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Saints Row seems like a tentative reboot caught between past and presentFor better and for worse
For better and for worse
After four hours withSaints Row, it’s funny being back in the present. I have a gaming PC! Bills to pay! A smartphone that recognises my face! Grey hairs! I say all this because Saints Row - not to be confused with Saints Row yet also to be confused with Saints Row - whisked me back to the early 2000s, when I was but a naïve teenager whose life largely pivoted around their Xbox 360. A time when Saints Row andSaints Row 2were lightheartedGrand Theft Autoalternatives, thenSaints Row: The Thirdcame along and cranked up the silliness, andthenSaints Row 4grabbed the lever and cranked it so hard it snapped. So, yes, this year’s Saints Row reboot is technically Saints Row 5, except it’s more of a careful reboot. Where does it really sit on the timeline? At both ends, I reckon.
4 Things We Liked About Saints Row (And A Few Things We Didn’t)Watch on YouTube
4 Things We Liked About Saints Row (And A Few Things We Didn’t)
It took me a while to warm up to the cast: Neenah (the no-nonsense mechanic), Kevin (DJ bro), and Eli (nerdy hacker), but they seem like a colourful, lighthearted bunch who you’ll warm to over many car rides.
And as you’d expect, driving is a lot of fun, hitting that mid-ground between simulation and silliness. You’re encouraged to drift around turns and shunt rivals Burnout-style with a quick button press, exploding them if you bash their bumpers in just right. A garage lets you customise your ride with preset skins and in-depth bits if you want too, while there’s a fair number of different vehicles to hijack and make yours.
Technically, there isn’t a huge distinction between the activities I liked and those I didn’t, but if I look closer, I realise that it’s the smashing and crashing that makes the difference. When the game tries something a bit different - like the wingsuiting or donut stand stuff - it doesn’t commit fully to what makes Saints Row, Saints Row. It’s either too nuanced or not fully formed. Either give me C4 strapped to a car and tell me to bash it into things, or leave off. Either make that donut stand transform into a rideable mechanical cock ring called Throbatron, or don’t. You can tell this Saints Row is unsure how to push the boundaries and make this an explosive new beginning, but without going too far.
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The combat loses its lustre once you hope out of your vehicle, which doesn’t help. As you level up, you’re able to unlock new skills and assign them to a radial menu. They’re all fine, basically coming down to things like chucking mines and grenades or getting a burst of health and melee damage. Later, you get the equivalent of Deadeye fromRed Dead Redemption. You can use these abilities when your energy meter is full, or alternatively, you can perform flashy melee finishers on enemies to recover health. Perhaps the heavy lifting is done with wackier weapons later on, but the skills certainly didn’t elevate the samey “shoot some dudes” missions to “I really do love to shoot these dudes” celebrations.
I might sound down on Saints Row and that’s because I am, a bit. As Alice Bee said in herhands-off preview, there’s some definite tension between the old and the new. I’m hoping that, as the story develops and the open world expands it’ll loosen its self-imposed leash, because what I played signalled a reboot that’s shed the extremes of its past but also some of its confidence in the process. It wants to carve a new path for the series, but doesn’t want to go bonkers or lose sight of the Saints row formula, so borrows from what worked well over a decade ago.
And yet, despite my misgivings, I think Saints Row is an unabashedly good time. In borrowing from the past, the preview quenched that thirst for a double A experience. It seems perfect for lying down on the sofa and chuckling at occasionally, requiring only a bag of Doritos and minimal emotional investment. Santo Ileso could well plug the current urban playground gap in games, even if it’s a time capsule to one from the early noughties.
