Response to hate on Saints Row

What can I say. Saints Row now is stupid.
No, not stupid as in ridiculous and fun. Just stupid.

Saints Row 2 was ridiculous and fun. Saints Row the Third was too, for all it's flaws.
SR4 and that ugly offshoot Gat out of Hell on the other hand? SR4 wallows in it's wasted potential, and GooH jettisons the one thing the series had that still made it unique and fun in order to appeal to Johnny Gat fans and using the most overdone and dull aspects of Christian dogma as a setting.

GooH is not creative. Neither is SR4. To even imply they are even a tiny bit more innovative and fun than GTAV is frankly laughable.
I don't exactly care for GTAV myself, but at least Rockstar put some EFFORT into that game, whereas the lack of any sort of passion or care in SR4 or GooH is self-evident.
I used to be hugely into the series, but was gradually alienated and put off when it became clear that SR had become a lazy parody of itself, simultaneously abandoning what made SR2 and SR3 fun while wallowing in the nostalgia they earned.

I gave up on the community long ago, but coming across this today, I just have to say, no. The criticisms are well earned. It's not about ultra-realism, or GTA. It's not even about the aliens or the purple dildos. It's about a series that committed seppuku on it's own identity for the sake of cheap, unfunny laughs.
 
Mist3475 said:
Saints Row 2 was ridiculous and fun. Saints Row the Third was too, for all it's flaws.
SR4 and that ugly offshoot Gat out of Hell on the other hand? SR4 wallows in it's wasted potential, and GooH jettisons the one thing the series had that still made it unique and fun in order to appeal to Johnny Gat fans and using the most overdone and dull aspects of Christian dogma as a setting.

GooH is not creative. Neither is SR4. To even imply they are even a tiny bit more innovative and fun than GTAV is frankly laughable.
I don't exactly care for GTAV myself, but at least Rockstar put some EFFORT into that game, whereas the lack of any sort of passion or care in SR4 or GooH is self-evident.
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I am not quite as harsh on IV but I think this is spot on otherwise.

I loved SRIV, I was ecstatic when it was announced, and mostly it didn't disappoint because it managed to throw just enough bones for a fan like me who'd grown extremely fond of the characters. GooH had nothing of that and while the gameplay is still fun and I can't really bring myself to totally hate it, it seems to be the epitome of what has plagued the series since at least 3: the whole thing is nothing but one huge gimmick. An extremely tired one, too.

I can't remember which dev it was who said why things like the zombie voice or Zimos didn't return in 4 (ignoring EtD since it was originally an SR3 expansion pack), but I believe the gist of it was that they're supposed to be jokes, shallow gimmick characters and if you try to stretch out the joke beyond one game, it gets old. SRIV's whole premise was this; a very generic, dull rendition of an alien invasion that's only really "wacky" if you think about it in the context of the "gameverse". This goes double for GooH's rendition of Christian hell with its three historical gimmick characters replacing anyone we might actually care about.

I don't know whether this stems from Volition having lost interest in the series, or just some misguided notion that you can't do all this "fun", weird stuff and characters without almost completely sacrificing the actual writing and characterization. As was pointed out earlier I think it's all a matter of balance, and sadly V has decided to tip the scales completely in favor of shallow references and destroying the immersion in the form of constant 4th wall breaking because... uhh, repeating the same shit ad nauseam is... wacky...?

Volition seem to teeter constantly on the fine line between "parody" and "reproduction", and have fallen on the side of the latter a few too many times with the last two games to my tastes. It's like they desperately tried to get away from the GTA copycat stamp but really they've just switched over to aping other, much more tired and uninteresting themes. Maybe it's an informed choice on their part, but I can't say I much care about it either way.
 
I think you're right Malachor and i think the same point was made before in a similar discussion here somewhere.
Volition have done a pretty amazing job with the resources they had.
Also it's not always down to the devs how a game turns out.
 
Sure Volition is tiny compared to Rockstar, but unless half of the Volition staff were abducted by aliens I don't see why there was so much recycled content/lack of content used in SR4 and GooH. They did a great job on SR2/Sr3. What the hell happened for SR4/Gooh? Some GREAT FEATURES from SR2 have been taken away.

Colossal Order (which is an incredibly super super small studio from Finland) released a game called Cities: Skylines that is selling extremely well, so obviously a small studio can get work done, and done right. Why can't Volition do the same?

I hear Saints Row is working on a Steam Workshop feature, but what good is that? I'm sure others including myself appreciate the feature but I can't help but think, isn't it a bit late now Volition? Especially now that GTA V has arrived. There is rarely anybody playing Saints Row anymore. Spend your resources elsewhere. I am not calling them clones, but anyone who has loved the Saints Row series will love GTA V. You have your open world, and your sky high customization. Come on, the Saints Row site itself does not even have full functionality. Dafuq? No excuses there Volition.

Rockstar has closed the gap on character customization that Saints Row was unique for. Previously in GTA, you had preset characters to play, which made SR unique in that your boss was your own. But with GTA Online, your character is now your own. GTA V might as well be SR V. Your move, Volition.

As for the point of games being not realistic. There are games out there that get praised on realism, and with good reason. Besides, I'm not one who has fantasized about giant purple dildos, and violating aliens. Then again, that is not stuff I find funny, so maybe I'm not as immature as the Saints Row fanbase has gotten (unfortunately). I also don't like the superpowers in SRIV for the simple fact that I did not buy a Saints Row game so I could role play as a superhero. What is this? DC/Marvel?

And as for California setting being non creative, and hardly exotic. I would hate to see what you think of Steelport then, because not only is it incredibly dull, but it was completely recycled from SR3 into SR4.

With that said, I am still a big fan of the Saints Row series. But time will tell if that changes.

Volition is digging itself into a hole. Sooner or later, they either get stuck down there for good, or get lucky and find a ladder to climb out.

Mist3475 said:
I gave up on the community long ago, but coming across this today, I just have to say, no. The criticisms are well earned. It's not about ultra-realism, or GTA. It's not even about the aliens or the purple dildos. It's about a series that committed seppuku on it's own identity for the sake of cheap, unfunny laughs.
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I agree greatly with this. The theme of Saints Row now is attracting a lot of the younger gamers with tasteless humor, and it is eating away at the series for me. These are probably the same people that give steam reviews along the lines of "(insert number here)/10 wud get rekt again".


sigh...
 
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Mist3475 said:
GooH is not creative. Neither is SR4. To even imply they are even a tiny bit more innovative and fun than GTAV is frankly laughable.
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Isn't fun subjective? You can't say outright a game isn't fun, all you can say is *you* didn't find it fun. I know I found SRIV more fun than I'm finding GTAV. A lot more.
Mist3475 said:
I don't exactly care for GTAV myself, but at least Rockstar put some EFFORT into that game, whereas the lack of any sort of passion or care in SR4 or GooH is self-evident.
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Pretty much every game on the market that isn't "Barbie Horse Adventure" has care and passion put into it. People put a LOT of themselves into these things and they really do care.

Volition don't get Rockstar's timescales, and they don't have several studios around the world contributing in the same way. To give you some idea, GTAIV was launched 29 April 2008, with GTAV launched September 17, 2013. That's a 5 and a half year gap. In that same timeframe we had SR2, SRTT, and SRIV, and the PC launch of GOOH still beat GTAV for PC.

Personally, I've got a lot more fun out of SR2, SRTT, SRIV and GOOH than I've got out of GTAIV and GTAV.
 
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Excellent point you made there Minimaul.
Wow! ,i'm amazed when you look at that one fact.
Volition are a very creative studio and have done a brillaint job so far with the resources they have.
I don't just think of Saints Row ,i also think of Red Faction and further back than that for other great games they've released.
I for one am glad they haven't sat on their arses for 5+ years tinkering away on one game.
Gta is all good ,but we need the diversity that keeps pc gaming fresh and fun.
Volition do a pretty good job at that :)

and long may they continue.

P.S..
Some gamers are just plain grumpy :)
 
SRTT and SRIV should count as one game, since 99.9% of the game is recycled. That means Volition in that time frame released two true games, SR2, and the SRTT/IV/GooH gangbang trio.

I won't even be surprised if SRV takes place in a reskinned Steelport. With reskinned weapons, reskinned vehicles, reskinned everything. And I will laugh if that is the case, because I'd love to see what the guys saying Volition is a creative studio will have to say about that one. What's that expression? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, Saints Row V?

Of course I love the series and I truly hope it does not go that way, and to be honest, even an updated (partly-recycled) map of Stilwater would be mildly interesting, but Volition is making it really hard to expect anything creative and fresh to come out of them.
 
I do have fun when i play SR3 and SR4 for what they are but i love SR2 and you can notice how much more effort was put into SR2 compared to later games just looking at the city Stilwater was interesting had many different npc's and it is most lifelike city i have seen in games. With steelport they just didn't give a crap they just made small copypaste city where's nothing to do or explore, every part of the city looks the same, npc's don't do anything and same npc's everywhere. I know it is not completely the devs fault and there is greedy publishers and other problems. But i do hope their next game is not just copypaste cash grab but good complete game so they can show that they can still make quality games.
 
In GooH Volition showed that they are still capable of creating cool maps, even though the map isn't that big, it still has variety and cool places in it.
 
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