Fans pinched him after watching the trailers: would the ‘3rd Street Saints’ reboot be dead serious? No, luckily. Saints Row – the second game to carry that title without addition – appears to have remained itself in the first minutes. As the cannon fodder jokes roll in, Boss fervently throws himself into a military superplane stolen by a supercriminal and forces it to stop in an ekaze of violence, bright colors and corny jokes. Delicious.
The overarching joke in this game: the Saints as an ambitious startup. Boss and her hip roommates – the college-boy Eli, the car-loving Neenah and the perpetual shirtless Kev – work for the various violent factions that grip the fictional city of Santa Ileso. However, all four of them are not satisfied with their landlords. They decide to start a new criminal enterprise together. The character designer is back again, swapping the “male/female” choice for a host of options in terms of voices, physique, and size of certain body parts.
Although you can quickly make the entire city of Santa Ileso unsafe, the story itself remains small. In between the ambitious heists and the comically excessive violence, Boss is mostly preoccupied with her friendships. The game often resembles a sitcom. Here’s how to help Eli with his LARP hobby – complete with fake Old English, nerf gun and cardboard castles.
Saints Row started as a copy of the still popular crime series Grand Theft Auto, but with part 2 satirical realism went into the trash. The box of over-the-top jokes was opened and the family feeling took center stage. And where GTA worked with predefined characters, the player with Saints Row a comprehensive character designer for the nose, with sliders for weight and many different possible voices for Boss.
Then each time things went one step further, until Saints Row IV went so far in 2013 that the series couldn’t really aim any higher: Boss was now president of the United States and battled evil aliens. So it makes sense that the reboot takes a step back – but the corny jokes have remained. Whether they also work will depend on the player.
Not much has changed since part 4. Santa Ileso is the usual sandbox full of activities: scavenging for gold in trash cans, stealing big trucks with a helicopter, and so on. You flow smoothly from one outing to the next. Sometimes it’s disappointing: Taking pictures of important objects is both boring and frustrating, because hordes of enemies so often fall on you – an old, cheap trick. You will also occasionally encounter annoying bugs.
Fortunately, a lot is associated with the growth of your empire. You can have different companies built in the city, each of which manages a sector and has its own function with accompanying game. So it feels like you’re actually achieving something by stealing that hot dog food truck or crushing cars with a life-threatening hoverboard.
In short, Saints Row is a fine Saints Row game after almost a decade of waiting. Nothing more, nothing less. This fine comfort food game just has no innovation – at most a contemporary gravy.