Despite
growing up with an irrational hatred for all games that were,
“immature”, I can safely say that’s it’s a shock that I love the Saints Row series. I used to groan when I overheard people talk about Grand Theft Auto,
but now I possess love for a series that originally began as a
shameless rip-off. As someone who recently experienced this franchise, I
feel like I should review and compare this trilogy, in half for the
LOLs, and because I like the idea of reviewing entire series. So
without further ado, let’s talk about Saints Row 1.
Saints Row Review
release date: 29/7/2006
Platform: Xbox 360(Reviewed), Playstation 3, PC
Price I Paid: $19.99 as part of the Saints Row Double Pack
Upon
completing the first two games in the now shelved Red Faction series,
THQ gave volition a task to create an open world game for the upcoming
Xbox 360 platform. This would become Saints Row 1.
The game begins with your custom made, mute character walking around
the streets of Stillwater, a fictional city that is similar to Chicago
and Detroit, only to be assaulted by one of the city’s many gangs, with a
gun staring him in the face, your character is saved by the Third
Street Saints, the purple clad underdogs, who were originally dressed in
green, in this four way gang war.
Throughout
the game you’ll do numerous missions leading to the destruction of the 3
rival gangs, along with numerous activities that are needed to access
said missions. These activities include, but are not limited to:
Protecting drug dealers from SWAT officers, snatching prostitutes from
rival gangs, competing in Demolition Derbies, Causing mayhem throughout
the city with a rocket launcher that never runs out of ammo, competing
in drag races, and having your character run in front of traffic in
hopes of committing insurance fraud by being air juggled. All of these
activities are given a humorous explanation by a character you work for
or with for the eight levels of every activity. The main problem is
that they feel very repetitive, with some activities having three
instances of eight levels. Granted that they are scattered across
Stillwater, but environments seem incidental when you’re looking for
glowing circles and shooting vans with a pistol.
As
for the main campaign, you will work with a trio of well done and
memorable Saint characters who are each trying to take down one of the
rival gangs and gaining a bit of territory as you go along. The
missions remain fun for the most part, but are hindered by a lack of
checkpoints and an awful difficulty curve, with some of the hardest
missions in the game occurring halfway through a gang’s storyline. The
hardest of which involves driving a truck full of all the drugs in the
city while being assaulted by no less than 200 FBI officers. It would
have been nice to not need to go through two sequences in order to get
back to this section, but you have five minutes to spend doing the same
boring sequence, don’t you? I also felt very little investment in the
narrative due to the just how straight it is played. The characters are
interesting and well voiced, your antagonists are developed and show
reactions to your action against them. But since I switched around with
3 narratives and general messing around it was hard to get invested.
The
driving has a very arcade like feel to it with smooth controls and a
lot to explore. The combat is a simple third person shooter that is
only lacking in unlockable weapon variety. You have some fun weapons
available for purchase, but the oddest weapon I found in the game was a
rocket launcher. But the game tends to fall apart when those two
aspects collide, when driving and shooting you have two basic options,
have RT fire your weapon/accelerate, and have the A button
accelerate/weapon. It is very hard to aim this way and requires you to
change the control scheme whenever you are manning shotgun and having
the AI partner character drive you.
Still,
that hardly prevents the game from being a lot of fun, it is a blast to
just explore this well designed city and try to find the secrets hidden
within it. This is helped by a great soundtrack that I was humming a
good month after playing it. The game also dons a cartoony visual style
that, and I’m certain it wasn’t the intention, the game invokes a very
Dreamcast-like feel. From the countless bugs and glitches, the dozens
of cheats, and the simplistic graphical design, it felt like a game that
came out a few years before 2006.
Despite
the game’s charm, well crafted world, and overall silliness to it
despite how straight it tries to play its subject matter, Saints Row
has a lot of little problems. An unbalanced difficulty curve, buggy
design, and repetitive side missions all prevent it from achieving
greatness, and in the end come up with a quality product that is coated
in rough edges.
28/40
Good
There are evident flaws, but the game still manages to remain fun and the game is competent in its execution.
Join me next week for Saints Row 2, because it's April, meaning that it is Saints Row month!
