Saints Row Impressions...b1#$@!

[Calvin]

1UP gives Saint's Row a 7, in a very short, not-quite-a-review.

We once described Driver: Parallel Lines as a three-quarters-assed GTA. Saints Row is more like one-and-four-fifths-assed. It is, in a lot of ways, better than the games it's cribbing from.

San Andreas got a 9, by the way.

If its better than a lot of the games, why give it a 7? What an effing awful "review".

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

Oh, it's one of the worst reviews I've ever read.  It's down there scraping the barrel with that 'clever' PC Gamer review of Avernum which only talks about vomit asphyxiation.  Which is about the time I stopped reading PC Gamer.  That's a hint, by the way.

Here's why it got a 7:

Now, if stealing cars, smackin' hos, and the rest of that happy horses*** has worn out its welcome with you (which we would completely understand at this point) it's probably best to wait until someone finally applies the open-world sandbox gameplay model to something besides painfully overplayed urban thuggery.

Man, that'd be swell.

The user approval ratings and comments are very telling -- this idiot's getting slammed, and rightly so.

[stuntgibbon]

A little more elaboration on the Insurance Fraud missions... since i've been doing a lot of those (they're fun!)

You get bonused for air time, distance, multiple vehicles hitting you, if there are a lot of witnesses, and if you jump in front of a city vehicle. (garbage trucks, etc.)     I basically try to walk down the sidewalk so cars don't see me and slow down... then i sprint out into traffic and dive across the hood at full speed.  *BOOM*

[Harkonis]

I'm having a lot of troubles on the $45000 one.

[whiteboyskim]

A little more elaboration on the Insurance Fraud missions... since i've been doing a lot of those (they're fun!)

You get bonused for air time, distance, multiple vehicles hitting you, if there are a lot of witnesses, and if you jump in front of a city vehicle. (garbage trucks, etc.)     I basically try to walk down the sidewalk so cars don't see me and slow down... then i sprint out into traffic and dive across the hood at full speed.  *BOOM*

Okay, that absolutely rules. juniordan's description of the "Soccer Mom by Day... CRACK WHORE BY NIGHT!" made me howl. Dammit, this sounds like Game #2 of my required 5 before I get a 360. Oh, and GTA: SA isn't a 9 at all. I gave it an 85% for the site and stand by that because that's all it is. If Saint's Row proves to be far more polished than the GTA series (which wouldn't be tough) then I'd absolutely be up for picking this up. That and getting to school you biatches in MP. The thought of that is just awesome.

[stuntgibbon]

I'm having a lot of troubles on the $45000 one.

Wait 'til they hit 125,000+.   You gotta learn to fly, dude!

It really is more of a polished GTA experience.. maybe this is secretly GTA: Windy City.  Seems to me like there's some unique side quests and things, like this insurance/crash thing.  Another thing i like are these turf wars.  You get phoned into battle to settle turf disputes.   Run by the gun store and then roll in and take out the lieutenants.    (and everyone else not in purple!)  Also like how you can save your cars.  Whatever you've stuck in your garage, you can select from to leave the house with (or any mechanic).

Sometimes the random/volitile nature of the game along with the physics can cause some crazy shit.  I saw a car accident unrelated to what i was doing where the cars hit so hard, both people ran out of their car ON FIRE.   Also just recently failed a turf war mission where someone hit my car with a rocket, sending my flying about 3 stories in the air.

Lots of random people dressed up like hotdogs and milkshakes too... after all, how could you have a baseball bat without these fine fellows to take a beating?

[denoginizer]

This is good news. I bailed VERY EARLY in GTA:SA when I was on my bike, being chased by a car full of guys shooting at me and the cops drive by and arrest ME (as I'm being shot at!!!)!!!! That was the worst!

Wow.  That was REALLY early.   

[Bullwinkle]

How do you advance time in the game? In GTA you just saved your game, but I need to buy some pipe bombs before a mission, and I'm getting tired of waiting around for the gun store to open.

I'm sure there's something obvious I'm missing.  Help.

[rrmorton]

I think it's about time to re-take those English classes you failed out of.

Never end a sentence in a preposition when you're chastising someone for bad grammar. 

[CeeKay]

must resist the urge to buy this right away... must fight.. must strengthen resolve.... next week will be here soon enough

You have no resolve, just buy it bitch!

<hangs head in shame>  I failed my will check.....

[JuniorDan]

I think it's about time to re-take those English classes you failed out of.

Never end a sentence in a preposition when you're chastising someone for bad grammar. 

Yeah!!!! What he said......The pot calling the kettle black

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

I think it's about time to re-take those English classes you failed out of.

Never end a sentence in a preposition when you're chastising someone for bad grammar. 

srsly, which sounds more awkward, the above or "those English classes of which you failed out."

[whiteboyskim]

Oh shut up, all of you. Make with the impressions, tut sweet.

[TheMissingLink]

Multiplayer is fun.  And believe it or not, in 2v2 deathmatch, I've come across a NICE gamer who's all about teamwork TWO TIMES IN A ROW!

The gods have smiled upon me, this day.

(but both games were sorta laggy)

[TheMissingLink]

Played an 8v8 team DM...it's fun with all the mayham.

A couple of HUGE complaints though:

- Lack of an indicator when you're getting shot.  Maybe this is attributed to the lag that is prevelant in the MP, but dang, give me some grunts, or blood (next point), or SOMETHING.  Now it's just that "whoosh, whoosh" when you're waaay low on health.  I need an indicator of whether or not I'm getting SHOT.  I realize there is one when getting shot AT...

- Where's the blood?  For a game so brutal, I'm amazed that when I nail people with a crowbar there's no blood at all.  I imagined the streets flowing with blood before I hopped online to find there isn't any.  Seems weird to not have blood.  It would be a nice indicator of getting shot, as well.

- Unlimited health regen.  Just press and hold down on the d-pad and you eat a burger to replenish your health.  This doesn't penalize you, really, you can pop up and nail somebody with a gun...you should only have the ability to heal yourself once, and there should be a bigger delay in switching to your gun from (what I can only assume is) the Freckle Bitch's burger.

[corruptrelic]

what the hell is wrong with you?

What the hell is wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you?!

Since your english is questionable, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't get the joke. It was just that, a joke.. a pretty obvious one I had thought.
Your unit = your xbox 360, what did you think? It's going to fail with age, just as all of ours are! 

[coopasonic]

Played through the demo material and on through 4 or so missions against the Kings. Pretty decent mission variety and I'm getting a bit better at the gunplay.

Graphics are good, music is decent, voice work is good, I haven't really tried too much outside what is required for the story missions.

I've gathered hos for a few pimps, hijacked some cars and failed miserably at insurance fraud. I bought some new threads, purple of course, and a bit of bling, cracked a safe and fled from SWAT. I collected a few cool cars and played around with the car customization options. I've defended one territory and another was under attack pretty quickly, if that keeps up I'm going to get annoyed.

At first glance the manual seems pretty thick... literally half of it is credits. One page is multi-player. The other half has about as much useful information as an EA manual sprinkled among a lot of flavor text.

Overall I'm enjoying it, the retry option on missions is nice as is the save anywhere option, though you don't actually restart where you saved.

Thumbs up.

-Coop

[Purge]

One thing I forgot to mention. The AI don't act like you the only person in the game. Cops will defend them selves against the nearest treat with no regards to which gang your on.
I was  being chased by one gang, when the cops disabled their car, then disarmed them before sending back up after me.
In a fire fight cop will take cover behind any solid object and shot at any treat, or any one with a weapon. This is very good
One time I was been fired upon so I ran across a cop who attacked the gangmember who was chasing me. After he took him out I figured I was next. NOPE I was a victim of a senseless crime been defended by the city finest. 

We were promised proof-read posts.
Worse than selling drugs; you be a LIAR, yo.

[CeeKay]

From what I've seen so far (yes, I cracked, but only when I found out I could trade in 2 360 games and only pay 10 bucks.  Bye Bye Kameo and PGR3!):

SP looks to be fun.  I wish you could do a little bit more precise aiming (and maybe you can-  I haven't read the manual yet  ).  I did some of the Drug Dealer missions and aiming from a car is a bitch and a half, but it may get better once I play a bit more..

MP has potential.  I like the customization for your character (everyone who played with me last night saw my little creation  ) and the whole 'crib' lobby is fun.  Lag is HORRENDOUS.  We tried a game of Bling Your Ride last night and I'd be driving around and all of a sudden my car would just explode.  Same thing with just running around-  there's no sign that I was being shot and whammo-  I'm smoked.  I understand some of those may have been sniper shots but other times I was in an enclosed space and as I was falling down someone would just 'warp' past me.  Warping was also bad-  at times I swear Fuzz or Harkonis actually ran through walls.  And we won't even get into how hard it was just connecting to a game  .  Hopefully they tighten up the net code like they did with Street Fighter 2, otherwise the MP is going to have shorter legs than Chromehounds.

[hepcat]

christ, chastising someone for their grammar on a forum is just annoying.  considering that the internet extends into areas where english may be a second, third, or even fourth language, it's also ridiculous.

in any case, getting back to the matter at hand, Saints Row is quite fun.  It IS GTA, as has been mentioned ad nauseum, but that's not a bad thing in my book.  i only played a little bit of the SP portion last night after getting the game, but it appeared to have all the conventions of a GTA game. 

MP is frantic and confusing for me, and I died more times than Jay Leno during his monologue, but it was fun.  Grabbing a vehicle and just tearing around the lot gives it the extra push it needed to make it an enjoyable experience for me.  I'll have to reserve final judgement until i can get a little more gametime under my belt, but so far i'm not regretting the purchase.

[stuntgibbon]

Yeah spent some more time with multiplayer last night, and in the games where the lag is minimal it's pretty fun.  However, the ones where a car disappears.. then reappears half way across the board...  (and meanwhile, kills you)  is pretty bad.

[jimmyorr99]

How often is that happening? Is this an issue with their server or something?

[stuntgibbon]

Probably 1 out of 3 games we get pretty serious lag.

[naednek]

Lets stick to the impressions.  If you want to discuss the use of grammar, take it to PM

[Calvin]

Lets stick to the impressions.  If you want to discuss the use of grammar, take it to PM

 

[rrmorton]

I think it's about time to re-take those English classes you failed out of.

Never end a sentence in a preposition when you're chastising someone for bad grammar. 

srsly, which sounds more awkward, the above or "those English classes of which you failed out."

I think it would be "...out of which you failed." But yeah, it does sound overly-formal and doesn't fit on a videogame chat forum. I was just foolin.

Here are my EXTREMELY early SR impressions. I never tried the demo and just played a tiny bit of the game last night. I'm no priss, but all those drive-bys and close-range headshots in the intro movie were kind of a turn-off. It seemed uncomfortably realistic. Maybe I prefer violence breaking out in situations like drug deals or hold-ups rather than out of thin air while you're just walking down the street.

I also got a bit of a been-there, done-that feeling when I started running around and smashing cars and stuff. But it sure plays and looks fantastic. I wonder if I'm just sick of the GTA thug formula. I want more twists on the genre, like Mafia or Dead Rising.

But I barely gave it 20 minutes. I'm sure I'll warm up to the game once I spend some more time with it. The interface and controls are fantastic.

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

I think it's about time to re-take those English classes you failed out of.

Never end a sentence in a preposition when you're chastising someone for bad grammar. 

srsly, which sounds more awkward, the above or "those English classes of which you failed out."

I think it would be "...out of which you failed." But yeah, it does sound overly-formal and doesn't fit on a videogame chat forum. I was just foolin.

[Ridah]

You guys say that the graphics are good, but I had problems with Vsync and frame rate during the demo. Has that been cleared up?

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

You guys say that the graphics are good, but I had problems with Vsync and frame rate during the demo. Has that been cleared up?

According to reviews, not completely, but it's better than the demo.

[Jancelot]

I did notice that there is definite pop-in of the cars.  Sometimes when I'm tearing full throttle down a street and jump to the oncoming lane to pass a car they will pop-in just a block or so ahead of me.  And I don't always have time to react.  It makes it difficult at times since I'm constantly glancing down at the mini-map in the lower left corner.  I wish you could see farther ahead on that map.  But the waypoint system is really nice.

[rrmorton]

I saw a few V-sync problems in the intro video but I don't remember any during gameplay.

[wonderpug]

I'm no priss, but all those drive-bys and close-range headshots in the intro movie were kind of a turn-off. It seemed uncomfortably realistic. Maybe I prefer violence breaking out in situations like drug deals or hold-ups rather than out of thin air while you're just walking down the street.

This was my feeling too when I played the demo.  I can't quite figure out why Saints Row violence makes me uncomfortable when I had no problem sniping people in the head and kicking people on the ground in GTA.  I think it's a combination of more realistic graphics and more closeup shots of the violence, but whatever the reason I was surprised how much Saints Row turned me off.

[JuniorDan]

what the hell is wrong with you?

What the hell is wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you?!

Since your english is questionable, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't get the joke. It was just that, a joke.. a pretty obvious one I had thought.
Your unit = your xbox 360, what did you think? It's going to fail with age, just as all of ours are! 

Are you serious?????
That was a Joke too. Kind of like don't jinx it..
My English is fine. An Island accent, since I'm from the United States Virgin Islands (St.Thomas) aka Rock City. If you must know.

[Harkonis]

just as an fyi Saint's Row (and most xbox live games for that matter) don't run off of a server for multiplayer.  They use one person's xbox as the host and the others just connect to it.  Only server of theirs involved is the gang server to keep track of gang stats and tags and that's only hit before and after a match.  Then the XBL server is hit for matchmaking also.

If there is lag, it's probably the host, but possibly one of the connected people as well.  Whoever has the best connection should host whenever possible.

[whiteboyskim]

I'm no priss, but all those drive-bys and close-range headshots in the intro movie were kind of a turn-off. It seemed uncomfortably realistic. Maybe I prefer violence breaking out in situations like drug deals or hold-ups rather than out of thin air while you're just walking down the street.

This was my feeling too when I played the demo.  I can't quite figure out why Saints Row violence makes me uncomfortable when I had no problem sniping people in the head and kicking people on the ground in GTA.  I think it's a combination of more realistic graphics and more closeup shots of the violence, but whatever the reason I was surprised how much Saints Row turned me off.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the more realistic violence became in video games the more people actually started tuning out to it?

I'm actually starting to get hyped up for this one, and I think it's closing in on that #2 slot to motivate me to pick up a 360. :slywink:

[corruptrelic]

Hey, no problem juniordan, was just a simple misunderstanding between us.
At least the hurricane (or should I say "tropical storm") wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be..
Anyway if you want to talk more PM me as naednek seems to have put his foot down on this.. 

[JuniorDan]

Hey, no problem juniordan, was just a simple misunderstanding between us.
At least the hurricane (or should I say "tropical storm") wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be..
Anyway if you want to talk more PM me as naednek seems to have put his foot down on this.. 

It's all good.
One Love!

Yes, I'm glad the storm turned out to be nothing more than a wet over cast day with few Tornado warnings. Hopefully that was not the jab before the KO punch. We still have 2 more months of this crap.

[CeeKay]

Hey, no problem juniordan, was just a simple misunderstanding between us.
At least the hurricane (or should I say "tropical storm") wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be..
Anyway if you want to talk more PM me as naednek seems to have put his foot down on this.. 

It's all good.
One Love!

Yes, I'm glad the storm turned out to be nothing more than a wet over cast day with few Tornado warnings. Hopefully that was not the jab before the KO punch. We still have 2 more months of this crap.

Actually 3 months.  Hurricane season doesn't end until November 30th, so you have all of September, October and November (plus don't forget there was one that formed in December of last year).  Luckily we're only up to E at this point, where as last year a little storm starting with K just happened 

[JuniorDan]

Hey, no problem juniordan, was just a simple misunderstanding between us.
At least the hurricane (or should I say "tropical storm") wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be..
Anyway if you want to talk more PM me as naednek seems to have put his foot down on this.. 

It's all good.
One Love!

Yes, I'm glad the storm turned out to be nothing more than a wet over cast day with few Tornado warnings. Hopefully that was not the jab before the KO punch. We still have 2 more months of this crap.

Actually 3 months.  Hurricane season doesn't end until November 30th, so you have all of September, October and November (plus don't forget there was one that formed in December of last year).  Luckily we're only up to E at this point, where as last year a little storm starting with K just happened 

 

[Bullwinkle]

Does anyone know how to recruit more homies?  I'm stuck at one and trying to get through the last drug trafficking activity is a bitch without one.