Saints Row: 2022 Reboot

[Ondr4H]

20 minutes ago, deathdealer said:

Anywho, since the game decided I was done here are my thoughts about the story. Since it has major plot reveals, I'll spoil it.

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Story

 

The whole premise of the game is that you, the player, are creating the saints because your respective gangs are sh*t lords and, yes, they need the money. On paper, that sounds like a good premise but the execution is where the game falls flat. The first character you are introduced to is, of course, the boss aka your player character. The one of the few good points about them is that they are mavericks and tend to want to get sh*t done their way a shown in the first mission. However, the dialogue is either trash fire or just plain pedestrian. This is demonstrated after the first mission when the boss keeps saying the same obscenities over and over again. It's as if a child discovered a curse word for the first time.

The bosses roommates aren't interesting. For starters, they all start out buddy buddy despite being from rival gangs(except for Eli but we really don't get anything from him background wise.) I would have loved to have some uneasy truce between them all, slowly building up that friendship and realizing they can get sh*t done better than the gangs they are in. There's no real conflict between any of them, no disagreements, nada. Throughout the story, there's no character growth with them either. How they start out in the game is how they end up.  Neenah is the only one whose really fleshed out but that's not saying much.

 

Then there's the nahualli. No, not nahualli. The nahualli. My god, biggest waste of potential right there. You start out fighting this dude in the prolouge and from the get go you find out he's a badass, johnny gat type badass. You only defeat him with quick thinking and luck as a marshal goon. Eventually, you break him out because you need help with a heist. He helps you and then doesn't come back til the end only to betray you, kidnaps your friends because it turns out he was envious of your lifestyle, and makes them live out his fantasy only for you to kill him at the end. That's it, that's his arc. I dunno, having an experienced gangster, a former gang leader at that, could have been used a bit better plot wise I think? Have him act as a mentor for a while, teaching the gang to be leaders and give him a batter motive for betraying you. To be clear, he didn't betray you to lead the saints, he just wanted your friends just to live a fantasy sitcom life.

The antagonists in general could also have been fleshed out more. Not once in the game we had a cutscene with them alone, watching them plan against the saints, react to their losses, or have any character development. In general, they are just there as a wall, nothing else. Hell, one of the antagonists doesn't even die by your hand and dies via cutscene. But you do fight the "notoriety" mini boss before that cutscene to which I named her "safe space". Why, because she swings around a sledgehammer with lines like "I need my space!". btw, annoying ass fight because she's a bullet sponge even with enemy endurance set to low.

In short, I wasn't expecting an oscar worthy script but I was expecting something decent. Though I would ahve to say that the larping arc did get a chuckle out of me and the yacht mission was pretty cool. Other than that, worst story of the saints row games. Yes, I'm including Gat out of hell in that pile as well.

 

Mind me having question...

 

Is there a lot food talking?

 

Im watching some compilations and they are only talking about food... Seriously, who wrote this? Do they realize its crime game and not Friends episode?

Edited August 30 by Ondr4H

[deathdealer]

1 minute ago, Ondr4H said:

Mind me having question...

 

Is there a lot food talking?

 

Im watching some compilations and they are only talking about food... Seriously, who wrote this? Do they realize its crime game and not Friends episode?

 

 

I'll be honest, most of the dialogue is forgettable but I only remember four instances where food was mentioned or involved in some way. I  also forgot to mention that they did make kevin being shirtless a reoccurring joke.

[Ondr4H]

5 minutes ago, deathdealer said:

 

 

I'll be honest, most of the dialogue is forgettable but I only remember four instances where food was mentioned or involved in some way. I  also forgot to mention that they did make kevin being shirtless a reoccurring joke.

Thanks...

 

So its Friends, but with guns. They can call it Friendly fire..

 

[Leone.]

I've already discussed the Reddit-tier praising of the Reboot - but I haven't scratched much from the opposite side of the spectrum - the absolute fuming rage of veteran Saints Row diehard fans who've sticked with the franchise since the beginning!  I can't blame them for their anger, it's perfectly reasonable - they were waiting almost a decade for a new game in the series, but what they instead got was an absolute joke ruined by the worst aspects of both the left and right sides of the political fence.

 

However, a game being absolutely terrible obviously doesn't grant a person the right nor excuse to commit crimes!  Crimes?  What crimes?  Well, I'll let you be the judge of that:

 

Spoiler

 

Ladies and gentleman, I present you the lowest hanging fruit yet!  The pinnacle of patheticness.  A group of people, knowing full well of harassing developers being a criminal activity and overall dick move, yet still encouraging such pitiful actions upon their members.  What a load of crap.  What I've censored are the phone number and link, for obvious reasons. 

 

What a joke.  If you want someone to improve - you don't harass them and make their life a miserable mess - you encourage them to improve and everyone will benefit from it. 

 

Let me take the chance to share everyone a lesson of self-awareness: If you're trying to present your opponent as the wrongdoer, then you shouldn't be partaking in worse activities than them!

 

[WildBrick142]

Spoiler

(in spoiler since im late to the party and thats not the main point of my post)

 

that "quit having fun" take was so awful even vtubers dunked on it lmao

 

 

...wait. is.. is that a female voice? you're telling me not all people who sh*t on games' objectively bad quality are male fedora-wearing neckbearded g*mer incels buzzword buzzword buzzword??? impossible!!!

anyway,

i played the game so i might as well say way-too-long-everything that i think of it. i'm someone who played and enjoyed 2, TT, IV, and even gat out of hell. and, quite honestly, i enjoyed this too. yes, the game is a buggy mess with some of the cringiest dialogue ever. the writing is bad, and the empire building gameplay is so boring and repetitive. but, i had fun.

 

i think the worst thing about the writing is not that the dialogue is cringe, in fact it's only really cringe at the start of the game. once you become the saints it actually gets better. or maybe i'm just too emotionally broken that i stopped caring. idk. tbh i didn't even mind the intro that much, the female voice i picked was just saying "damn it" over and over (which felt normal if you ask me) instead of "f*ckedy f*ckity f*cking f*ck f*ckery f*ck f*ck" like the other voices. anyway, the worst thing about the writing is the length. it's so short there's basically no character development throughout the game. it's like i'm playing a dlc for a game.

 

gonna talk big story spoilers and story in general now:

Spoiler

the betrayal twist was predictable. you pretty much get spoiled that you will be betrayed in the first f*cking cutscene. you can tell that from the boss' rather upset "why?" when they are getting buried and the constant focus on the friends in the flashback and the party video - it definitely had to be one of your friends. and that narrows it down to only a few possible people because.... during the saints arc you literally aren't introduced to anyone other than the nahualli. there are no characters. every other character is just a side character.

 

so let's see, the intro makes a clear focus that a friend betrayed you, and later in the game you break out nahualli out of prison (after putting him there in the first place) who the boss for some reason desperately wants to be a friend with just to do a train heist. you literally have a whole mission with him & others dedicated to "please be our friend :)" hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. i wonder who's the friend that stabbed us in the back. it bet it was jim rob!

it's so bad.

 

i have to say though i genuinely like the nahualli's character. i just wish he was more fleshed out? had some backstory to him? why is he called "the nahualli" instead of just "nahualli" and is the nahualli even his actual name or some codename or what? why does he get his own dedicated cell block in the marshall prison? why did the marshall send a whole army to capture him? he knows how to fight, sure, but just how dangerous he is? what did he do? who is he? i do like him as a villain. i don't remember the last time i played a game where the antagonist is other than [psycho that wants to kill/antagonize you and everyone you know (or just everyone overall) because of -insert motive here- or just for the lulz], so the whole obviously mentally unhinged [kill you to take over your life and then kidnap your friends to play happy-ever-after doll's house with them against their will] thing was pretty refreshing to see. his character has so much wasted potential i would have legit knocked an entire star off the rating just for that if i were writing an actual review.

also i don't care what anyone says, this scene was cool as f*ck.

the nightmare at the end was a pretty cool thing too. starting to feel like most of the effort went to writing the ending missions and that's it.

 

 

the story happened and ended too fast, and i'm using "happened" loosely, because pretty much nothing happened. you become the saints. you plop down a few real estate. you rob a train. you don't kill anyone. you get betrayed. you kill the big bad. the end.

 

there is no build up for anything. no major showdowns. just random (and, some, admittedly fun) sh*t and then the ending. even the church is finished renovating just as the final mission becomes listed on your phone.

• sergio? no boss fight. he literally drops down from the helicopter onto the train and instantly gets stabbed to death by the nahualli. the scene happened so f*cking fast (no to mention his character model was still breathing after the cutscene) i genuinely thought he's not actually dead and he's gonna ambush us later for a big fight... but nope. that was it lmao.
• the collective? faceless idol leaders, and unless i missed a mission (since i didn't bother doing full city take over, it's so boring,) we only kill 5 out of 6. and even then the 5 we killed had no development to them. again, just faceless thugs that spout some cultist bullsh*t when you kill them.
• atticus marshall? we raid his tower, myra starr tells us we CANNOT kill him because his next of kin will take over marshall. what does the game do in the next mission? gives us a f*cking qte-like choice to kill him or fire him. i'm not making that sh*t up. since it was a kill or spare choice though, i picked to fire him. it's the most satisfying choice to give him a taste of his own medicine. and besides, we were told that killing him would do no good. so later i went to youtube to see what happens if you choose to kill him.... THE OUTCOME DOESNT CHANGE. ARE YOU SERIOUS???? no repercussions for killing him. no alternate cutscene of myra starr telling us we f*cked up big. the story just carries on. you could argue that killing him was the tie-breaker vote but then why the f*ck give us a choice then? either way, after that cutscene atticus f*cks off and is never seen again.

 

there's no strongholds (only stronghold-like missions.) no boss fights with major characters/faction leaders. unless you wanna count the larping with gwen and final boss fight with nahualli as such. as i said before, you aren't introduced to anyone meaningful. the only other characters are:

• gwen, who's a sort of a friendly rival that yells at you for disobeying orders and then never seen again until you go larping in the desert.
• jim rob, who seems to only exist to explain why rimjobs was changed into jimrobs.
• the hummingbird codex guy that i forgot the name of, who's so forgettable that i can't remember the name of. he's just... there. i guess? was he supposed to exist to give the impression of "look! the new saints are so busy they have people coming in to do deals with them!" in the intro?
• a bunch of other random other characters that only exist to introduce you to the business you buy and have zero relevance to the story.

 

and as you can guess, the main characters barely change/develop at all. unless you consider outfit changes as character development. eli is always the brains, at most he learns to shoot a gun and you learn he loves to larp (that whole arc was actually great by the way). neenah loves her project car because of family, then we learn she loves art. and from both we learn that she gets real salty over what she likes/wants and sentimental over what she likes/wants. kev, the only thing i learned is that he's bisexual. and to give credit where it's due, it's not forced in your face. i only found that out in mission dialogues when they mention, not even talk about, just mention his ex's by name and gender in a completely normal conversation between him and the boss. there is nothing woke about it. no forced in-your-face agendas or whatever the f*ck. it's natural, i like that, and i think that's how you properly do a character; you learn about them by spending time with them. you don't make their only personality trait to constantly be all "hey look at this our game is inclusive :)" and reminded of it every few lines of dialogue from the moment they appear on screen without any context. i also learned that he really hates wearing a shirt, for reasons never explained, and that he's seemingly obsessed with waffle makers i guess because he likes to cook? idk it's not explained either. the man does a f*ckin guitar solo on a waffle maker in the 100% completion karaoke cutscene and i'm not sure if i even want to bother to question it.

idk what's so "outdated" about the gameplay. i like that open world do-missions-do-side-missions formula. i see the same complaints about gta and rdr2 and i really don't understand. the gameplay works fine, it's not broken, i'd hardly consider it outdated. why waste time making useless changes and questionable "innovations" to gameplay because some gaming journalist who probably barely can beat a tutorial level said so, when what's already there works fine? i'm willing to bet the same people don't even question cod/battlefield/nfs/forza being pretty much the same thing with a different coat of paint each release, or ea sports games being literal copy-pastes every year. but i digress. i did say the empire building is boring and yeah. you just do the same thing everywhere. no variety besides the location. i don't mind making the ventures mandatory for story progression, but it should have been less of a chore.

 

also i like the map. it's pretty nice and a good breath of fresh air. it is a bit dead, but i mostly enjoy the natural scenery so i'm not too bothered by it. graphics are great as well, but i wish i could turn off that dumb filter, there's one place on the map where the game turns that filter off and god it looks so gooooood without it.

and finally, the bugs. no, i'm not even gonna get started on it. the game is a mess. at least i managed to play through the missions without anything truly gamebreaking, but i've had far too many bugs and unpolished/neglected technical areas that it would take me a whole day to explain. some highlights tho:

Spoiler

• during the larping arc, when you have to burn the towers and larp-kill the larpers with larp-guns (aka they don't actually die, and all your lethal weapons are replaced with non-lethal larp guns because the rule of larping is that you don't actually kill anyone) the game lets you call up your homies for support. the problem is that... uh... the homies use real guns. so much for attention to detail.

• borderline lack of audio design, you can hear your friends loud and clear while youre inside a building... and they are outside the building. behind a wall. with no doors or windows nearby.
• ventriloquist friends who simultaneously idle in the apartment and talk to you over the phone when starting the missions.
• your clothing colors randomly reverting to default. god, this sh*t was driving me up the f*cking wall. sometimes even clothing option themselves just magically got equipped at random. usually happened whenever a mission had you change clothes, but it happened plenty of times in free roam as well. one time it even completely f*cked up my clothing after doing a fast travel.
• vtol and helicopter camera doing some really insane zoom in that makes it impossible to see what you're doing or what you're firing at. it first happened to me with the vtol in a certain mission. had to basically blindfire my way through that section. then later i found out helicopters do it too.
• massive chunks of offroad area not being counted as offroad area - therefore your non-offroad vehicle doesn't lose performance when it should.
• laughably bad reuse of assets.

 

 

so, i don't think the game is worth the full price. i think it's fun to f*ck around with. i like the clothing options, though some types of clothes are still lacking (but customizability makes up for that i guess) and there are barely any good hairstyles (is it too much to ask for long hair with bangs that actually looks normal?) story is disappointing. as i said already when talking about kev, i don't think the game is "woke" and i don't get where people even see that. world is pretty. screen filter sucks. get the game if you just want to f*ck around and don't care about the writing and bugs, otherwise don't.

 

Edited August 30 by WildBrick142

[REVENGE777]

34 minutes ago, WildBrick142 said:

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idk what's so "outdated" about the gameplay. the gameplay works fine, it's not broken, i'd hardly consider it outdated. why waste time making useless changes and questionable "innovations" to gameplay

 

Your argument is dead in the water right there. to pretend that repetitive point a to point b fetch quests, weak and stiff combat, an annoying progression system and bugs that not only break immersion, but the game as a whole is anything but broken and outdated is beyond me. The gameplay is not fine by any stretch of the imagination. “why waste time making useless changes and questionable "innovations" to gameplay” is the same attitude that causes garbage games like this to keep getting churned out and burning beloved franchises to a crisp. Why push the envelope and make something new or original? Why make anything with heart or passion? Why even bother putting in any effort at all? Just ship out the next undercooked triple a title, slap a $60-70 price tag on it and make short term profit. longtime fans be damned.

Edited August 30 by REVENGE777

[WildBrick142]

10 minutes ago, REVENGE777 said:

“why waste time making useless changes and questionable "innovations" to gameplay” is the same attitude that causes garbage games like this to keep getting churned out and burning beloved franchises to a crisp. Why push the envelope and make something new or original?

it's mostly a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

 

you can either make no changes and innovations and end up with saints row 2 with a different story, or make changes and innovations and end up with this reboot. personally, i'd rather have the former, but we ended up with the latter. they wanted to make something new and original, hence why they rebooted the game, and why we ended up with a broken mess and bad writing. they wanted to change the gameplay a bit, and it's why we ended up with the awful progression system. and then journalists are still calling it "outdated" lol

 

for example the dumpster edition of the gta trilogy: completely butchered re-releases of beloved classics because people these days apparently can't stand not having ultra hd graphics, mission checkpoints, and other bells and whistles of modern games despite the games holding up really well without any of that. an awful example of changing what wasn't broken.

meanwhile the mafia 1 remake is a great example of the game being rebuilt from the ground up, staying pretty faithful to original. a lot got changed, but the core of it mostly remained the same. some liked that, some didn't, but personally i haven't had a single issue with the game. that's not to say it didn't have any objective flaws but at least it wasn't a total butchering of the original. it respected what the original game was and its fans.

 

so i'm not saying all changes and innovations are bad or useless, otherwise we would still be playing 8-bit spaceship sidescrollers today. but i think there should be some more careful consideration as to what gets changed and what doesn't. i don't like the new xp/skill progression system, it was a useless change, srtt system worked a lot better. i do like the city takeover gameplay despite how boring it is, it's just like it was in the older saints row's, it was fine in older games and is still fine now - you go to an activity, you do the activity, you get a share of the area. no other bullsh*t involved, no arbitrary hoops to jump through. the mission structure of picking one from the phone is also similar to srtt, which is fine, and the missions themselves play similar to any sr/gta/rdr/etc. which i also personally like (yet i keep seeing videos like "rockstar mission design is outdated.")

 

what i tried to say though, how do you change or innovate a mostly-grounded open world crime sandbox without resorting to dumb gimmicks? you can shoot people. you can walk around, and steal and use any vehicle, you can drive over anything and anyone. you can get chased by cops and enemies, you have missions which usually involve a task that has you go to point A to do task X, or go from point A to B to do tasks X and Y. storyline aside, there's not much room to stand out here. rpg's shoot rockets? how do we make that unique? an rpg that shoots rockets... except it looks like a guitar case? how to innovate travel around town when there's already every vehicle type under the sun at your disposal? superpowers? i'm willing to bet that if it weren't for the sh*tty "gta clone" term, the series wouldn't have ended up completely jumping the shark with SRIV (after SRTT already tried to change everything up) and later ending up with this.

 

 

i probably still did a sh*t job of explaining my point, but either way some things are fine as they are and shouldn't be changed, some things are not fine as they are and should be changed. it all depends on what it is and how it's done.

[Creed Bratton]

1 hour ago, WildBrick142 said:

why waste time making useless changes and questionable "innovations" to gameplay

This is a weird attitude to have on a forum dedicated to a video game franchise that pretty much sets new gaming trends and standards every time they release a new title.

 

Stagnation and lack of innovation is one of the most widely criticized things in all video game franchises (CoD, Assassin's Creed, annual sports titles etc.). People don't want to play the same thing over and over again. Especially if the new thing is actually worse than the old one. They want to experience something new, yet familiar. They want new systems and improvements over the old ones. And they want to be surprised. There's nothing innovative, good or surprising about the new Saints Row. And there's no excuse for an open-world crime game in [late!] 2022 to be anything less than a game released in 2013. Can you guess what that game is?

Edited August 30 by Creed Bratton

[Jason]

Not every game needs to innovative or push the envelope, it's not even viable for every game to do that as not every team has the budget or resources.

 

You can have throwbacks to classic games, even in the AAA industry, but you've still gotta execute it well and merge it with modern technology.

[Creed Bratton]

16 minutes ago, Jason said:

Not every game needs to innovative or push the envelope, it's not even viable for every game to do that as not every team has the budget or resources.

Not necessarily push the envelope. Look at the changes between Assassin's Creed I and II. They weren't that big. But it felt like a huge difference. It's not like Ubisoft invented anything new. They just found a way to implement a couple of features that have existed in other games already. Maybe it wasn't innovative per se, since none of the stuff that they added was really unique in the world of video games, but it was a well executed set of improvements and additions to existing systems from the original game. True innovation didn't occur until AC3 with the naval battles and massive changes to core systems (combat, traversal, animations etc). And then IV took that to a whole new level with its own set of improvements. I expect a similar trajectory from all games in a franchise. And let's not forget that Saints Row was a reboot. So why does it feel like SRTT?

Edited August 30 by Creed Bratton

[Malibu Club]

4 hours ago, Ondr4H said:

Mind me having question...

 

Is there a lot food talking?

 

Im watching some compilations and they are only talking about food... Seriously, who wrote this? Do they realize its crime game and not Friends episode?

That's one of Kevin's two personality traits. Talking about food, and not having a shirt. The only two things that define him.

[REVENGE777]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

Not every game needs to innovative or push the envelope, it's not even viable for every game to do that as not every team has the budget or resources.

 

You can have throwbacks to classic games, even in the AAA industry, but you've still gotta execute it well and merge it with modern technology.

you’re right, but in the case of saints row, they were promoting this to be the biggest and best thing ever and obviously that wasn’t the case. I mean obviously it was all marketing schlock and it’s up to the individual to temper their expectations, it’s still just so underwhelming to see that they didn’t try to innovate on any of the things the old games did so well. Instead it’s just a half ass retread.

 

2 hours ago, WildBrick142 said:

i probably still did a sh*t job of explaining my point, but either way some things are fine as they are and shouldn't be changed, some things are not fine as they are and should be changed. it all depends on what it is and how it's done.

Nah I get what you mean, I think I understand you. Also I apologize if I came off abrasive in my post. I didn’t want to seem like I was attacking you, I just wanted to challenge that section I quoted.

[teddylopper]

5 hours ago, Super Gran Turismo said:

That's one of Kevin's two personality traits. Talking about food, and not having a shirt. The only two things that define him.

He is also an orphan. Who has sympathy for other orphans. Who also has no problems slaughtering hundreds of people therefore making more orphans. 

[Ivan1997GTA]

I know that a lot of people (myself included) feel that Neenah, Kevin and Eli are underdeveloped characters. I think the former two could've benefitted from DLC story expansions that elaborate on their backstory and serve as prequels to the main story, which will be subtitled "Self-Made". Here are my ideas for it.

 

The Prodigal Idol

This expansion focuses on Kevin when he was still part of the Idols. It reveals that Kevin was adopted by the Idols at a young age when he was an orphan. Since then, he was trained by the Idols. Since Kevin has a love for music, the expansion features a DJ minigame inspired by DJ Hero, along with a karaoke minigame inspired by Sleeping Dogs. This expansion features the return of store robberies and taking passengers hostage. Some missions involve Kevin crossing paths with Neenah of Los Panteros. Initially, Kevin and Neenah would have a mutual dislike towards each other, but would later become fire-forged friends. This expansion also elaborates on how Kevin first met Eli, who would serve as a landlord for his new apartment seen in the early stage of the main story. This expansion features new music for the Drop, the Cipher, Flex and Outrun radio stations.

 

La Tigresa Peligrosa

This expansion focuses on Neenah when she was still part of Los Panteros. Neenah would live in a small house in Rancho Providencia, but would later move in with Kevin and Eli towards the end of the expansion's story. This expansion features the return of gambling in the form of video poker, blackjack, slot machines and roulette, which can be access at various casinos in El Dorado. Like in "The Prodigal Idol", Neenah would occasionally cross paths with Kevin from the Idols. This expansion features new music for Dos Ochos, Nuclear Blast, El Latido and Route Overdrive radio stations.

[Leone.]

Hexagon is back for the Reboot - and as expected, everything that's needed to be said about the modern gaming industry, is said.  Mashallah! 
 

 

[Commander S]

53 minutes ago, Leone. said:

Hexagon is back for the Reboot - and as expected, everything that's needed to be said about the modern gaming industry, is said.  Mashallah! 

 

 

Made the mistake of watching that - not even 10 minutes in, and he's already on about 'liberal bias on college campuses' and then affirmative action. And all this after mentioning that the problems in the modern gaming industry include greedy monetisation and selling sub-par, broken products. Okay, so how is a Fox News talking point about how colleges are "woke" responsible for (*checks notes*) ...a severely buggy game with weak writing (as much structurally as anything, rather than people getting worked up over whether or not it's quote-unquote "cringe") - ?

 

That Hexagon dork is basically just a bargain-bin Paul Joseph Watson, but even weaker when it comes to the shameless 'spin anything and everything in order to blame "The Left" or "The Libs" or "The Woke Agenda" (for clicks!)' part. Congratulations on him being even more of a cringe-inducing dweeb than any of the reboot game characters, though - I'd give him a participation trophy for the effort, but that'd probably just set him off again... 

[Jason]

42 minutes ago, Commander S said:

And all this after mentioning that the problems in the modern gaming industry include greedy monetisation and selling sub-par, broken products.

 

The strangest thing about the last part of that argument is lazy, sub-par and broken products have always existed in the industry. There's been some absolutely horrific games over the decades, from 1 man teams to AAA, but the way it's always argued is that it's a new thing. It, factually speaking, isn't.

 

As for the first part, in regards to Saints Row, is utterly meaningless, as it has no monetisation.

 

It's a 6/10 or a 7/10 depending on who you ask, it's writing sucks, it's not as good as we hoped or expected, whatever, but it's not some crime against humanity. It's plainly obvious to me, and has been since the game has been announced, the game is being used as a vessel for people to regurgitate certain types of opinions that really don't have anything resembling a solid foundation of an argument and that literally just boils down to "leftists, huh?".

[Leone.]

27 minutes ago, Commander S said:

Made the mistake of watching that - not even 10 minutes in, and he's already on about 'liberal bias on college campuses' and then affirmative action. And all this after mentioning that the problems in the modern gaming industry include greedy monetisation and selling sub-par, broken products. Okay, so how is a Fox News talking point about how colleges are "woke" responsible for (*checks notes*) ...a severely buggy game with weak writing (as much structurally as anything, rather than people getting worked up over whether or not it's quote-unquote "cringe") - ?

 

That Hexagon dork is basically just a bargain-bin Paul Joseph Watson, but even weaker when it comes to the shameless 'spin anything and everything in order to blame "The Left" or "The Libs" or "The Woke Agenda" (for clicks!)' part. Congratulations on him being even more of a cringe-inducing dweeb than any of the reboot game characters, though - I'd give him a participation trophy for the effort, but that'd probably just set him off again... 

 

https://vocaroo.com/1nYVD4K8CIz2

 

[Jason]

Well, that's embarrassing. 

[Spider-Vice]

Asking a Youtuber (especially "that kind") to read a GTAF post as some kind of attempt at mockery is just one of the saddest things I've seen in this section.

[Brown Sugar]

I bought this the day of release as I wanted a new game to play and it seemed like it would be fun regardless of the poor writing and characters that everyone already knew was going to be in the game.

 

Having played it for a while now and completed the story I can say that bad writing is not the main problem with this game, it is incredibly buggy and poorly optimised with glitches and crashes that break the game and force you to restart just to continue playing. I can ignore bad storylines or annyoing characters in a game like this as they are not the main attraction for me to have fun with. The game would be a 6/10 or 7/10 if it actually worked but in it's current state it's more like a 4/10.

 

So far on PC they have released two 5gb patches that have only made the game worse and with the amount of bugs still present I can't see them fixing the game any time soon. I know that there have been many game releases over the years that have been affected by these kind of problems but this is definitely the worst experience I've had with any game in terms of perfromance and buginess, it is far worse on that end than cyberpunk from my experience. I find that a shame because it can definitely be a fun game at times, and I wouldn't have had much to complain about if it worked properly.

 

At this point, I'd recommend waiting for more patches to come out that actualy make the game playable before buying it rather than waiting for the price to drop.

[Jason]

I just hope it wasn't one of those cases where z-list celebs charge like 50 quid or w/e to record messages for you like happy birthday or whatever, lmao.

[Leone.]

5 minutes ago, Spider-Vice said:

Asking a Youtuber (especially "that kind") to read a GTAF post as some kind of attempt at mockery is just one of the saddest things I've seen in this section.

 

Fully agreed!  Though, what "kind" are you referring to?  

 

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

I just hope it wasn't one of those cases where z-list celebs charge like 50 quid or w/e to record messages for you like happy birthday or whatever, lmao.

 

Hey!  It's only 5.99 dollars per month - cheaper than a FunkoPop, and more worth than GTA Plus!  Cheers!  

[Jason]

2 minutes ago, Leone. said:

Hey!  It's only 5.99 dollars per month - cheaper than a FunkoPop, and more worth than GTA Plus!  Cheers!  

 

tfw this man is buying microtransactions for youtube

[Spider-Vice]

10 minutes ago, Leone. said:

Fully agreed!  Though, what "kind" are you referring to?  

 

I mean it honestly doesn't matter, you literally paid just to have some guy read a GTAF post thinking you'd be shaming someone, but you're just making us laugh at your expense so thanks for making our afternoon.

[Leone.]

7 minutes ago, Jason said:

tfw this man is buying microtransactions for youtube

 

Quite worth the dough, indeed!  Next month, there'll be video clips - going full-on Big Man Tyrone mode, with the Kekistani outfit and that iconic laugh!  

 

9 minutes ago, Spider-Vice said:

I mean it honestly doesn't matter, you literally paid just to have some guy read a GTAF post thinking you'd be shaming someone, but you're just making us laugh at your expense so thanks for making our afternoon.

 

I can pay the premium $499.99 voice submission to be read a Quran quote - I believe you'd gladly appreciate it! 

 

[Commander S]

4 minutes ago, Leone. said:

 

[...] that iconic laugh!  

 

 

Leone using the Ubisoft definition of "iconic", there...

 

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 

It's a 6/10 or a 7/10 depending on who you ask, it's writing sucks, it's not as good as we hoped or expected, whatever, but it's not some crime against humanity.

 

44 minutes ago, Brown Sugar said:

 

Having played it for a while now and completed the story I can say that bad writing is not the main problem with this game, it is incredibly buggy and poorly optimised with glitches and crashes that break the game and force you to restart just to continue playing. I can ignore bad storylines or annyoing characters in a game like this as they are not the main attraction for me to have fun with. The game would be a 6/10 or 7/10 if it actually worked but in it's current state it's more like a 4/10.

 

 

That's the thing, isn't it? It's apparently selling something like 5x better than Agents of Mayhem (although that's not a high bar to clear: AoM sold something like 5000 physical copies in the UK during opening week, which is nothing), and it does have a larger map, more variety of activities, and really extensive customisation, which is all the stuff that the average Saints Row buyer wants from a Volition open-world game (and why people just didn't gravitate towards AoM). And sure, where AoM's writing was decent enough (and with the odd standout moment), SR '22 is surprisingly sub-par (not the whole "waaah, cringe characters" complaints, but how utterly disjointed it all is, be it on a story-wide level, or just the flow of dialogue) - but I've not seen an outlet dislike it as much as the grating dialogue in, say, Riders Republic (actual article title: "I Would Pay $5 To Make Everyone In Riders Republic Shut The Hell Up"  ).

 

If the game wasn't actually broken for a lot of people (and distractingly buggy for many more), then this'd more likely be a WD Legion or Far Cry 6 situation, like a lot of people were predicting: 'swimming in 7s', but the writing or even the dated tech wouldn't be a deal-breaker for the casual buyer. But again, if it wasn't broken - Riders Republic still managed to get into the high 70s on Metacritic, so it's not like 'crap writing' can tank a game that's a fun-enough diversion, provided it's functional.

 

Which, combined with the better sales, makes me wonder what the impact will actually be on Volition - it's getting a drubbing compared to AoM, but there's still demand, where AoM was damned by faint praise and then killed by a total lack of interest. So I'm wondering if it's not going to be more embarrassing for Volition and Deep Silver than how AoM was actually harmful for the studio - I'm less inclined to think there'll be another round of layoffs this time, provided sales don't tank completely over the next year (and if they do manage to patch it into a working state ASAP, then that, plus the DLC expansions, will probably give it better mileage than AoM's lack of post-launch follow-up).

 

And maybe ...that's not the worst outcome? AoM-style terrible sales, leading to layoffs, would more likely set back Volition (or worse...) - but conversely, that predicted 'swimming in 7s' might well have been enough for Deep Silver to look at the situation and consider it acceptable enough (like how so many recent Ubi games are doable, but feel like potential wasted by Ubi's seeming disinterest in aiming higher than 'that'll do'), and not bother with moves like Volition improving their engine tech sufficiently (or switching to something better). Instead, this is more of a black eye: humiliating enough to make change and introspection more likely, but the studio can still live on in order to actually make another game - yes, that still requires them to sort out whatever it is that just isn't working (I'm going to be really interested to see what comes out when folks like MrSaintsGodzilla aren't bound by the NDA next year, and can talk about the WIP stuff they saw a few years ago), but at least they're probably more able to, rather than just, yanno, doomed.

[REVENGE777]

I just wanted to smoke crack and wear du rags like the first saints row  is that too much to ask??

Edited August 31 by REVENGE777

[Zello]

1 hour ago, REVENGE777 said:

I just wanted to smoke crack and wear du rags like the first saints row  is that too much to ask??

I just wanted this vibe

[VCPR]

2 hours ago, Leone. said:

 

I can pay the premium $499.99 voice submission to be read a Quran quote - I believe you'd gladly appreciate it! 

 

 

Dafuq you just wrote?