Saints Row Review
I'm so happy to finally get to review Saints Row, on a Monday Night, a week after every gaming outlet and podcast has already said “it's terrible”
Sorry folks, I can't be a big shot YouTuber with a content team, and get a review copy from the studio before talking about how disappointing it is.
First Off, IT IS A BUGGY MESS, HOLY SHIT, IT CRASHED ON ME JUST CREATING MY BOSS CHARACTER, IT CRASHES MID-MISSION, IT CRASHES WHEN I CRASH A CAR, ITS NOT PLAYABLE AT ALL
Also, I haven't beaten the game yet, which is also very disappointing, but, again, I only got about a week to play this.
I really loved Saints Row The Third and even enjoyed 4 – but when the last of the series let's you be a superhero and explode aliens… to go back to a basic open world game seems disappointing.
The highlight of Saints Row has always been to satirize the open world genre, and the comedy comes from the over the top behavior of the world, from the boss, to the cars you steal to the on screen prompts.
In yesteryear, there was a Nolan North voice option, a Dubstep gun, a radio station of Adult Swim music and even Keith David giving a dramatic role and reliving his iconic moment in “They Live”.
Now, what if none of that happened? What if the jokes were on par with “The Workaholics Whiteboard” of lines that are punchlines that are tiresome.
You have heard them before – “well that just happened”, “really?”, “weird flex but okay” that sort of really terrible meme speak that can best be equated to a new season of big brother using the term “besties” in their yearly twist.
It's very tiresome, and offers the same “cringe “ as a high school student stumbling upon their English Teachers TikTok and seeing them do the Gangnam Style dance to “Old Town Road”.
Now, Saints Row is no stranger to embarrassing the main character with dances, and silly gestures like the three amigos dance, and even a John Cena “you can't see me”, but since we last had a Saints Row game to now – a certain free to play open world game called “Fortnite” existed, and now you can make Tom Holland from Uncharted, Goku, John Cena and even Iron Man do the whip and nae name to your hearts content.
That, at least in a modern sense, now Saints Row has to catch up with Fortnite if they want to reclaim the “stupid things to do in video games” demographic.
Instead, what you get is a very bland story, that can best be described as “fellow millennials” as they need money and the way to get money is to do a crime, and form a group, the saints.
The story itself is just very awful, there isn't a Johnny Gat or Kinzie to provide comical banter and satire. There is practically zero satire in this game.
And that to me, is the biggest crime this game has going for it. Instead of trying to forth wall break with fast travel points, or even expand on the city having a high amount of carjackings, but police barely doing anything to stop it.
If you want to fast travel, you need to snap a picture, but if you’re in a mission and its on the whole other side of the map? Well you’re just fucked.
It just feels like they had to speed up the writing and cut many of the world building elements, either because of time or budget, for a game that feels half finished.
Now, some missions like the insurance fraud is still alive, and that's thankfully still as silly as ever. There is still a bit of social commentary about the violence in the game, and one memorable mission involves just shooting toy guns with hammy acting when they get shot, but it still isn't anything compared to Professor Genki.
Satire is the best kind of comedy, at least to me, because well done satire, comes from the heart, I am reminded of shows like Hidden America with Jonah Ray and Documentary Now, that treats the genres they are spoofing with such love and admiration.
And in video games, when you have Gex try and spoof TV shows, it was at least trying to be a stage. Sometimes you wind up with a Pyst from Parroty Interactive that's dreadful, other times you find a Goat Simulator that is able to strike the perfect balance of both.
And yes, Saints Row, at least to me, used to be the best satire of open world game, and this reboot, isn't that by any stretch.
I honestly, can't recommend this game to anybody, it's not saints row enough to keep diehard fans happy, it isn't bad enough to be a “play it because it's bad” ironic streamer game.
It's just bland, it’s generic. It needed just extra time and money and a few rewrites and motion captures to bring it back.
And to be even more honest – it wasn’t even necessary. I would rather have had a new IP in the spirit of Saints Row, maybe a satire of Elden Ring and Skyrim dungeon crawlers, or maybe a parody of battle-royale games where it's somehow even more stupid than Fortnite.
Dead Island 2 from the last few trailers steered away from the spooky in favor of stupid, that maybe that series will bring comedy back to video games? Perhaps? Maybe?
But until then, I think just wait until it's on game pass or until it's free on epic games, because there is really no need to play this at the moment, even if you're a fan of the series like me.
I give it a 2 out of 5.
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In the FULL VERSION, there is a NEWS SEGMENT, your Q&As and also MORE SEGMENTS including PLUTO TV HOW DO YOU DO, a dissection of JACKBOX PARTY PACK 2 and my ACTUAL THOUGHTS ABOUT G4TV! (You WOULDN’T BELIEVE what I THINK about them!)
