Saints Row

With Saints Row IV due to come out later this year, we felt it was a good time for us to share our thoughts on the series so far. But mostly Saints Row 2.

Dave: The single most infuriating part of the game was right near the start. I understand the need to set up a home base and the story makes it plausible, but the combination of controls and idea behind it that seem a bit shitty in execution. Really could have done with a choice of how to scare them off. Maybe challenge the bum-king to fisticuffs something like that.
I had to play this mission when I was replaying the game and it pissed me right off. At least this time I knew what to do, this was something else I found a few times; very basic instructions were left out or glossed over in the wash.

The hobo thing could have been great if there was a whole underworld where you could roam and drive and do things, be able to get around areas — they could then beef up some regions, have them occasionally become “no-go” areas. Like, say the Ronin start bringing drugs into a particular area. You can try to drive through it, or just go into the underground network.

Tiggum: The mission where you have to clear out the hobos was a bit confusing the first time — I ended up just killing a whole lot of them before I realised what I was meant to be doing. The instruction really does flash up on the screen far too briefly, but once you get the idea it's really pretty quick and easy. The hobos spawn at a pretty reasonable rate so you never get overwhelmed or run out of dudes to throw at the shanties.

Dave: I recall running out of shanties I think. That might have been first time or first play through. I really think it had some potential though. Sorta highlights to me some of the stories that could have been added to, I think. They got so much right in this game, but you go into nightclubs amd it's a dull affair. There seems to be a lack of just regular bars too. Yes I can choose fifty million different costumes — and did you feel there were slightly more or less than Saints Row the Third, by the way? — but it would have been nice to change the decor in my strip joints and clubs.

Tiggum: Oh, there were definitely way more clothes in Saints Row 2 than in the Third. Not just the specific items of clothing either, they merged a lot of stuff, like putting shirts, overshirts and jackets all into one category so you couldn't mix and match any more. Saints Row 2 is definitely the better dress-up game by a long way — and I mean that in a good way, it's awesome, and Gentlemen of the Row adds even more customisation (skin and eye colours as well as a bunch of clothes that were originally NPC-only).

Dave: Gentlemen of the Row is certainly the way to go, though it doesn't make a huge difference for me — I tend to get around in my underderps. I think next time I will change my outfit before each mission to keep in character; can't be respected if you have blood all over your clothes. Maybe after each round of killing.

Dave: Added features and shit to do are the name of the game here. The problem is, there seems to be huge amounts of things to do, with nothing related to the main story. Maybe that is more of a perk though. The prizes you get for missions are insane. The fully auto pistols with unlimited ammo spring to mind — all for doing ten cop missions. I got it almost by accident and was just left thinking "What the fuck?! So many bullets." Then some others you get a stupid outfit. That said, I like them. Really heaps of fun and enough that I usually try to complete them all… well sometimes. Even if it is just to get me money.

Tiggum: It's not even that much, you only have to do six instances to get the super rewards. It is quite hard to do that on your first play-through though. Once you know the tricks it's really easy to get whichever upgrades you want (which makes replays more fun in my view) but the first time you have no idea which activities to do to get which upgrades, and without knowing the best ways to go about things it can be pretty difficult to complete the last couple of instances you need.

Dave: The difference between the last missions varies heaps too. Remember the Heli Assault missions? Those were mind-bendingly hard, yet the police missions were a cake walk. Did you complete any of the burning missions?

Tiggum: Trail Blazing? Fuck no. With the driving being as shitty as it was it was pretty much impossible to do those on PC. And I only ever did Heli Assault in co-op — aiming while chasing dudes and also dodging skyscrapers and bridges is really hard.

Dave: I have trouble seeing how Trail Blazing could be good even with a controller. Then again I am not a fan of controllers. Has anyone asked Volition what they were thinking with the Heli Assaults? They pulled the same shit in Saints Row the Third.

Tiggum: Personally I can’t do shit with a gamepad, but I’ve heard from console players that the driving didn’t suck as bad for them. And I found Heli Assault way easier in the Third, probably because the city was far less interesting. Not so much stuff getting in your way.

Dave: Mostly true. There were still some times when you think to yourself ”Yeah flying through sky-scrapers, fucking brilliant.” Not as bad admittedly. And don't be silly, Tigs, no one uses consoles these days.

Tiggum: The dodginess of some of the activities aside, I thought the missions were mostly pretty great. I think it's important to play the Brotherhood storyline first, both because it seemed to me to be the easiest of the three and also because it really establishes who the boss is as a character. You really see just how far he'll go. Setting up Maero to accidentally kill his own girlfriend is probably the most brutal and amazing things I’ve ever seen in a video-game and really stands out as one of the things that makes me love this game and the boss as a protagonist. And burning the guitarist's hand and having Donnie blow up his friends' trucks also go a long way to showing just how vindictive and nasty the boss is, and leave you with no question that you are playing the villain in this story.

Dave: I actually found the Brotherhood quite easy the first time. This is however tainted by having automatic pistols with unlimited ammo. It was probably unwise of me to get that. I liked the Brotherhood missions, thought found the Donnie missions a little buggy. I did find killing the girlfriend a bit surprising. Bit of a shock and awe moment. I agree this should probably be played sooner rather than later, for storyline purposes, but they were all much of a muchness skill wise. If the game was a bit better designed “under the hood” then it should alter the difficulty of the factions depending on your skill.

Tiggum: I found that some of the Samedi missions were a bit tricky if you didn't have the guns and ammo to quickly destroy vehicles, and the Ronin missions tended to involve fighting a large number of dudes — the casino mission near the start of their storyline particularly. But you're right, there's not a huge difference in difficulty.

Dave: I think the Ronin were last on my first play through. The large number of dudes were a complete pain in the arse. And I wish they were cooler. The Brotherhood had a habit of mowing you down with their cars, but I assume that was more shitty driving physics than anything else. I am thinking Donnie missions here. Though I recall the dock in Samedi being a shitty melee.

Tiggum: The Sons of Samedi storyline was less cool than the Brotherhood one, but certainly has its points. Mr Sunshine in particular stands out. The general was OK as a villain, but only in the background, he needed Sunshine out there being a crazy voodoo guy to really sell it. Also, the plot hook about them being these big-time drug dealers was kind of undermined by the fact that their product turns out to be essentially just marijuana.

Dave: Agreed, the Sons of Samedi were just pretty plain to me. They are really crappy to replay, cos you know when shooting stuff on the docks you will get drugged. So I tended to sit back, shoot the stuff and wait for it to dissipate. I found just sprinting through really didn't work.

I really disliked the voodoo bullshit. If it had've been somewhat justified (thinking like in Batman here) then it would have been OK. Also, shooting that DJ was a satisfying if slightly finicky mission.

Tiggum: Killing Veteran Child was a pain in the arse. I hadn't used grenades at all up to that point in my first play-through, and that was not a fun introduction to them. And like so many shitty boss fights, you end up figuring out what to do then just having to repeat it several times for no good reason.

Dave: I think i accidentally finished it on the first go, but I know when I played it through the second time it was fiddly as a virgin on their wedding night.

Tiggum: I found the Ronin kind of boring as a gang, because their storyline didn't have the all-out rivalry of the Brotherhood or even the crazy gimmick of the Sons of Samedi. It really kind of felt like just a build-up to the final confrontation against Ultor. And the boss fights were the worst. Not one but two tedious sword-fights where all you can do is wait for your opponent to attack and then counter. Not challenging at all because even when they hit you they do very little damage and they just dragged on and on.

Dave: They were kind of comic relief to me. Again I think adding a more dynamic difficulty to the gangs would help with these guys. Also would have been cool to see the Ronin Ninja off their bikes to attack.

Tiggum: I didn't find them particularly comical. In fact, I think the Saints are the comic relief, the enemy gangs are played pretty straight, even when they're doing crazy shit.

Dave: Really? Even though they seemed to be the whole Japanese stereotype gang? Maybe my warped sense of humour. Just seemed to be there to go “ha Japan is weird”.

Tiggum: That would be the most subtle “Japan is weird” joke ever.

Dave: Maybe I am reading too much into it. Especially considering what we know of the writers from Saints Row the Third. Then again I like to think something more subtle is happening. The Ronin were somewhat shitty. The saints were straight as fuck... excepting the boss.
Tiggum: Yeah, I don't think subtlety is really a strength of the Saints Row team.

Tiggum: Shall we talk about some of the gameplay issues?

Dave: GPS – Not really a team player. Sometimes it would force you to drive a bit before it decided to show you the route. That was just unhelpful. And what the fuck was the point of the islands except to have large amounts of travelling and spending my hoard of cash?

Tiggum: The GPS only really fails when you're somewhere that's not on a road, like a big car-park, the university, etc. Just get to the nearest road and it works fine. I'm with you on the islands though. I get the prison island for plot purposes, but it really just ends up being a bit of the game that you don't really see much of because it's such a hassle to get there. The nuclear power station island was even worse — I don't think I ever went there outside of the one mission that forces you.

Dave: I found in some missions it just would barely show properly, and sometimes when driving normally. Which made getting around at a hundred K’s quite difficult.

Islands could have been so much fun though. I think they could have made it interesting, probably just ran out of time, inspiration and money. Prison, from what I recall, had a Fight Club mission too. Irritatingly, I don't recall getting a helipad on the prison island.

Tiggum: That was the problem. Without a helipad it was just too much hassle to get there. I did the prison fight club by flying a helicopter in and just hoping it was still there when I finished. There are generally boats around, but you'd have to find one. There wasn't even a boat dock on either island, and only one of them even had a crib of any kind.

Dave: And assuming they spawned. I once swam most of the way back. That was a pain. Also, this brings up the point: where the fuck do those homies appear from whenever I buy a house? That irritates me a little. These bloody moochers turn up in my house all the time. Also, I love that you can put in entirely impractical furniture.

Tiggum: Gentlemen of the Row can fix the homies thing. Replace them with something else (like zombies or barbershop quartets or bikies) and they stop spawning in your cribs. If you fuck around with the files yourself you can also make the strippers disappear. Unfortunately that also removes them from the strip clubs, which is a little weird, but it does leave you with some nice empty houses.

Dave: I don't mind them being there, but it is a bit creepy they turn up right after I buy a place.

Tiggum: Haha, how do they know!?

Dave: Let's talk about some of the characters.
Tiggum: Dane Vogel was a pretty awesome main antagonist for the game. Being the representative of a corporation rather than just another gang leader (like you) does a great job of setting him up as being a step up from everyone else, and his appearances throughout the game show him to be ruthless and single-minded in the pursuit of his goals, without coming across as absurd. At several points he shows that he is scared of the violent criminals he regularly deals with (when Maero threatens him in his office, or when he comes to visit the Saints' hideout for example), but he's so focused on his goal that he does it anyway.

Dave: Still thinking on this one. Did you do the Police missions? I think I stumbled across them accidentally.

Tiggum: The ones after the credits? Not on my first playthrough, because they're pretty difficult to find if you don't know to look for them. The police station isn't marked on the map and there's nothing much to see or do in there, so I didn't have any reason to go back until I read on the internet that there were extra missions hidden in there. I think those last missions would have had more impact if I'd played the original Saints Row, because then I'd have known who Julius was and the whole thing with the boat explosion and Troy Bradshaw all that, but without that context it was just a couple more missions, nothing special. Apparently they also tie into the DLC, which was never released for PC, so that might also have given them more impact.

Dave: Which is all quite disappointing. That sounded kinda cool, I wonder if it just got missed in the final game in some ways, money etc. I think I hit them at the end, by which time I was uber-powered and it was just a bit dull.

Tiggum: Back on characters, I know that a lot of people will disagree with this, but I never gave a shit about Carlos and I didn't care when he died — actually, that's not true. I was annoyed that I failed the mission twice for letting him die, then when I manage to save him he just dies in the cut-scene anyway. That was super annoying. Gat was cool, and him dying in Saints Row the Third was definitely terrible, but he's not as great as people make him out to be, and Pierce doesn't really come into his own until the third, so there's not really much to say about him here. Apart from Shaundi, Mr Wong was probably my favourite ally. He was awesome.

Dave: Was Carlos the one who got tied behind the car? He seemed to bugger off for half the game, reappear and get killed — I was going to start this with "Who the fuck is Carlos?" then I remembered. I knew I should feel bad that he died, but... you hardly have any interaction with him. Love that caption by the way.

And yeah, Gat was an odd one. Did you actually play the original Saints Row? Perhaps I am missing something from not having that, but one of the most hilarious missions for me is still busting him out of court. Sort of defines Saints Row 2 for me in that you have judges wielding shotguns. I can't recall Mr. Wong — strongly suspect I need to replay.

Tiggum: Carlos is the one who busts you out of prison and then yeah, gets Hector’d by the Brotherhood. I never played Saints Row 'cause it's console-only, but I watched a Let’s Play of it just to find out what the back-story was behind some of the stuff referenced in Saints Row 2. Mr Wong was the old Chinese guy who helps you fight the Ronin, and also gives you some Hitman targets. And yeah, the mission busting Gat out of court is awesome.

Tiggum: Shaundi is the best Saint (other than the boss, of course). The way she's constantly beating Pierce to the punch is hilarious, and she does a great job of making the boss seem more relatable as they actually seem to get along really well, which just makes it more effective when the boss does something totally unrelatable — like murdering someone. The absolute worst thing about Saints Row the Third is the way they completely destroyed her character. It would have been better if she hadn't shown up at all.

Dave: OK, as boring as it is, I really agree, and you know how much it pains me to say that. To add to it, as this is what we are meant to be doing; she very effectively (in my mind) forms the glue for the gang. Somehow she portrays solid dependability. At least... that is how I remember it. She is also batshit crazy in her own way and somewhat... moral I suppose.
Tiggum: By comparison with the rest of the gang, certainly. She still has no problem with murdering people and stuff though.

Dave: Apparently this isn't all about SR2. SR3, for those who haven't experienced it carries on with the leaders of the gang. The story is still zany, but we see some issues raised therein. In some ways I prefer 2. Others, the Third is the way to go. Friggin' hate the zombies. The forced to play sections in Saints Row the Third were a bit less staged fighting, I felt, and not as long.

Tiggum:  Overall, I really prefer Saints Row 2. The general gameplay was vastly improved in Saints Row the Third, driving is actually nice, the melee wrestling moves were awesome, carjacking was brilliant (both the normal and awesome ways), but the game just didn't hold together as well as Saints Row 2. The story in the Third is uninteresting and full of holes, whereas the story in 2 is one of the best in any video-game I've played, with fantastic characters. The activities and diversions all play much, much better in the Third, but I still find myself coming back to 2 far more than the Third. Saints Row the Third did a lot of stuff right, but it didn't live up to what it should have been, whereas Saints Row 2 did a lot of stuff wrong, but absolutely achieved what it set out to be.

Dave: No doubt we will be buying Saints Row IV. I wonder how they will manage it. Hopefully cut some of the bullshit from the Third, like the wrestling missions. 

Tiggum: By all accounts, the original Saints Row was good but not great, then they just basically built Saints Row 2 on that, so they had a good base to start with and made it awesome. Doing the same thing from Saints Row the Third to Saints Row IV should result in a pretty great game.