Saint's Row - Volition Incorporated - 360

[schild]

Before I started playing, I didn't know all that much about this game. While I was aware that this game was a kind of GTA-clone, what I wasn't aware of was the fact that Volition essentially went to the photocopier with a copy of San Andreas in hand when they came to designing the game. It's designed as a San Andreas pt2, essentially. Big open city, sandbox, yadda yadda.

Off-colour comments from bystanders and passers-by on the street? Check.
Radio stations with amusing talkback? Check.
Optional Gangsta missions all over the place? Check.

You get to design the main character yourself in this one (I made a Stone Cold Steve Austin look-alike) and a couple of mentors, one who is so clearly based on Sam Jackson that it makes you cry, and one that seems to be based on Steve Buscemi or Sean Penn. This means your character has less of a specific storyline than Carl from GTA:SA or Tommy from GTA:VC and is really closer to the generic "Fido" from GTAIII.

Anyway, I never managed to get into the GTA3/VC/SA games on PS2 because of the wonky control, (I had to play them on PC to manage) but I found I could play this one alright. Perhaps it's because the graphics and detail have taken a big step up and into HD with the 360, (because the thumbstick was still oh so very painful when I played Freedom Fighters (PS2) recently) or maybe it's because everything is that little bit more refined and smooth this far down the line. It may be a GTA ripoff, but it is very polished.

In short, while the real GTAIV is no doubt going to shift the goalposts once more, Saint's Row is a good stand-in in the meantime.

If you like the sandbox genre and don't hate the gangsta thing too much, then Rent It. Even if you had troublke with GTA on consoles.

If you liked the GTA on console...

--

Buy It.

Sent in by Azazel.

[Morfiend]

I don't know what it was about this game, but I had an immense amount of fun with it. I played through it two and a half times. The driving feels a little "floaty" at first, but once you get a hang of the physics, you can really rip around the world.

To who ever wrote the above BIIT, maybe one of the reasons you could platy this but not the previous GTA game was that the Xbox controller is much better for "thumbstick aiming" than the PS2/3 controller. At least it is for me.

[Yegolev]

Somehow Saint's Row was like Charlie Murphy to Rockstar's Eddie Murphy.  Probably because I didn't have any control issues with the GTAs.  In fact, I thought the SR controls weren't quite as tight.  As I mentioned elsewhere: use either the lockon or shoot from the hip, not the thumbstick.  Pretend it isn't even possible to aim with the sticks in GTA, and you'll be filling up mexican graveyards in record time.

[Margalis]

I *really* enjoyed the driving sequences in The Getaway. That is far and away my favorite sandbox driving game. (Though the rest of it is pretty sucky)

The main thing for me is that in The Getaway the handing is so much better. The cars actually feel solid, unlike in GTA where they handle like they are made out of styrofoam.

[Azazel]

I've come back to this, after finishing Assassins' Creed and wasting some time on 99 nights. I'm still enjoying it and it really does look and sound nice. The GTA-Style humour works sometimes but is generally a lot more ham-fisted, and I'm really noticing the lack of motorcycles. The lack of BMX and skill points doesn't bother me though.

I do really like the way that you can just click a button to try again on a failed mission though. Funny how that being removed is one of the key reasons I'll be skipping the new Burnout (until it's really bloody cheap or I have nothing else to buy, at least).

I guess I have to decide real soon if I'm going to bother to catch all the pokemon do all the gang tags and collect all the CDs, because once you're right in a game and have a bunch of these kinds of things, finding the rest is a pita.

[MisterNoisy]

Ithough. Funny how that being removed is one of the key reasons I'll be skipping the new Burnout (until it's really bloody cheap or I have nothing else to buy, at least).

For me, it's the failure to include a proper Crash mode that broke Paradise. I know you can trigger it at any time and cars will spawn for you to wreck into, but I liked the 'puzzle game' aspect of the Crash mode in previous versions.   No instant restart didn't help, though.

[Azazel]

And after another long break, I'm back on this, and into it properly.

As I had been messing about on and off with this and Bully, the release of GTA4 made me decide to get off my arse and fucking finish these other sandboxes before starting GTA properly, with the assumption that once I actually start GTA, I'll never want to go back to these others again.

So I've burnt through from 20%ish to about 50% ish, but with buckets of the side missions/activities done, and others part-done. Overall, I'm having a mostly-great time, and the graphics don't suffer from blurtown as GTA seems to (hope I can turn that shit off). There's still a certain amount of frustration though. Flaming exploding cars being my nemesis, as hundreds of bright-yellow-clad gangbangers swarm me like locusts, and make my cars explode.

I can do without the missions that start with a 5-minute drive. Shit, if you're going to give me a replay option, let's checkpoint it from the point where the fucking mission actually properly starts, eh? From what I'm reading, GTA suffers from that as well. Apparently SR2 is going to drop the activities from 8 levels to 6, which will also be a nice change, cos some of this shit just gets ridiculous. I'm having major exploding car issues on the trafficking and escort missions. Might finish up the snatch ones first.

The driving around endlessly for hitman and chop shop missions sucks balls, though I've now only got 2 cars to go, and the hitman stuff is finished, which makes a huge difference to all the other missions.

Anyway, with luck I'll get this sucker finished next weekend. A bit of on and off through the week, and a proper session on the weekend.


Anyone interested in having some MP on this in a few weeks? Like 3 weeks when I'm off work and can get on at the same times people from the US are on? I'm interested to have a mess around.

[Driakos]

Insurance scams were my favorite thing in this game.  Bridges were second.

[Azazel]

I don't really enjoy the insurance scams. They're a bit too "fall over, over and over in a small area" for my liking.

Bridges? que?

[Driakos]

I don't really enjoy the insurance scams. They're a bit too "fall over, over and over in a small area" for my liking.

Bridges? que?

For the insurance scam, steal a city vehicle.  Cop car, ambulance, garbage truck, something.  Then ram it into oncoming traffic.  Fly out the windshield (on a good hit) and watch the thousands roll.  I think I've gotten almost half a mil on a brutal hit.  Plus you know, you go flying.  Sometimes you go flying on fire.  Sometimes you go flying straight up.  Usually you survive, but sometimes you get caught under a moving car and get dragged farther than your insurance immunity lasts.

Bridges...  Punch an NPC.  They either fight or flight.  If you get a runner, steer them into oncoming traffic by adjusting your chase angle. They will always try to stay 12'o clock from you.  Rag doll hilarity when they get punted off the bridge.  If they chase you, just dive in front of a truck.  Hopefully you clear it, but they get launched.  Sometimes you reenact the first 10 minutes of Meet Joe Black as they ping-pong across the median a few times.  You gotta do it on bridges, because for some reason the NPCs drive full throttle on bridges and rarely slow down.  On regular city streets, they are more inclined to drive cautiously.

The extremely exaggerated rag doll in this game is awesome.

Try standing on a random NPC car roof  (anywhere in town).  They'll yell at you or panic, then freak out and slam the gas.  You can cause some funny accidents just roof surfing.

I got around some of the overly long chase missions, by stopping short of the chase trigger.  Getting out of my car.  Lobbing an explosive way far ahead to where the target was.  I'd either disable their car, or kill em.  Either way, I didn't have to chase them around town and deal with their terrain immunity (whilst I get caught on everything).  I hated that a lot of them had essentially hover vehicles that can ignore obstacles which stymied me.

[Moosehands]

I'm totally hooked on SR multiplayer.  The community around it is filled with such racist, hate-mongering pre-teen jackasses that it's a real pleasure to grief the hell out of them.  Protect the Pimp and Pimp Your Ride seem like they were designed for the sole purpose of letting you ruin the experience of your team mates.

[Azazel]

I actually can't manage to find an online game. I don't know how much I'll enjoty it, but I do want to try it out. When are all these mouth-breathing white-boi-gangstas online?

I'll try the insurance thing again. I read it as the objective was to be hit by oncoming traffic as a pedestrian, so I usually took a cop car with me and then fell over onto it a lot. I'll try doing a highspeed head-on in a cop car tonight.

Will keep that in mind on the chase missions. I've been doing them by jumping out of the car once it's started, and going for an RPG shot, which does the deed nicely, when it hits.

I just need to find that damn fire engine, and a humvee to finish the chop shops now. Guides say that you can get the fire engine from the airport, but I've never seen one there. Humvee you can apparently get off one of your hopies, but again, I've not seen one yet. Maybe I need more missions.

Any ideas on the highest levels of escort/traffiking? I got through a couple of the snatch series, so I guess those will be my focus till they're done. Demo derby took all of 15 mins to level 8.

[Moosehands]

The online population has tanked pretty hard at this point, especially since GTA 4 launched.  All I can suggest is to use the quick join feature, crack a beer, and be prepared to wait a while before getting into a running match.

[Azazel]

Will do. Probably on the weekend afternoon then, when the US playerbase is awake.

For the insurance scam, steal a city vehicle.  Cop car, ambulance, garbage truck, something.  Then ram it into oncoming traffic.  Fly out the windshield (on a good hit) and watch the thousands roll.  I think I've gotten almost half a mil on a brutal hit.  Plus you know, you go flying.  Sometimes you go flying on fire.  Sometimes you go flying straight up.  Usually you survive, but sometimes you get caught under a moving car and get dragged farther than your insurance immunity lasts.

Got home from work, and did all the insurance missions. Previously, I had done one at level 1. The shitty instructions just tell you to press the L and R buttons to fall over. Driving around in a jacked cop car doing head-ons was much more fun, doable, and in keeping with the rest of the game. Also, I got all the insurance buffs. Less damage from crashes and explosions is just what I need to help me through those snatch missions, too. Thanks for that! 



UPDATE:

Sat morning here = Friday night in the US.

I've never encountered a bunch of stupider white-boy-nigga-wannabes in an online game since I last played XBLA Uno online (sadly, the truth). The only good part is that they all hate each other and try to out-shit-talk each other while I just laugh at them all. I did get called "a British" though. Which is as lovely as it is inaccurate.

[Moosehands]

Yep, they really are that awful.  It's like the Marv quote: "I love hitmen.  No matter what you do to them, you won't feel bad."

[Azazel]

Now 75% through, and one mission left for the Vice Kings (killing the chick) and the Carnales. Rollerz taken care of. I've been doing the side missions/activities for the last week now. Finished Hitman, Chop Shop, Mayhem, Demo Derby, Insurance, completed Trafficking this afternoon..

Working through the tags now, about 1/3 to 1/2 way through...

Still quite a few activities left for me to start or finish though - Escorts, Hijacking, Snatch, Racing.. and I'm really getting sick of just sandboxing these side missions when I play.

So, a question to those who have finished this thing - I've inadvertently part-read some spoilers on the end of the game, and they seem to indicate that unlike the GTA series, after completion of the storyline I won't be able to criuse around the city knocking off all the side missions to 100% them. Is this true?

'Cos I'd love to do more main story then go back and do the street racing later, or what have you...


SHIT PISS CUNT FUCK COCKSUCKER MOTHERFUCKER SHIT

ahem.

Don't you hate it in these fucking sandbox games where there's some kind of "collect all 25/30/100 foozles" and even when you get a list and go through them methodically there's always one you can't find - after going through the list crossing them all off as you went anyway?

Fuck you, GTA3 series.
Fuck you, Assassin's Creed.
Thank you, Bully, for having a map, but FUCK YOU for it being bugged on my savegame.
And now, Fuck you, Saints Row.

ingame maps, motherfucker. ingame maps.

[Azazel]

Yep, they really are that awful.  It's like the Marv quote: "I love hitmen.  No matter what you do to them, you won't feel bad."

Go add yourself to this thread. http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8830.70

It'd be nice to play with someone who's not a fucking mouthbreather.

[Azazel]

So after plinking away at this game for months, a couple hours at a time a day or two a week, I finally finished this thing. 96%. Got all the SP side missions and achievements done, excepting the burgulary mission, which I've just remembered as I type this, so I'll have to go back and grind the last ones out tonight.

Also didn't bother collecting the CDs, since it's just one of those annoying side quests that doesn't get you anything besides unlocking some shitty rap songs. I got 20/60 of them just playing through anyway. Probably will never go back and collect those.

So, the overall experience, was well worth it. I came to the game after the MP was abandoned by the release of GTA4 and many other games, but it's full of mouthbreathers anyway, and there are better games for the whole "MP shooting some mofos" experience out there anyway.

The SP experience though, was well worthwhile, more fun than San Andreas thanks to the lack of impossibly painful shitty flying missions, a good amount of depth, it looks damned pretty and it controls much nicer than any GTA has ever done on a console to me. Since it's now discounted through the floor, I'd consider this a must-buy if you're into 3rd person sandboxy games. On 360.

I look forward to the sequel.