SAINTS ROW 2022 - How the work went against its creator

The Saints Row series is probably one of the most interesting GTA clones in the history of the game industry. The game took its madness, farce, and vulgarity with and without. It was a crime thriller about the rise of the Saints gang.

It was Saints Row that allowed itself what its competitors could not. In what other game was the dildo not just a mock Easter egg, but a full-fledged weapon that could be customizable. You can only imagine such a thing with the Poles... What was a dubstep gun AKA a grenade launcher worth?

As in GTA, Saints Row has an open world with its own city, side-activities, some kind of life simulation, chases, both games are conceptually very similar. However, Saints Row offered a much greater degree of absurdity, fun and humor. Each task in Saints Row could not only amuse, but also be remembered for its comicism, for example: the main characters storm a skyscraper in the story, but first they decide to bomb the underground parking lot of the building. Only after laying the explosives do they realize that they were a bit reckless, because the goal of their mission is on the upper floors.

Well, what can we do, then our heroes will have to hurry up before they blow themselves up.

Hilarity, vulgarity, absurdity, a ton of humor - this is everything that Saints Row was once loved for, and what you will see in the reboot of SAINTS ROW 2022 is negligible...

Those were the days!

At one time, the developers of Volition were able to offer the player a reasonable alternative to GTA, but they did not compete with the series head-on. The first Saints Row had its own, author's chips, but a limited budget. The lack of funding affected the animations, the sense of shooting and the scale of the open world, but not the story and the entourage.

The success of the first part of Saints Row made it clear that the sequel had to be. The second part was supposed to be an ideological continuation. Even before the release, it beckoned with the concept of non-linear story, which was later abandoned, this chip appeared only in the third part. But in the second part were the subtleties that are nowadays in the games to implement the developers are lazy: the player could hear on the radio about the action in the store, come to the said store and really dress up at a discount; if the player now and then traded in car theft, the radio host helpfully warned the drivers of the potential danger. Saints Row's open world reacted to the player's actions.

Since the third part, Saints Row has gone completely in the direction of absurdity, toilet humor, and jokes on the brink of foul. Moving away from the serious tones, the series made a successful rebranding, which later will play a cruel joke with it, but about this later...

Saints Row IV and Saints Row: Gat out of Hell did not shy away from overtly stoner tones in the narration, telling stories about alien invasions and about fighting Satan himself. It would seem that nothing more farcical could be invented. The series has been retired for a full seven years.

A wrong turn

As the developers themselves admit, they are ashamed of Saints Row: The Third and the following games. But not for the quality of the games, but for the nonsense, that happened on the screen. And in fact, you really can't show Saints Row: The Third game to children and tell unfamiliar people about it. And in general, the emphasis in the series from the third part went to clownery. That's when Volition recalled the Saints Row II experience and decided to go away from the flamboyantly provocative setting in a more familiar vein. And it was a fatal mistake.

It is impossible to create the game by the standards of fifteen years ago and hope for the same sensation. Telling about the new Saints Row is akin to trying to make fun of an old joke by changing the names of the characters - it's a lost cause...

The problems of today's youth

The developers moved away from the universe they created and decided to tell a new story. The new setting is the town of Santa Ileso: a collective image of South America and Texas. Our new protagonists are students: the player himself, Boss, Nina, Eli, and Kevin.

All of them are members of local gangs at the beginning of the game: Nina is in Los Panteros, here they are represented as bikers, but without bikes, but with cars. Eli and Kevin are members of the Idol gang, a kind of neon Robin Hoods with a double standard who despise authority. And the protagonist works for a private paramilitary company called Marshall - typical mercenaries with Sci-Fi outfits.

Our "musketeers" are not doing well: their superiors don't respect them, and their activities don't bring in money. In addition to their criminal activities, the four of them also study at universities, rent a place to live and, frankly, have big problems with finances. After another personal failure, they decide to stop serving their bosses and create their own gang. Of course, it wouldn't be Saints Row if they didn't call their gang "The Saints" and their residence wasn't in a church.

The plot doesn't catch the stars from the sky, but it's not an outright failure either. The beginning of the game is one of the two elements of the game that succeeded...

What is well done in the game

Volition is famous for its customization, in the creation and transformation of characters and cars they have no equal. As before, in the new Saints Row you can create any character you want, even pass the game with an exact copy of Shrek.

Weapon customization has become much easier, being limited to weapon coloring. Weapon modifications do not affect the appearance of the weapon, as it was before. However, vehicle customization is still the best on the market, yielding only to racing simulators, where tuning is almost the main mechanics of the game.

In addition, unlike previous parts of the series, you can customize your character not only in hospitals, but anywhere on the map. Yes, you can no longer customize every ring on all fingers, but there is more convenience.

Not bad implemented story quests. Some of them are able to surprise you with unexpected turns of the plot. For example, in one of the quests we have to torture the mechanic, removing parts of his car right in the tuning interface, or once the player wanders into the location of role-playing games, where the opponents will play along with him, when he beats them pretend by shooting with toy guns. Original? Funny? Yeah, not bad...

What's wrong with the game

The average framerate in the new Saints Row is 40-50 fps. This is true for both top consoles and top PCs. This disappointing figure will not save you neither the video card from NVIDIA thirtieth series, nor Xbox Series X, on which, incidentally, the game draws at 60 fps only in 1080p resolution.

But even if you close your eyes to the horrible optimization (I believe that with patches the situation will get better... probably), the new Saints Row - is the most trivial sandbox with all the ills of the open world: here you have the same-type side quests a la "Bring 14 trucks from the other side of the map" and the usual, even routine sweep of the territory. All the activities in Saints Row are the most mediocre way to get the player to spend as much time in the game as possible. The caravan-robbing meme is as relevant in this case as ever. The player is forced to do the same thing dozens of times.

Most quests follow the same pattern: "The hero arrives at the appointed place, something goes wrong, a firefight begins," and here we go to the next point...

The shooting in the new Saints Row is a separate point of discussion. Some say that the shooting is noticeably better than previous installments; some say that the guns have virtually no impact. I say that it's not the guns at all, but the fact that during the shootings Saints Row turns into a stereotypical shooter-looter at its worst: a headshot does not lead to instant death, strong enemies can easily withstand a barrage of machine gun fire, and the same shotguns do noticeable damage only to the vehicles. Not only that the whole game we will be engaged in resetting the health bar, but this is an insanely tedious task.

Opponents do not react to hits. Machine guns shoot with zero accuracy, and sniper rifles - is a separate kind of weapon, because only they can hit where the player was aiming.

Transportation in the game is also controversial. At least it is controversial because the game has no brake button, only the handbrake followed by a drift. Some players may enjoy driving weightless soap bars, but most of the time you use vehicles because you need them, not for fun. Exotic modes of transport a la helicopters, planes and tanks are the prerogative of those who have already completed three-quarters of the game. The only mode of transportation that is undeniably a success is the Wingsuit.

Thanks to him, you can see the beauty of this place and not get stuck in the wall because of a bug.

Verdict

Saints Row 2022 would have the right to exist if it were not related to Saints Row: The Third, a game from thirteen years ago. Alas, Saints Row is two steps back. Should I buy the game? Of course not! If you want to play Saints Row, buy Saints Row: The Third - everything is the same, only better and much cheaper.