Chris InglisSaints Row, the latest iteration of the long-running series by Deep Silver Volition, is a reboot that goes back to what the series does best with hilarious antics from a super confident protagonist in a near-realistic and more serious setting that is relatable and full of stunts, crime, gangs and funny gags. The game releases at midnight August 23 in local regions on PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S and PC via Epic Games Store and is an absolute hoot to play in co-op while also being the best looking Saints Row game by far.
I have only played Saints Row 4 myself however fellow Roundtable Co-Op co-founder Johnny has played every game in the series. His favourite is Saints Row 2, and he feels this version of Saints Row is on par with that game, going back to a more serious tone while still keeping decent humour. There’s also no aliens, Matrix, or way-out-there super powers to be seen, though some of the skills are still cool enough to not be generic for the genre. There are some faults in latest game though, particularly with graphical performance dips and combat feeling janky at times, however playing missions in two-player co-op is so much fun and the levels of customisation are really cool.
The game’s intro sequence ends with an intriguing scene leaving us with many questions, before sending us back to where our journey begins in Santo Ileso. The scenery is amazing, especially as night turns to day and vice versa. The open and sprawling desert turns from a dark moonlit sea of sand, to a wind blown and dusty scene during the day. Some of the city locations are really well detailed with parts looking like Las Vegas, loosely imitating real world Nevada.
In many of the games cutscenes on PC though, I often noticed some characters faces appeared dirty, smudgy and occasionally too shadowed for a few seconds, before it goes back to normal. Sometimes trees in the distance would flicker for a few seconds then come good. I also noticed some lighting was over saturated in some scenes, both from artificial light as well as sunlight depending on the camera angle. Overall though, the game ran very smooth on my RTX2060.
We next dove straight into customising the look of our character. If you have previously played with the Saints Row Boss Factory, you can import the boss you have designed or create your own from scratch. There is plenty of incredible detail in the options you can play with and you can make some weird and wacky heroes. I was boring and went with a modern cowboy outfit while Garbz designed a bad ass drug cartel looking character. You can also choose to share your boss design, or browse creations from other players to get some inspiration. It’s a great character customisation system.
Once in-game, we find ourselves having joined the forces of Marshall Defense Industries as a rookie soldier. We complete a few missions for them, with one involving an awesome car/truck chase scene into a desert storm, before we get unceremoniously fired. We live in a shared apartment with friends Neenah, Eli, and Kevin. After wallowing in your own self pity, you and Neenah realise that Kevin and Eli are in trouble as the place they are partying at is about to be raided by Los Panteros, of which Neenah has been a member. Not happy that their friends are in jeopardy, Neenah turns her back on the faction and we storm the place to rescue Kevin and Eli. The third faction, The Idols turn up and Kevin is forced to choose between following orders or defending his friends. Of course he chose us!
Back at the apartment, the four discuss how they are fed up with working for these factions, so they make a pact to form their own gang and be their own bosses. Neenah finds an old Church that’s under construction that would be a perfect home base for their new venture, so off we go causing mayhem on the way and eventually we start kitting out the church, making it a base fit for kings. Spread throughout the world are collectibles that you can take back to the church and show off. The location of these collectibles is revealed if you can work out the clues provided within the app in your mobile phone.
Like in other similar games (and the big game of real life), we coordinate everything we do through our phones. There’s an app for everything these days! We can view the map, browse main and side missions, take photos, choose skills and perks we have unlocked as we level up, amongst numerous other activities. Once you build your HQ though, you will unlock the empire table which shows you all of the precincts in Santo Ileso. It gives you freedom to choose where you would like to build business ventures (criminal hubs). These unlock successive side missions and give you access to things like a garage, a military surplus store, and more. How you play is totally up to you in this open world begging to be explored. I chose to stick closely to the main storyline, doing some side hustles if I stumbled on them or needed some extra cash.
You can wield a multitude of weaponry as well as upgrade each weapon’s power, and of course customise their look. There are plenty of weapon, clothing and other stores to be found on the map. I stumbled upon this little street vendor called the Crazy Chicken Dance Studio where you could buy new emotes and dance moves. These little shops, as well as the detailed night and day cycles in the city makes these locations feel alive. You can grab any car you like and take it back to the garage to add it to your collection for later use, and vehicles can be customised too. The customisation of vehicles racks up the dollar bills quickly, so I left this in the first couple of hours while I built up some funds.
Combat is the core of the game is a tonne of fun but it took us some getting used to initially. When we were jumping and strafing around, the aiming was way off compared to other similar games. We had to stand still to get solid body and head shots. As you fight, you will fill a takedown meter and once it is full, you can perform an execute move. There are various animations for the execution which look great. Some enemies will be shielded so you’ll need to work down their shield before you can perform an execution move. This execution is the only way to heal your character too as there are no health pickups, only cash and ammunition.
Once you start gaining levels, you will unlock skills to use. Skills like Pineapple Express where you grab an enemy, throw a grenade in his pants and then hurl him back whence he came, require Flow, which is designated by yellow diamonds above your health in the bottom right of the HUD. Once you have unlocked a skill and assigned it to slots 1-4, when in combat you hold down the middle mouse button and then press the corresponding skill number. Flow also recharges during combat. Holding down G will open the weapon wheel, or you can scroll the middle mouse button. Combat is fluid and dynamic, though movement while firing seems a little foreign. The camera bobs a little too much behind the character making your shots hard to pinpoint. I did get used to it after a short while.
Driving in the game feels great and we liked the ability to swap seats within the car when playing co-op. While driving some cars was not as smooth and responsive as a dedicated racing game, I found it to be a mix of Sleeping Dogs and GTA driving performance. However flying attack helicopters and using the wingsuit certainly felt way more fun and versatile to use. The wingsuit especially had me reminiscing feeling like Ironman in Just Cause 4. When you get some airtime in a car, you can control the spin of the vehicle mid-air which is great, and later you can unlock a perk that gives you an ejector seat so you can switch from a car to the wingsuit with ease. Vehicles have hit points so while you can do bash maneuvers with the right mouse button, you’ll want to be wary of your own HP. Oh, and if playing co-op, one of you can ride on the roof of cars which was cause for so many hilarious moments.
We definitely had a heap more fun playing this game in co-op, so we recommend doing that if you can. You can either start a new game in co-op or pick up a save from either your current campaign playthrough or your friend’s, making this a hop-in/hop-out experience which is awesome. It means you won’t hinder your experience or that of your mates when playing together. Some of the story missions in co-op felt like we were back playing Army of Two again which was great nostalgia – “back to back!”. We just wish we could have high-fived each other, but there’s plenty of emotes and dancing to be had, and you can play pranks on each other. We had just finished a mission when all of a sudden my character is covered in snow with jingle bells ringing – thanks Garbz.
The more I played Saints Row, the more it was growing on me and I just wanted to keep building my criminal empire, finding collectibles to make the HQ look more awesome, inviting Johnny in to have a look at what I had collected, and looking for some sweet cars to take to the garage and see what customisation options they had. There is a lot to like in this game, and even though I have only played Saints Row 4, from what Johnny described of the previous games, I’m glad this version has moved away from the weird and wacky in favour of some good old fashioned banter and hilarious antics of our characters. I’m actually more inclined to play this than jump back into GTA given it’s diversity of gameplay options.
This is the Saints Row I came for, rebooting the series back to it’s core offering in the best looking Saints Row game to date. Gameplay is par for the genre with some performance dips in cutscenes, and combat feeling a little janky at times. The story was highly engaging with many funny moments, and playing co-op was just so much fun. Some of those sequences really captured the feel of both of us being in the action, making meaningful advances together as opposed to the second person just tagging along for the ride. If you have been turned off the series previously, I highly urge you to take a look at this reboot.
This review utilised an Epic Games Store key provided by Plaion ANZ, and Saints Row will release at midnight August 23 on on PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S and PC via Epic Games Store.
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Written by: @ChrisJInglis
Daniel Agius