Back with a Bang – GTA’s handsome, mad brother: PETER HOSKIN reviews Saints Row
Saints Row (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £59.99)
Valuation: 
Conclusion: Comfortable carnage
Everything used to be so easy. There was Grand Theft Auto, a series of pretty crazy crime games. Then there was Saints Row, which played like Grand Theft Auto’s even crazier growing sibling – with aliens, superpowers, bigger explosions and crazier jokes.
But then GTA got crazier and crazier. And Saints Row? Spring…
… it was gone for nearly a decade after 2013’s Saints Row IV, but now it’s back with a new game confusingly just called Saints Row. And I think the two series finally met in the middle. This really feels like another GTA.
Saints Row: Here you are in a big, open city (again), building a criminal empire (again) while occasionally dashing off to perform silly stunts in the desert (again). Despite all the fluorescent styles and loud gunfights, it’s a reassuringly familiar type of game
Here you are in a big, open city (again), building a criminal empire (again) while occasionally speeding off to perform silly stunts in the desert (again). Despite all the fluorescent styles and loud gunfights, it’s a reassuringly familiar type of game.
But the new Saints Row isn’t meant to dismiss that entirely. It’s old-fashioned in a few new ways. The city itself, a place called Santo Ileso in the American Southwest, wrestles everything out of modern consoles – and is among the most beautiful and believable digital sprawl I’ve ever wandered through.
Saints Row’s missions are similarly extensive. There are reality show-inspired island battles and grand Dungeons & Dragons-inspired cardboard castle battles. This is not a game lacking in imagination
And Saints Row’s missions are similarly expansive. There are reality show-inspired island battles and grand Dungeons & Dragons-inspired cardboard castle battles. This is not a game lacking in imagination.
So it’s a pity that there is (currently) a lack of fine tuning. There are dozens of different vehicles to drive, but they all feel oddly similar. There are dozens of bugs in the code, some of which crashed my computer.
Once that’s all sorted out, Santo Ileso will be a lovely place to watch the sunset after a heavy day of chaos.
