Saints Row IV

That's the kind of thing I really really don't get. I played both Saints Row 2 and The Third, with the games being played in that order, and I got more of what I got from the second game in the third one. Less customization in the clothing and stuff but far more cars and aircraft to play with.

At heart the games are about gangsters and how much fun it is to be one, and at times how hollow that can be. GTA IV was just hollow from start to finish and was no fucking fun at all. I don't get that either. My canon save for the boss was the one where she let Shaundi, Viola and Burt fucking Reynolds die just to take revenge on STAG and Killbane and drive those fuckers out of Steelport. How is that not sociopathic?

edited 15th Mar '13 6:21:35 PM by TamH70

I didn't really feel like a gangster in 3.

The Boss felt more like a...I dunno...a celebrity playing a gangster.

That was the point of the whole game.

And it wasn't as effective.

No scene in SR 3 had the poignancy and desire for revenge as when Carlos was killed. Even killing the guy responsible for Gat's death was extremely underwhelming. Oh right, because I didn't get a chance to do it.

Or made me go "holy shit don't fuck with the boss" as when you bury that guy alive.

Is it true that this was just a DLC that they're stretching out into a game?

I don't see why these kind of games shouldn't be silly. They're car-robbing mass homicide sandbox games, I can't take their plots seriously.

Correct, this is basically the DLC "Enter the Dominatrix" being touted as Saints Row 4.

Silly is fine (The cops minigame in 2 was fucking hilarious) but when EVERYTHING is overly absurd and silly, it loses its effectiveness.

Its basically Flanderization

edited 15th Mar '13 6:47:02 PM by Thorn14

One thing I really missed from Saints Row 2, besides the better writing, of course, is the sheer amount of customization. You could play as a granny, a crossdresing clown, or some totally alien freakshow. In 3, it's really limited to generically buff guy and girl with varying boob sizes.

Also, Shaundi's basically a completely different character. What happened to the lovable college stoner, man?

Frankly I thought GTA 4 was soul-crushingly nihilistic, which really just made me completely not care about the characters at all, while the gameplay was good enough that I love playing it when nothing else is going on, while SR 3 just had no personal impact on the player at all. I also found it to be just so fucking awful to play, with the body-shaming and using sex to sell the game. And that was before I had even heard the term "social Justice warrior."

Frankly, if I was going to emulate a movie to make a sandbox gangster game, I'd shoot for Hot Fuzz. It had the perfect balance of silly and serious.

On another point, I still hated the gameplay. It just felt so devoid of meaningful challenge or merit to said lack of meaningful challenge. I didn't feel like I had control of any situation I went into. With GTA 4, I had a lot of fun with the shooting and driving because it felt very.... reactive? might be the word I'm looking for. Even when I went to the PC version and had to drive with WASD and shoot without auto-lockon, I still found it to be highly responsive, and the driving never felt like it was unpolished.

With SR 3, I just hated driving. Cars felt slippery. And I hated shooting. Guns just felt like a lot of noise for no actual use. Plus, I hated the "awesome button." I don't normally call something a gimmick, but it was a gimmick.

Oh, and the fucking pants bulge slider was just pointlessly obscene.

edited 16th Mar '13 1:32:33 AM by Enkufka

Played both 2 and 3 extensively, loved both 2 and 3, here are my thoughts.

Saints Row 2 was like getting the cheaper, lower quality model of Grand Theft Auto 4 and finding you enjoy it more than the more polished, superior in many ways version. It's like looking at a film like Avatar or an anime like the Ghost In The Shell movie, or Akira, which are unquestionably works of art, then finding you prefer Road Trip or Youre Under Arrest which are in many ways inferior but more fun. All are great but in terms of quality one is better quality and the other is more fun. Or to go into car terms a the V12 Vanquish is certainly far superior to a Rav 4 but you wouldn't take it on the beach or bush bashing. You can read my review of it on the page.

Saints Row The Third...I very much try and limit my reviews to what I think are the best. That's not to say it's a bad game, far from it, I enjoyed it to the point where I was upset it stopped working on the PC and so went out to get the XBOX version. However I left the review to Angry Joe who addresses some of the problems with it. In my view it goes too over the top and zany. It lacked consistency. And there were some issues with the storyline and content. However that is not to say it's a bad game, far from it. However this should have been the second game and Saints Row 2 should have evolved from the third game, in my view. I still might do a review and focus on what it does right, how it is a parody less of gangs and more of the video game and Internet culture. How it saw fit to throw the rules out the window and just have a game with really no rules.

Now with the glimpse we have of Saints Row 4, to me this seems like it might be too zany even compared to The Third. It would be better if this was an expansion rather than a full fourth game. And if the Saints are in the White House does this mean the ending where Shaundi dies will become canon? If it does then that is going to dissatisfy fans who wanted what they saw as the better ending. Without knowing more details I am going to reserve judgment until we can see where they are going with this. However if everything is thrown out the window, again, I think that is going to disillusion a lot of fans.

Well, I never played 2 because I heard the PC version was a Porting Disaster so I never bothered, but 3 was great, so if 4 is continuing in that tradition, count me in.

I am sorry but slagging off Saints Row the Third's driving model and praising that of Grand Theft Auto IV's needs to be pointed out and laughed at in the streets.

GTA IV's driving sucked so much it was unplayable. Every single fucking car, be it sports car or sedan, drove like the things had grease dispensers in the wheel arches.

Yes, I want to go round the corner without wiping out on a lamp post or a row of parked cars, GTA IV. What the fuck are you doing? Shit on this. /exit game.

Both the Saints Row games I played, on both PC and Xbox 360, had cars that went where I pointed them.

Wait, you liked GTA IV's driving? Did we play the same game? The one where you never touched the E-brake and races were won by driving in a safe and moderate manner? Yeah, I'll still with my flying motor bike with mounted gatling gun, thanks.

SR 3 just had no personal impact on the player at all. I also found it to be just so fucking awful to play, with the body-shaming and using sex to sell the game. And that was before I had even heard the term "social Justice warrior."

I don't follow. It was not marketed with loads of skimpy clothed women or nudity. It was dildo baseball bats and gimps and what have you. (Haven't finished it.) That's not using sex to sell the game like other games, that treating sex as something as ridiculous as the violence in the game, to create a completely unhinged sandbox world. It's not exploiting women or men in-game to appeal.

The prostitution bits don't really focus on the women at all. Perhaps it's not the most mature touch on the topic but it wasn't focusing on their bodies.

edited 16th Mar '13 8:51:22 AM by occono

Wait.

Did Saints Row 2 have a 'personal impact' on anyone? I mean, it's a fun game (one of my favourites), but I can't say I ever gave a tupenny shit about any of the characters.

(Well, not about any of the characters I was 'supposed' to care about, like whatisface - the one the trucker gang kill. I felt kind of queasy when I buried that guy alive, and I was impressed by the loyalty of that guitarist/tattoo artist, but that's about it)

Lots of people thought the death of Carlos was quite poignant.

Shawnee went backwards in 3. She was quite funny in 2 but was an insufferable ass in 3.

Shaundi wasn't out of her skull on drugs in Saints Row the Third. She WAS out of her skull on drugs in Saints Row 2.

I preferred the sober one. More focus to her Ax Craziness was appreciated.

Anyway, enough of this looking backwards stuff, much as it has been fun. What do folks want from the game that is the title of this thread?

I want more of the same and better.

Howzabout youze guys?

edited 16th Mar '13 12:15:51 PM by TamH70

Apparently not being on drugs completely changes your appearance.

Also the Ax Crazy in 2 is funnier because you think she's just some weird stoner and then WHOOPS SOCIOPATH TOO.

edited 16th Mar '13 12:15:52 PM by Thorn14

Eh, when you are not on drugs you tend to take better care of your personal appearance? I thought one could pretty much take that as read?

Theres looking cleaned up and there's looking like a completely different person.

I found it hard to sympatice with the characters in 2. I mean, I run around and kill people and now I should feel for this poor little guys who kill people with me? That's more of a problem with this entire kind of games when they try to be serious. The story was still good and I loved the game in general (still need to play through 3 and make up my mind about it).

That was the point of the character of The Boss. He/She was a sociopath but still cared about their people, and if you fucked with them, god help you.

Meanwhile in 3, GAT of all people gets a bridge dropped on them, and The Boss seems pretty cool about it, like I didn't even realize Gat died until the funeral. If I was playing 2, I'd expect The Boss to provide the largest Fate Worse than Death for that one guy.

It felt like The Boss went from a Sociopathic Hero to just some silver age villain who wasn't even really a villain if you take away the gameplay killing sprees you can do, but instead just wanted to do zanny stunts for publicity...

edited 16th Mar '13 12:35:15 PM by Thorn14

And I will respond by flipping the bird because that's fucking rude.

I have no clue what you're talking about, Tam, because I found the driving to give me more control than I ever had in SR.

It's hard for me to quantify what I liked so much about it due to the fact that GTA 4's driving is pretty much the only driving I have ever liked on its own, but I can tell you that I have plenty of control with it, and know how to traverse basically the entire city at speed without running into stuff.

With SR, it just felt like I was driving metal-on-metal all the time. I had no fun with it, at all. Just got pissed off with it as literally driving the same car as the police had them out-running me, driving the same cars as the gangs had them out-running me.

Well, that was rude. But, whatever, that's just your opinion. That it differs from mine goes without saying.

and saying that my high and low opinions of these games should be laughed at in the streets isn't rude?

whatever. I don't have a purpose in this thread anymore, so I'm out.

edited 16th Mar '13 12:49:33 PM by Enkufka