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84 of 107 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Derivative, but a Huge Improvement, August 30, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
So long as you don't include originality as part of your game evaluation process, Saint's Row is a stellar, stellar piece of programming. It fixes five of the six problems with the GTA series, and offers tons of little "next-gen" improvements that make it more palatable for older gamers.
1)Graphics: The draw distances and general graphical ... "cruddiness"... of the PS2 (and even the XBOX) versions of GTA are a thing of the past. The game looks great. There's some pop-up with long streets, but the explosions, character models, and polish is simply a vast improvement. I actually thought San Andreas looked worse than Vice City, so this is almost a two-step improvement for me. The explosions, weather and lighting effects, and reflections are really incredible when you consider the lack of loading times.
2)Auto-Aiming: It's gone. I'm not quite used to the borrowed FPS style yet, but anything would be better than the broken auto aiming feature of GTA. It shan't be missed.
3)Save Scheme: No longer am I limited to the GTA "one save per half an hour of playing" madness. Hallelujah. I can't devote large chunks of time to a game, and if I can't save frequently, I lose interest fast.
4)Restarting Missions. Recovering your weapons and restarting missions from the beginning (actually, before the beginning) was asinine in GTA. It wastes time and annoys gamers without really upping the difficulty. Also won't be missed.
5)On-line. Haven't had a chance to play with my own copy yet, but watched someone else play. It might suck, it might be great, but at least it's there.
6)Timed, pizza-delivery missions. They haven't really reared up yet, but hopefully these annoying time-wasters are gone. We'll see.
The main problems I see with Saint's Row I *suspect* will be solved with Xbox live "updates"/purchases. It took me an hour to realize that there were tons of cars, but no motorcycles, etc. I have a feeling we'll have to pay for the privilege of flying a chopper or driving a boat. That will suck. It better be cheap, because the lack of these vehicle options doesn't feel like a game limitation, but like a conscious programming choice.
The story seems pretty derivative, but I'm not far enough along to really evaluate it.
I can't really see myself ever playing any current version of GTA ever again. After only a few hours of Saint's Row you realize that GTA has too many annoying idiosyncracies that should have been fixed long ago.
For fans of the sandbox genre, this is the game to buy, and may be for quite some time.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The best Grand Theft Auto rip-off ever!, May 13, 2008
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Saint's Row is a game that is a blantant rip-off of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, from everything right down to the way you steal cars out from people driving them on the street. But make no mistake: This isn't some rushed piece of garbage simply set out to make money off the GTA franchise. It has a little bit of TLC put into it by the game developers, as well.
Similarities to GTA:
-You can do storyline and free roaming missions
-steal and customize cars
-participate in Turf Wars taking over neighborhoods for your gang
-customize your main character
-wield a large variety of guns
-listen to a large variety of music
-and generally play the game however way you want.
Enhancements over GTA:
-Much superior graphics
-better map
-a GPS system for your maps and vehicles
-customizable cell phone, with allies you can call for backup
-customizable music playlists (in case you get sick of the randomness of the radio stations and want to hear your music anywhere, anytime)
-the hands-down BEST car customization in any non-racing video game, ever!
-health items (food) you can access anytime
-self-regenerating health that heals up from about-to-die to full health in about one minute or so
-superior firearms (albeit none of them look very unique)
-a slightly better menu interface to access your firearms (I just wish they hadn't put the food and weapons in the same system; it gets confusing)
-the police are the most minor threat in the game
-public transportation is available to you (although you more than likely will never use it)
-if you find yourself stuck in water, you can skip having to swim to shore with the "warp" feature, which will do that for you. Pretty cool feature! Why aren't things like that in other games?
-shooting style & difficulity are fair (The shot target is in the fixed-center of the screen and you move the camera to aim, but it's a little harder to use then in GTA)
-both men, AND women, can be recruited as allies in your gang, or killed in other gangs. Hurray for murder equality!
-celebrity voice acting (I instantly recognized Mila Kunis as Tanya and Michael Rapaport as Troy)
Worse from GTA:
-No bikes or motorcycles to ride which is diaspointing
-no boats or planes either (not that they're really needed here)
-character can barely swim
-only one safehouse in the entire city/game
-clothes choices are lame and uninspired
-despite the good voice acting, the dialogue is terrible and it sounds like it was written by the whitest people on the planet (shades of "187: Ride or Die")
-an excessive overuse of cursing (if you're going to use it in every other word, it's impact and gravitas is completely lost)
-the A.I. is stupid, and the enemy gangs have that "random spawning" effect whenever you have a "wanted level" by them
-it's mandatory to do the side missions as you have to earn "respect" in order to do the main storyline missions, and respect is only gained from the side missions
-many of the side missions are hard or just plain annoying, like the later level Escort missions
-your character, although he has great stamina, has terrible running animation, and trying to shoot while running just looks retarded.
-the prices of things are way too high/too much (if you're just staring off and haven't saved up any cash, a fifty dollar hamburger may be a bit much). I'd prefer them if they kept them at "real-world" prices.
-the "humor" of the game is just weak and lacks any level of subtlety whatsoever, like the Wendy's burger chain parody, "Freckle B*tch's" for example
-the radio stations are horribly put together, and their names are awful, too.
-the music is generic and lame, and there's only a few "name brand" artists contributing to the game's soundtrack. Mainly, the Clipse and Twista.
-there's no difficulity setting and the main missions in the game are a bit too easy (while the side missions are often too hard)
-the "escape the police" method in this game is weak and lame. It's a drive-thru confessional booth, not that you'll ever really need to use it. I never even been in "Forgive and Forget" before.
-your recruited allies are complete idiots and you'll spend more time than anything reviving them because they rushed headlong into a dozen or so shooting enemies. They're more of a hassle to use than any kind of help, sort of like bringing young children along for grocery shopping.
-it's pretty easy to die in situations that don't call for it. Your health bar, despite it's regeneration, can't take much damage and a few shots from two or more enemies can take you from full health to death pretty quickly. Like, in three seconds quickly. This is darn frustrating and happens A LOT in the stupid Pushback missions that pop up randomally that you can't avoid skipping over.
-there's NO Body Armor, anywhere in this game, which only adds on to the annoying "easy to die" problem I mentioned above.
-the randomally popping up, mandatory "defend your turf against invading gangs" Pushback Missions. They were just as random and annoying in San Andreas and they're even more annoying here. What's worse is, in order to successfully defend your turf, you'll have to seek out special "lieutenants" instead of just killing everybody in sight. And these 12 or so lieutenants tend to hide out in weird, hard-to-reach places, and you'll have to make your way through dozens of enemies, risking your life, just to make your way to them. It was easier in GTA when you just had to kill everybody invading your land. Here, you'll literally be in an urban battlefield going against dozens of enemies, making your way to one of the four spots in the area your enemy lieutenats are at. (they only hang out three at a time and are scattered wide across the entire neighborhood warzone.) The worse thing about these missions are that they're more or less mandatory, and you won't have time to save whenever they pop up, and they'll pop up often after JUST completing a really hard mission or side quest. At least in San Andreas, it was fun to do these missions, partly because they were do in intervals and all you had to do is be the last man standing. Here, they're just a REALLY annoying chore.
-each gun has it's own set of bullets, making it hard to get ammo. In other games like GTA, bullets are shared between guns of similar types (universal pistol ammo, universal shotgun ammo, etc.), but here, each gun is different with it's own unique bullets in them, and you can only have one gun type (pistol, shotgun, etc.) at a time. BUT, because you can't use ammo from other guns, that you'll often find off of dead bodies, you'll constantly be having to decide whether to swap your gun that's low on ammo out for the one of a gang member you just shot. If so, you'll quickly run of of ammo for that, too. If not, you'll just have an empty gun on you. And thus, you'll be deciding which gun you have that is more fuel efficent, quite often in heavily heated turf wars or in missions with tons of enemies to kill. What's worse is every single gangster carries different random guns on them. If the Vice Kings just all had Vice pistols and the Carnales had a different pistol type they all shared, it'd be a lot simplier. But, no, every time you kill someone, it's "do I run out of ammo, or pick this up instead, even though it only has five more bullets in it than the one I already have?" Basically, you'll easily use up all the ammo for whichever gun you have and will have to replace it for another gun (which only has a few bullets in it) and back and fourth like so. (In other words: YOU'RE *ALWAYS* RUNNING OUT OF AMMO!)
Overall, Saint's Row is a worthy edition to the GTA genre of video games. Although it's a rip-off, in every sense of the word, it's defintely not of inferior quality. In fact, Saint's Row is even better than most of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The game, at it's core is nice, but what really bogs it down are the minor negatives, which as you can see, really begin to add up. The game is much better than Three Stars, but all these little things keep it from being Five Star worthy. Other than the numerous minor flaws, the only problem is the story, which is pretty lame and generic, and the script, which is just laughably cheesy in it's attempt to sound "urban" or "gangsta" or "hip hop" or whatever. San Andreas' dialogue and script felt 100% genuine. Saint's Rows, however, sounds forced, like they were too lazy to do their research and just decided to "wing it."
It would be easy to just make a Grand Theft Auto clone that's pretty bad (True Crime has proved that, for us). It would also be pretty easy to try to make your own game, using many of the famous GTA elements involved (I.E, CrackDown). But Saint's Row, however, is a true Grand Theft Auto imitation, that manages not to photocopy the game, but use it as a worthy starting off point for their own series. I like mostly everything in this game, and the only real things keeping it from being superior to every GTA game ever made on the older consoles, is it's cheesy dialogue, numerous small annoyances, it's and cheesy writing, and lame attempts to be "funny."
Other than that, Saint's Row is a worthy duplication of the "sandbox shooting and driving" genre created by GTA itself, and it definitely deserves to be played, even if only as a week-long rental, by ANY Grand Theft Auto fan.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the GTA Wanna-Be's, February 28, 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Look, this game is not as good as GTA, especially the amazing experience that is San Andreas. However, this game is still very good and will hold over GTA fans until IV comes out later this year. If you enjoy playing GTA, chances are you will enjoy this game, especially where this franchise made some significant improvements. If you didn't like GTA games and are offended with overt violence, strong language, and direct sexual references, then steer away from this game. Here are the pros, cons, and "washes" as they compare to GTA:
Pros:
Better graphics
Better sound effects of cars and weapons
Cars are cooler
Superior implementation of the map functionality.
Save system is improved, but I can not understand in today's day and age of gaming why RPG-action games like this don't have a "save-at-any-time" functionality or at least provide reasonable interim mission save points - which this game did not.
Ability to save up to 70 cars in your garage
Insurance Fraud missions are arguably the most enjoyable missions ever envisioned for a sandbox game.
Some other missions that were direct rip-offs from GTA are arguably more fun like the pimp missions, hijacking, and hit-man.
Cons:
There is no mistaking that overall feeling of an awesome atmosphere you get in any GTA game that just wasn't present in this title. I can't put my finger on it, but you will see what I mean if you get to experience this game vs. any GTA game.
Story was a little better in San Andreas
No planes, boats, motorcycles, helicopters, or bicycles.
Voice acting is superior in GTA San Andreas. With that said, there was just way too much cursing. Cursing in any game or movie is good for adult entertainment when it is appropriate for the setting. This title just went way over the top on the cursing and was mostly out of place.
Music selection is superior in San Andreas in both amount and quality.
Washes - neither better or worse than GTA:
Open world sandbox environment enabling diverse ways to execute missions
Driving mechanics of the cars
Despite popular opinion, weapons functionality, though different, have about the same difficulty/ease factor.
Map size and mission amount/scope is more epic in San Andreas, but this title is probably a little bigger that GTA III and possibly Vice City. Not too shabby.
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