 Review By: Andrew Joy |
Developer: | Volition |
| Publisher: | THQ | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| ESRB: | Mature | |
| # Of Players: | 1-12 | |
| Online Play: | Yes | |
| Accessories: | System Link, Xbox Live (Content DL, Leaderboards) | |
| Buy Now: |   |
I’m addicted to sandbox games. I make no secret of the fact that I just can’t get enough of them. In fact, with few exceptions, they may be the only real console gaming I do at the moment. That said, unlike most people, I wasn’t really mad when I heard the premise of Saints Row...I actually smiled a bit! From the sandbox gameplay, to the glorified life of crime portrayed within, this game has Grand Theft Auto written all over it, and it makes no attempt to hide its guilty face. In fact, Saints Row wears its similarities as a badge of honor, saying, "Yeah, I can do that—and I can do it better!" And, for that very same reason, I like the game. I mean, I love GTA, don’t get me wrong. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the series has grown a bit stagnant over the years. I believe GTA: Vice City was the best game in the series thus far, and all the other games since have really failed to bring anything revolutionary to the series. And that, my friends, is where Saints Row comes in.
Sadly, while Saints Row may be two steps ahead of Grand Theft Auto in some areas, in others it is a step behind. Take the story, for example. While GTA often has a very engaging, humorous story full of intriguing characters, Saints Row has a very convoluted plot that is cluttered with filler characters and only a handful of real standouts. The premise of the game is simple enough at first though, with your character getting caught in a gang war right in the opening sequence, almost killed, and then saved by a rival gang that offers you a chance to join them. The 3rd Street Saints, as you soon learn, are a small group that seems only to want to take back the city of Stilwater from the warring gang factions that are tearing it apart. In order to do that, you will need to separately take down each of the three gangs: the Rollerz, the Vice Kings, and Los Carnales. Julius, the leader of the Saints (and the man who saved you), has appointed three of his most trusted members to complete the task, and you will be aiding all of them. There are a few twist and turns throughout the story, but while I want to stop short of saying the game is predictable, there isn’t anything really shocking that happens over the course of it either.
The dialogue in this game isn’t exactly Hollywood-quality, although it is carried with some decent voice talent at times, but I’ll get back to that later. Actually, Hollywood may be the best comparison, but trust me when I say the stuff you’ll hear is far from summer blockbuster material and more like a Blockbuster summer, filled with all the unintelligible macho dialogue that can be squeezed onto a DVD. Apart from that, I merely have to make mention that the humor in this game fails to impress and is far from being subtle. Again, compared to its biggest competitor, GTA, Saints Row is crude and particularly lowbrow. Take, for instance, the restaurant chains that stud the landscape. In San Andreas, the Taco Bell and KFC merger was spoofed with Cluckin’ Bell (which is just fun to say), while Saints Row has an all-grown-up send-up of Wendy’s with...Freckle B****es! Then again, developer Volition may not have been going for quite the same thing, and perhaps a lot of it is supposed to be semi-serious. If that’s the case though, the two don’t mix, and like I said it didn’t exactly do it for me, but I’ll let you judge for yourselves.
Though I may have refrained from using the term earlier, predictability is a problem that dogs this game all the way to the end. In most games, consistency is a good thing, but in sandbox games such as this it can be the death of it. Especially when you are talking about the missions. As the gang war is being waged on multiple fronts, Saints Row is much less linear than most games (perhaps even GTA). There is a separate storyline for each gang, and for the most part you can choose when or even if you want to pursue it (though obviously, you will need to complete all of them in order to beat the game). Once you start, you will quickly notice that most of the close to 40 missions are ultimately the same from one gang to the next, repeating the same basic destroy this, protect that, follow this, escape that, rescue so-and-so formula. The repetitiveness of this game is only added to by the size of Stilwater, which, as you might have guessed from that statement, is small...real small. Though the game has a look that marries Vice City (as far as layout) with San Andreas (as far as being ghetto-tastic), it only seems about as large as Liberty City. And it lacks the charm of both those games, too, having neither the tropical flare nor wide-open spaces one might hope for.
Posted: 2006-10-19 15:48:51 PST