expect but it's pretty darn awful. First of all it's basically just one big desert with a couple of towns and a few small outposts dotted around so it has little character. But what is unforgivable is that it feels lifeless, it doesn't feel like a living breathing environment. The civilians are sparse and feel hollow and empty, the enemies are bland and repetitive, there's no life in this open world and feels more like an oil painting than a 3D city.

Saints Row is a disappointing mess, drowning in flaws and is an insult to everything that came before it. But worst game ever and Volition deserved to go under because of it? Absolutely not and those who believe so need to a) Play more games and b) Not wish ill on others such as people losing their livelihoods!

Rants

Saints Row was a victim of the pessimistic, negative, hate train culture sadly that's damaging the video game, television and movie industry. This one is especially bad due to it killing its developer. Upcoming ones will include the new Assassins Creed and Dragon Age titles which even before release have extensive hate campaigns and for the most absurd reasons. And don't even get me started on Concord. The lunatic accusations of "Wokeness", the moronic misogyny and the hilarious belief that it should be free because there are other comparable games that are! Yeah sure, let's make this £300 million game free! That's logical, tell me how will they make their money back? Micro-transactions? Well a) That wouldn't come close and b) Gamers are supposed to hate them, right? Stop with all the hate, calm your lil selves down and stop being so negative and ridiculously entitled.

The Good

Has its moments Character creation is still excellent

The Bad

Lifeless open world Graphically oddly poor Some logistics are terrible Never really gets going Doesn't feel like a Saints Row Game.

Don't shoot the messenger but this is another bad review, I am a long time fan of the series and have played each title from Saints Row 2006 to the current Saints Row 2022. To other fans reading this. Do not bother with this title instead poor one out tonight because another beloved IP is dead. This game is sanitized charmless souless boring and buggy piece of malarkey. Every previous title is better. The prologue starts off after you customize the new boss. Quickly after the action takes off you start to see it, and feel it. Shooting is odd and just as quirky as your life is stange' + watch dog' style roommates. I swear each character was born strait out of twiter and reddit. The repetitive bullet sponge enemies have the worst AI in the series. The city is boring. At least the characters are relatable, well not so fast I would never talk like that and I myself am a genZer. No gangster ever would talk like that. Oh right this isn't a gangster game really. If the developers were really so fed up with the blatant honesty and crude humor and every other core Saints Row aspect and didn't want to be limited by the past of the previous franchise they should have opened a new IP. Not drop this piece of garbage and paint a beloved name on it. Even if they managed that amount of respect they clearly fail at every thing else. I wish I never bought this garbage and this lie. I bought 1 and two just days later. If you want to relive the glory days don't bother with 2022. There just isn't an aspect with praising in the game besides vehicle customization. The venture system was an empty and washed out way to revive more beloved activities that will just leave any one unimpressed. This game is begging you to drink the koolade and except mediocrity. This is a AAA game that a developer owned by 3 publishing company and ran by marketing teams. F this game. Its not worth 60 dollars and definetly not 70 or 100 dollars. Don't buy it borrow it maybe play it on game pass if you want to see what I mean.