Dasvidaniya Saints
Saints Row has come a long way since it burst on the scene back in 2006, releasing as a sort of foil to Grand Theft Auto it wasn’t until the second game that the team at Volition found their footing. Leaning into a more comedic and over the top tone than the darker and grittier GTA, Saints Row has taken their gang from the streets of Stilwater, to the city of Steelport and even to the depths of hell and back. All the while players would be beating enemies with giant dildo bats or racking up insurance payments while being hit by a car and imitating a ragdoll. With this newest iteration the team at Volition have moved out West and focused on a new group of Saints.
The Saints Row reboot is full of questionable design decisions, but I understand why they wanted to reset the crazy meter within the series. The last game literally had a song number in Hell, and I think after you’ve sang for the devil there may be no other sharks left to jump. The producers have dialed this entry back to what I’d say is a good balance between the slightly serious nature of 2 and the wackiness of The Third. It works for the most part, but unfortunately the team focused more on the realism factor instead of the wackiness the series has been known for and it’s that extreme over the top nature is what this reboot is missing.
MSRP: $59.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $49.99
Saints Row has never felt like GTA narratively, and that’s even more so noticeable here where there is no real story mode to be found. Sure, there is a loose plot about you and a group of friends who are tired of being underlings and decide to start their own gang. But none of the missions really tell this story, all the main missions just feel like random activities meant to keep the player busy. Yes, there is some cool stuff, but it all feels like it’s been done before and worse been done BETTER. Even the criminal empire missions that players will do to build their rep have felt better in other Saints Row games.
A lot of the issues with the game could have been resolved if the characters were likeable. Sadly, they all seem to be the worst version of if you asked someone to create a cool, ethnic character who is in a gang. Even if someone was being sarcastic these guys are badly written, however I did find lots of laughs by using the British voice for my boss. There isn’t a male equivalent and hearing her use British swear words was never not funny, especially considering I’m bangin’ in the southwest of the US. But even the chuckles I had hearing her quips wasn’t enough to make me do anything more than just finish the main missions.
Strangely though in a game where you spend most of the time shooting a firearm, the very action of doing so in Saints Row just feels extremely shallow. Reticles just kind of expand outward as bullets are expressed from the guns to signify the spread. Even the sound effects just kind of felt lifeless, I was telling my wife it was like the scene in the classic film Harlem Nights, where Arsenio Hall’s character’s gang is shooting at Eddie Murphy’s but the whole gang has machine guns except one guy who has a little revolver he shoots after the big guns have fired. I felt like the little revolver guy, I just wanted to tell my boss to “stop firing that little shit”.
I am extremely sad at this reboot of Saints Row, while I wasn’t a huge fan of the absolute bonkers nature of the 4th entry, even if I did love the 3rd. With this reboot I feel like Volition missed a huge opportunity evolve this series for a new generation, not just of consoles but for gamers. As it stands, this game comes off just feeling like its clinging to the tone and design choices from the 360; even the graphics in this reboot from 2022 feel dated and frankly Johnny Gat deserves better.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
