One shall stand, one shall fall
My relationship with the car-jacking hooker-mugging series we all know asGrand Theft Autobegan the way it does for a lot of people. Sometime when I was in middle school, a friend brought over a copy ofGrand Theft Auto III. It was a weird moment for a twelve-year-old, to feel like you’re getting away with something by playing a video game, butGrand Theft Autowas taboo. It was in the media constantly at the time, the number-one game to shit on when it came to games “destroying our youth.”
For those reasons,Grand Theft Autowill always hold a special place in my heart, but that isn’t what I’m here to talk about. No, I want to talk about the game that showed me the open world career criminal game could be done better. I’m of course talking aboutSaints Row 2.
The sequel toSaints Rowwas a game I picked up on a whim, after findingGrand Theft Auto IVto be lacking. I needed something to fill that open world itch that was willing to get silly in waysGTAno longer seemed willing to. At their most base level,GTAandSaints Roware one in the same. Drive around, shoot people, blow up police helicopters. WhereSaints Rowdiffers is that I can do all of that while dressed as the god damn Riddler.
Saints Row 2hooked me with how absurdly silly it dared to be from the Septic Avenger missions where you’re scored for spraying housing developments with shit to a Japanese samurai themed gang, topped only bySaints Row: The Third’s gang of luchadors. In short, the downright fun and unapologetic stupidity of theSaintsseries made it hard for me to even go back to oldGTAgames, or be interested in playing the new ones.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for example, is still a fantastic game, but I’d pick a play session withSaints 2over itevery time. It’s down to personal preference at this point. I’m more than willing to admit that. While plenty of you were out enjoyingGrand Theft Auto V, I found myself more concerned with Gunning throughSaints Row IVfor the third time.
There’s been a weird amount of star power inSaints Row‘s voice acting over the years as well. From Neil Patrick Harris as DJ Veteran Child to Keith David and Burt Reynolds as themselves.
TheSaintsalso seemed to get progressively better and different whileGTAkept feeling like more of the same but bigger.The Thirdsaw a bigger map with a more insane story, hell,Saints Row IVwon me over by being moreCrackdownthanCrackdown. Of course, a grounded more serious story about criminals has its place, but not for me. I just wanna fight aliens and blow shit up.
It’s hard to enjoy the more grounded stories ofGTA VafterSaints Row IVhas already made its protagonist the President of the United States and had said protagonist quote an exchange between Optimus Prime and Megatron from the ’80sTransformersmovie with an evil alien Emperor. All set to Stan Bush’s “The Touch,” I might add.
Let’s also not forget the ridiculous expansions that the fourth installment spawned, likeHow the Saints Saved ChristmasandGat Out of Hell. Having Johnny Gat rescue the boss after he is betrothed to Satan’s daughter is the right kind of weird.
With the recentSaints RowHumble Bundle, I ended up playing throughSaints 2over the weekend, and it still holds up pretty well. The PC version is filled with noticeable jank(I’m told the Gentleman of the Row mod can fix this), but it was still nice to sit down with the game while I gear up for the release ofAgents of Mayhemlater this month, a game that I assume is basicallySaints Row V.
It’s probably worth noting that I never really gave the firstSaints Rowa fair chance. I played about an hour and something about the overly thug esthetic turned me off. The series as a whole is one of my favorites, and I giveGTAcredit for inspiring it, but can say in my opinion it doesn’t hold a candle toSaints, secret alien missions or no.
