This game is too many other games and not enough of itself, I think.



Grand Theft Auto but Borderlands and also Far Cry a bit plus Cyberpunk 2077... yet none of the above and not in a particularly good way. Saints Row is yearning to reach the heights of other titles but never quite sticks the landing of that very difficult trick. It is a detailed world that looks good with sufficient activities strewn about its open world. I played a later version, so the bugs weren't completely unmanageable (but still somewhat noticeable) during my playthrough, but it sounds like the early release was bad enough to taint the experience of a number of players.

I've played quite a few open world games like Saints Row at this point and I think Saints Row might have broken me of my love of the genre. Sure, it has a detailed character creator, but I'm getting tired of spending an hour trying to make a digital avatar of myself with some wacky feature, though I always do. Fantastic, you've got lots of fun outfits to collect, but I wish they did more stat-wise than looks-wise. Great, there are a bunch of different interesting weapons, but I'll always stick with a small set during my gameplay once I've found one that works. Yes, it has lots of side quests, but even the attempts at doing something different, like a quest where you just throw yourself in front of cars to commit insurance fraud, fall flat when you have to do them 8 times. Awesome, you can skip all the side quests and focus on the story, but the story is... fine if you've never played one of the over-the-top Borderlands games and can handle the exaggerated, cartoonish actions of the characters. Plus, the villain just kind of came out of nowhere, I felt, and wasn't a super satisfying twist or ending or anything. But maybe a story about building your criminal empire just isn't for me.

That said, I had a fine time doing some quests and contemplating whether I like open world games anymore or not.

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