Saints Row Review
A Journalistic Review by DefiantParrot
*Warning
Contains Spoilers*
09/20/2016
Developer: Volition, Inc.
 |
| (1) Such a better name |
Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: Action-Adventure
Release: August 29, 2006
Back
in 2001 the gaming industry was changed forever with the release of Grand Theft
Auto III. Considered by many to be one of the greatest video games ever made
and without a doubt a revolutionary title, Rockstar’s GTA III popularized the
open-world sandbox game. Inspiring companies to try their hand at the genre and
bringing forth many new games we previously would never have gotten.
The term GTA clone got thrown around a lot over the last
ten years and many imitators would attempt their own game along the lines of
GTA III.
Around the middle of 2003, Volition began working on
their own “GTA clone” originally meant to be a PS2 game titled Bling Bling
(ugh).
Fast forward to 2009 Volition released their game now an
Xbox 360 exclusive titled Saints Row.
The story here is fascinating because in 2008 Rockstar would release Grand Theft Auto IV, and while a success many fans were
left… wanting, with the newest GTA. And when comparing it to Saints Row many felt it
quite bluntly “Out GTA’d GTA.” Successfully competing with what it was
attempting to imitate.
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| (2) The game does look pretty good for an early title |
Just like GTA III and IV Saints Row is a third-person
open world sandbox game, set in the city of Stilwater modeled after such cities
as Detroit and Chicago. When the game begins you are prompted to create your
character customizing their ethnicity, weight, etc. However, here is my first
complaint the character creation is lacking, particularly in hair styles and
especially in gender.
There is no option to play as a female in this game, no
it’s not the end of the world or would change anything at all, but as a
character creation it is a flaw and would have been nice to have.
Your character is also silent except for certain points
to deliver a funny one liner in the game, I normally hate silent protagonists
in video games unless their name is Link, most of the time it just irritates me,
here on the other hand Saints Row has fun with it.
That’s probably the best thing I can say about Saints
Row, it’s fun. There are legitimate points that had me laughing, the game
doesn’t take itself too seriously, it knows what it is and particularly after
GTA IV, I think a lot of fans appreciated that. I know I did.
 |
| (3) I'd follow this man anywhere |
After creating your character, he accidently stumbles
into the wrong place at the wrong time, in the middle of a gang fight between
three gangs when he is saved by the leader of the 3rd Street Saints,
Julius Little. After saving you Julius invites you to join the Saints and to
help them take back Stilwater from the rival gangs.
Aside from Julius you meet many colorful and memorable
characters in this game, including Saints members Troy Bradshaw an undercover
cop (spoiler!), Dex an intelligent gang banger, Lin the tough as nails female
of the group and Johnny Gat the murderous badass. Other characters are
memorable as well including Aisha, Benjamin King, and Tanya Winters.
 |
| (4) R.I.P. John Coffey |
The voice acting for these characters is amazing as well
with some really big names in here such as the wonderful Keith David, the
beautiful Mila Kunis and the amazing Michael Clarke Duncan, Rest in Peace man.
The main game involves completing missions to take down
three different gangs the Vice Kings, Los Carnales and the Westside Rollerz.
The great thing here is that the missions are broken into three separate missions so you can
tackle any gang at any time in any order you wish. The missions can vary from
chasing someone down, to simple go there kill this guy missions. The variety is done
pretty well is what I'm saying.
The game handles really well too. The driving controls
can be a little odd, with A to accelerate the car being a bit offputting to modern
vehicle controls, but it can be gotten used to. Although for some reason there
wasn’t a motorcycle to be found, and trust me I looked! The combat is also
decent although the inability to zoom with a firearm unless it’s a sniper rifle
was one I disliked quite a bit.
The game’s soundtrack is also pretty decent, nothing
sounded bad at all, except for those times sound would disappear for a second.
It wasn’t Hercules levels of bad but it was still jarring and annoying when it
happened. The radio tracks were also pretty good, a decent selection and
variety there though nothing to write home about.
To progress with the story missions you have to earn
respect. Respect can be earned a number of ways but the easiest and quickest
way is to complete side activities. These side activities have a large variety
to them and there are plenty of them.
Drug Trafficking – In which you protect a drug dealer as
they make their deals
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| (5) The respect meter |
Escort – You drive with a prostitute and a client in the
backseat avoiding reporters and paparazzi
Racing – Which is self-explanatory
Insurance Fraud – Which you throw yourself into danger
and earn money
Demolition Derby – Again self-explanatory
Mayhem – You earn money by destroying and murdering
whatever you see
Hijacking – Do I need to say it?
Snatch – Steal prostitutes from rival pimps
Chop Shop – Steal cars and deliver them to the garages
Hitman – Target and killing specific targets
And while not technically an activity there is also a
loan shark you can go to, to borrow some money if you need it but make sure you
pay them back on time or they will come knocking! Personally, I never really
used that feature, didn’t really need it.
Other little things you can do is hold ups at a store,
theft by breaking in after dark, hostage by stealing a car and kidnapping the
passenger, strongholds which also cost respect and involve pushing a rival gang
out of a specific neighborhood, and finally pushback which involves rival gangs
attempting to retake former neighborhoods.
From completing these side objectives and such you can
unlock many things aside from just money and respect. Decrease damage from
explosions and such and homies, allies you can call from your cell phone to aid
you in your mission.
The biggest problem I have with the side activities and
respect is you have to have a certain amount of respect to continue story
missions or strongholds. Effectively forcing you to play the side activities,
now you might like that as it is incentivizing you to do these missions which I
cannot fault you for, but I respectfully disagree because of one thing.
 |
| (6) Being Canonized |
Most of these side activities appear once for each gang,
with eight levels in each to complete the activity. Meaning you have to
complete the activity 24 times. That gets extremely repetitive really quick,
most of the activities are fun and work really well, but after 24 times you’re
bored and annoyed of doing it or at least I was. Thankfully you don’t have to
do all 24 of each to reach the end of the story but if you want that 100%
completion prepared to get annoyed.
What will really annoy you with these is unlike Story
missions and strongholds, there is no restart with an activity, if you fail you
cannot just hit a button to restart, you have to go all the way back to the
start point of the activity which since these take you all over Stilwater, the start point could be a bit away. And this drove me mad! These are
what really caused me to grit my teeth and curse like a drunken sailor.
Story missions and strongholds aren’t completely free from
this annoyance either, while yes you can restart easily you will always restart
a mission or stronghold from the beginning. There are no checkpoints, NO
CHECKPOINTS! If you’re right at the end of a lengthy mission and you die, well
guess what buddy you get to do it all over again! God almighty I hate it when
games do that, and thankfully you can skip cutscenes but it still makes me so
angry you could cook an egg on my face.
As for how the game runs aside from my earlier complaint
of some audio issues, the game can have bad pop in and pop out at times, cars
and people appearing out of thin air or disappearing from the land of the
living altogether. The road disappearing and causing me to have a heart attack or one
really bad one during a thunderstorm where every time lighting flashed everything except me and my car disappeared, EVERYTHING DISAPPEARED!!
Enemy and ally AI can be annoying or laughable at times,
with allies getting stuck on a car door when attempting to get in, or civilians
screaming and diving INTO the way of my vehicle, not out of the way INTO my
path, the suicide rates in Stilwater must be off the damn charts!
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| (7) Bring back my cookies!! |
Slow down can also occur if too much begins happening at
once this in particular happened to me a
lot during the mission Troy’s Solution when I got a helicopter several police
cars and vans on screen at once and the game began to chug like a heavy smoker
in a triathlon.
But my biggest complaint is the crashes, my advice if you
play this is to save often! Autosave has ruined me at this point because the
game crashed on me twice setting me back significantly farther than I had been
causing me to rage and assault a grizzly bear, shut up PETA.
So with all of that in mind how was my experience with
Saints Row? It was okay actually the beginning of the game was slow and a bit
of a chore. But in the middle I started to really have some fun with it,
particularly with the Vice Kings missions. The story is pretty funny and can be
serious in the right places, the characters are memorable and overall the game
is fun to play. The annoyances do stack up however and cannot be ignored, so I
will give Saints Row my…
Bronze Seal of Acceptance
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| (8) For when you aren't completely awful |
As a GTA clone Saints Row set out to do the impossible
and in some ways succeeded, other games in the series improve on the foundation
that this game laid down, and above all if you need a game to play and this is
what you have… you could do a lot worse.
References Pics:
1. http://www.gamestop.com/xbox-360/games/saints-row/39502 (1999-2017)
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zbIvB5xBuM
3. http://saintsrow.wikia.com/wiki/File:Green_With_Envy_Julius_Little.png
4. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003817/ (1990-2017)
5. http://saintsrow.wikia.com/wiki/Respect
6. http://hexus.net/gaming/reviews/xbox-360/6632-saints-row-xbox-360/
7. http://saintsrow.wikia.com/wiki/3rd_Street_Vice_Kings
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