“Saints Row” started in 2006 as a more casual alternative to “Grand Theft Auto”. Kind of a crazy little brother, if you will. And it worked well at the time. Here you had a game series that obviously had a lot of love, humor and creative joy behind it. An example: In the opening mission of “Saints Row IV”, you climb up a giant nuclear bomb rocket to destroy the control system. Set to Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, and concluded with a thumbs up to the camera. It’s now been nine years since this thumb and seven years since the last release, the “Saints Row IV” expansion “Gat out of Hell.” They probably should have stopped there. Would have been a dream in 2007 AGAIN: In the fifth “Saints Row” game, which signals a new start by dropping the number 5, you become the boss of the 3rd Street Saints gang. Photo: Volition/Deep Silver This time you find yourself in a huge area inspired by Las Vegas and the US west coast. You take on the role of The Boss, and at the start you’re just the boss of yourself and a few buddies. In other words, it is the player who founds the gang 3rd Street Saints here, and the goal is to fight the other gangs and take over the whole city. I can go so far as to say that “Saints Row” is a decent time-worn. You speed around a huge open world shooting enemies and getting a steady stream of rewards for your prowess. The world is not all the world to look at, but it is both huge and quite well realized. This would have been a dream map in 2007. NEW SETTING: “Saints Row” is bigger and more open than its predecessors. Here you get a huge world inspired by Las Vegas and the south-west coast of the USA. THE GANG: 3rd Street Saints are, as usual, a stylish bunch. CREATE YOURSELF: The character builder in “Saints Row” is good! You can be yourself – or someone completely different. The problem is that I’m not having much fun. Not only have I played a lot of games that are similar, I’ve also played several “Saints Row” games that have had a much higher entertainment factor. Seems forced It’s not completely black. Luckily. The script is pretty good, although weighed down by the desire to create a more down-to-earth “Saints Row” experience. It has a nice flow, good dialogue and access to successful humour. Here someone has tried to do their best. SOMETIMES FIRM: “Saints Row” offers many action sequences like this one. Photo: Volition/Deep Silver The missions also sneak in approved action experiences every now and then. It’s easy to imagine a game that could have been several notches better with less shaky confidence on the part of the developers. Because this is especially where “Saints Row” disappoints. It almost seems like someone physically forced Volition to make this game. The playfulness and the joy of creation have been replaced with dozen-of-a-kind action we’ve seen countless variations of since “Grand Theft Auto 3” revolutionized the open-world genre in 2001. DOUNCE-OF-THE-ART: We’ve seen this before. PHOTO: VOLITION/DEEP SILVER It’s possible that someone will appreciate this. But you can only barely glimpse “Saints Row” in the rearview mirror of open-world action games such as “Red Dead Redemption 2”, “Grand Theft Auto 5” and “Cyberpunk 2077”. If you add goodwill, you could perhaps argue that “Saints Row” is a kind of homage to the “good old days” in the world of games. But it doesn’t get much goodwill from me. FEELING OF FREEDOM: The vast world of “Saints Row” often gives a nice feeling of free exploration of well-realized environments. Photo: Volition/Deep Silver news reviewer Game: “Saints Row” Genre: Action Age: 18+ Platform: PS5 (tested), PS4, Xbox and PC Developers: Volition and Fishlabs Publishers: Plaion, Deep Silver Release date: 23 August 2022 Hello! I am a freelancer and write about games for news. On a daily basis, I work at Level Up Norway. If you like this type of action game, I can recommend my reviews of the excellent games Returnal and Ghost of Tsushima.
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“Saints Row” – Reviews and recommendations
