SAINTS ROW (2006)

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a long time ago, i tried playing grand theft auto 3. this attempt didn't last very long considering the brutality of failing a mission: no checkpoints, no saves and, hell, no restarting--the game's decided you are an idiot (a stupid one) and you have to drag your dumb idiot ass all the way back over to the mission giver, skip their very intelligent cutscene, and try again.

suffice to say, i was that dumb idiot dipshit that rockstar thought me as, and i did not attempt to prove otherwise. or, in other words, i gave the fuck up. who has the time or patience?

years later, i played saints row. this one. it's kind of like... well, if inspiration could be seen on volition's sleeve, it'd just be a series of gta logos from shoulder to wrist. and of the many similarities saints row shared with grand theft auto, one was more brutal than the others: that exact same fucking lack of checkpoints and the basic ability to restart the damn mission. the game simply thinks your moron ass either better drag it all back to whoever gave you a cutscene or fuck off.

but unlike gta3, i didn't fuck off. why not?

because i played saints row 2 first, and saints row 2 is awesome. i'd go so far as to call it a near perfect game, and i, then, wanted to know the backstory of such a near perfect game, and said backstory could only be obtained by playing a game that's anything but. so i persevered, and it's now been years and years since then, and so i've persevered a second time through a medley of mission starts, mission failures, and mission driving-all-the-goddamn-way-to-the-starts.

in other words: i've played and beaten saints row twice. in more words: it's not really worth playing and beating twice--BUT! these two experiences have allowed me ample time to fully digest what volition presented to xbox 360 owners in 2006, and now i will relay to you, reader in 2022 or beyond, what i have learned, experienced, hated, and enjoyed.

first thing's first: this is one of the worst sandbox cities ever made. ever. history of ever, guaranteed. i've played just about every grand theft auto, certainly every saints row, and all sorts of gta/sr likes like the simpsons hit and run and mafia 2, and THIS is easily the worst designed of them all. it's bad enough that just about every neighborhood bolsters the same ugly shades of brown, red, and grey which makes quickly identifying areas around you based on appearance alone quite difficult, but the real problem lies in navigation. over and over and over, you'll find yourself hitting dead ends, pulling into parking lots with only one entrance and exit, speeding down alleys and into walls, and maddeningly smashing into obstacles your car should have been able to clear... but volition's city designers thought otherwise. but that's just a ground level problem. look to the air for the next: saints row's psychotic highway system. it makes NO fucking sense. none whatsoever. you'll look it over on the gps and be baffled on where exactly entrances and exits even are, and you'll be even further pressed to actually find that there are barely any exits/entrances at all! that's great for a fucking means of fast transportation that can't actually be accessed for a great majority of the map. god, words alone cannot quite describe just how miserable these highways are designed, and you'd be foolish to think saints row 2's kept things the same. no, in fact, saints row's highway and city layout are so indescribably terrible that volition came up with 'flooding' as a lore friendly excuse to gut the absolute miserable shit out of this absolutely miserable excuse for a sandbox layout in its sequel. fuck me, i'll never take well designed highways for granted again.

second thing's second: the mini game named activities suck. i mean, absolutely all of them do. want to protect a drug dealer? then you'll do it with the shitty guns your dealer wants you to use, and with a paltry amount of ammo to boot. want to ho? good luck getting the car bound whores without trouble--damaging a car without damaging your own car is HARD--and on that note, you best be careful when your vehicle's even remotely close to exploding. if a fire starts, you have genuine seconds to get out of the damn thing before it mission failures your ass back to square one. oh, the best activity actually is insurance fraud, surprisingly, because you can just steal a police car and rack up insane point combos by virtue of your vehicle being of the state. hell, you don't even have to hit anyone: slamming your car over and over into a wall is enough to pass each level of activity with flying colors. eight levels, by the way, and that goes for every single activity. and the rewards? well, sometimes, it's a homie. other times, it's a necklace. you have zero way of knowing this beforehand. oh, and don't rack up too many activity-rewarded respect points. in saints row 2, the meter would change to infinity upon reaching a theoretical 'max'. here in saints row 1? your game flips a coin every time you boot in, and every time it's heads, the console shuts off. dead fucking serious.

now, given these first and second major points, you might think saints row not worth playing and, in the age of youtube where anyone can just watch a stitched together cutscene compilation... yeah, yeah maybe it isn't worth the hassle. but then, it's not as if the whole experience is rotten. the general gameplay of pulling up on gangsters or police and icing them's fun. getting into highway warfare with three of your homies comprised of a soccer mom, zombie, and a baseball wielding chicken suited teenager... is pretty fun, too. the problem is it's just better in saints row 2. the writing's pretty solid, too, and i never offer such praise lightly--the dialogue plays with some silliness while still steering straight, though it's often not enough or not fleshed out as much as it should be. so, that's better in saints row 2, too. the activities i described are better in saints row 2, actually, and the city design is better in saints row 2, and, well...

you know, there's just SO much of this game that looks even shittier in comparison to its better fated sequel, and i guess that's not totally fair, but we don't exist in a vacuum and i can't help playing the game and thinking every thirty seconds "man, this detail sucks and is so much better in saints row 2". mission checkpoints? saints row 2. city free of dead ends? saints row 2. memorable locations based on visual identity alone? saints row 2. anything that saints row 1 does, 2 does better, and that leaves the experience pretty sour admittedly. but hey, there's at least one thing saints row has that its sequel doesn't: a bizarre loan shark that'll lend you, what, $1000, and failing to pay back such will sick a helicopter on you at all times of the day. so that's nice.

one last thing that's pretty cool: i selected 'xbox 360' as my platform, but the truth is i actually emulated the entire experience in 'xenia' right in the comfort of my pc. yeah, and saints row 2 runs well, too. how about that?