Saints Row 2022: Desert for Breakfast

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Toaster Beef: Jan 23, 2007; that's not nature's way

That they still haven't gotten the cert for any of the patches on XBox is just bonkers

# ? Sep 15, 2022 08:48

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# ? May 7, 2024 10:46

ilmucche: Mar 16, 2016

General Dog posted:

I don't really get the tonal comparison between Saints Row 2 and this new one at all; beyond "neither game has dildo bats or Professor Genki." I turned around and booted up SR2 once I finished the new game, and for better or worse it is mean as hell. Not just the juvenile humor, but the Saints doing pretty horrible stuff. They shoot a judge in the first mission in Stillwater and then slaughter a bunch of homeless people in the second. There is not much effort put into making our protagonists sympathetic.

I don't think the saints are ever supposed to be sympathetic

# ? Sep 15, 2022 09:02

Pirate Jet: May 2, 2010

ilmucche posted:

I don't think the saints are ever supposed to be sympathetic

�Puckish rogue� was the death knell of this series� sense of humor

# ? Sep 15, 2022 10:39

DrManiac: Feb 29, 2012

General Dog posted:

I don't really get the tonal comparison between Saints Row 2 and this new one at all; beyond "neither game has dildo bats or Professor Genki." I turned around and booted up SR2 once I finished the new game, and for better or worse it is mean as hell. Not just the juvenile humor, but the Saints doing pretty horrible stuff. They shoot a judge in the first mission in Stillwater and then slaughter a bunch of homeless people in the second. There is not much effort put into making our protagonists sympathetic.

Yeah it�s almost like the boss is the leader of a horrible gang�.

# ? Sep 15, 2022 10:47

General Dog: Apr 26, 2008; Everybody's working for the weekend

DrManiac posted:

Yeah it�s almost like the boss is the leader of a horrible gang�.

My point is that SR2 really steers into that fact in a way that the new game doesn�t.

# ? Sep 15, 2022 14:19

Cowman: Feb 14, 2006; Beware the Cow

I wrote a huge post in the old PS5 thread that cover my thoughts on this game. It's thoroughly mediocre yet I can't stop playing it for some reason. I'm going to platinum this game eventually.

Cowman posted:

I'm about to beat Saints Row 2022 and I figured I'd organize my thoughts for those in the thread that are curious about it. I was going to wait until I finished the game as I'm currently at 75% and will probably finish this weekend, but it's fresh on my mind and I don't see things changing too much for the rest of the game. I'm a huge Saints Row fan, have been since 2, and my reaction to this new one is very mixed. I'll preface this by saying that I preordered the "Legacy Edition" that cost $80 and came with the DLC Expansion pass and SR3 Remastered so I break down my payments as: $40 for the base game, $20 for the expansion pass and $20 for SR3 Remastered. The reason I break it down this way is that $40 feels like a very good price point for this game if you're thinking about picking it up. I know this game is extremely buggy and for the sake of this writeup, I'm not going to talk about them past this point. It shouldn't have been released with some of the ridiculous bugs like Adaptive Triggers doing nothing but inverting the Y-Axis and Co-op breaking challenges. By the time it hits $40 these and others should be patched out. I have a lot to say so I'll break it down into sections to make it easier to read along with a grade just for fun. I also turned the difficulty down from the default so I won't talk about difficulty.

Customization

This is the big one, heavily advertised by Volition as the greatest character creator they've made yet. It's a pretty solid character creator but it's also lacking some sliders that were in previous games. I can still monster factory it up and you can unlock special skins called "Cutting Edge" through one of the ventures you do that are all pretty cool looking. Biggest problem is that the actual clothing options aren't all that varied. It's mostly just variations on graphic tees or button ups and they're all extremely similar. There's outliers of course and there are silly outfits but for the most part it's just boring regular clothes. If I recall correctly, the previous games were about the same way but I feel like this one is worse. It's still extremely varied and the character creation is pretty powerful. I'd give it a B+ to an A- just because of the lack of clothing variation.

"Discoveries"

This is what they called the collectibles in this game and boy are there a lot of them in this game. There's a grand total of 265 discoveries and almost half of them are drug pallets that are scattered around the land. There's 125 drug pallets and they could have cut it to just a third of them. Why? Because every drug pallet on the map is in groups of 3-4. If you find one you'll see the second and third on your map within walking distance. The rest of them are photo ops, windmills, tourist traps, shooting galleries and wingsuit launches. The photo ops are easy and pretty quick you just take photos of landmarks, nothing more to really say about that. Windmills are scattered around and you need a helicopter to reach some of them. Interacting with the windmills gets you parts to special cars that I haven't driven yet. Tourist traps are entertaining but annoying. The goal of the tourist traps is to "learn about Santo Ileso's history" by running around a yellow circle interacting with stands that play a short clip describing bits of history surrounding the area. What's annoying about them is that the stands don't show up on the map and are often hard to find. There's numerous ones that are at the edge of the circle or just outside of it or aren't part of the main area. I had to look up quite a few of them just because the stands were tucked away in an area you wouldn't think to explore. The shooting galleries are neat but drat do they hide some of the targets extremely well. Again I had to look up several just because they decided to stick one in a spot that you have to be at a specific angle just to see it. Overall, there are just way too many collectibles and they're extremely obnoxious at times. They also don't always unlock great items that would make it worth your while. They get a solid C+ on discoveries just because they're not hard to find, just obnoxious to get done and way too many of them.

Ventures/Side Hustles

These are a real mixed bag. They're pretty much all "Go from point A to point B" with a little bit of variation like "Go to point A pick up Object go back to start". There are exceptions like Insurance Fraud (best in the series in my opinion) and Mayhem at least. The problem is that there's so drat many of them and they're all very repetitive. The Ventures mix it up a little bit but it's still pretty much the same objective. One thing that seriously disappointed me was that you can place a laundromat venture that's actually a crime scene cleanup crew. I was hoping/expecting something like Viscera Cleanup Detail where you clean up crime scenes and it could have been very silly and fun. Instead it's "Drive to crime scene, take car, avoid cops, drop car off, do arbitrary thing to car" for every single one. It doesn't help that a side hustle is pretty much the same thing, you race across the map avoiding cops to get to the drop location. There's also "Threats" for every venture and they're simple. It's just kill the gang members at this location to increase venture revenue, sometimes it's hunt down a police surveillance van or shoot down drones but it's quick and easy though repetitive. Overall I give these a C- just because they're very samey and there's way too much of them.

Story and Characters

I'm not going to get too deep into the story to avoid spoilers but basically it's a rags to riches story, pretty basic. Saints Row has never had the best stories so I can't be too harsh on it. It's extremely forgettable but also not terrible. There's a LARP side mission that's really cute and I greatly enjoyed how silly it was. The missions are decently varied but for the most part it's just hordes of enemies attacking while you try to survive. It's really not bad and can be genuinely fun/tense at times. The characters are also really well written and work together great as a group except for one thing: there's no "Johnny Gat". What I mean is that there's no analogue to the boss like Gat was in the old games. I found it extremely entertaining having an equally murderous buddy that's quick witted and ready to kill. Instead of having a buddy who's just like "Hell yeah let's murder everyone gently caress your plan" it's more just the boss saying they'll murder everyone and the others just kind of sighing in agreement. It's very lackluster. I like the characters and the writing but it just feels like a piece is missing. Overall I give the Story a C because it's extremely forgettable and doesn't reach the highs of previous games. The characters get a solid B+ because they're well written and entertaining but missing the crucial Gat.

New stuff and Combat

This is just kind of a general catchall for the new things they put into this game. The wingsuit is lots of fun but every side hustle/venture that involves the wingsuit is terrible for some reason. It's great fun to dive off a building and then just fly around with it and it controls very well. You can also bounce off of pedestrians to send them flying and get a boost. You can land on roofs of cars and hijack them that way, it's really great. I give the wingsuit a solid B, would be an A+ but the side hustles/ventures seriously are bad. You can also do car combat which is hilariously good fun. Basically you just hit Square to sideswipe other cars and blow them up. Your car is next to impossible to destroy and other cars are ridiculously easy to destroy. Really it's janky but in a good way and you'll often find cars just flipping and exploding just because you rammed into them. A+ for car combat. Weapons are pretty boring overall and the amount of ammo you can hold is way too low. I jacked up the amount of ammo you get from enemies just because it's ridiculous to have to go to Friendly Fire after a story mission just because you ran out of ammo killing endless hordes of thugs. For context, in SR3 you can hold about 1200 or so rounds for a SMG. In the new one, it varies per SMG and ranges from about 200-800 depending on which one you're using. It's a ridiculously low limit and I don't understand why they made it so low. Weapon variety is pretty basic, ironically you generally want to avoid the Marshall weapons (which are supposed to be futuristic military grade stuff) because they're all pretty weak and bad. Otherwise it's all variations on the same thing for each category. There is one exception which is a sticky football that sticks to enemies then sends them flying and finally explodes. It's very good. I give the combat a solid C just because the weapon variety is bad and the ammo count is bad.

Final Thoughts

Overall I think this game is decent. It really feels like a brand new team that has never worked on Saints Row worked on it and was afraid to try anything truly unique or they feared copying the old games. I don't know if that's true or not but it certainly feels that way. It's worth picking up if you're desperate for a new Saints Row game but I'd wait for a sale. I think the biggest issue with it is that it feels unconfident. Just about every major new idea is good but it has little backing it up. It's like the devs weren't sure what people liked and didn't like about the series so they played it extremely safe instead of going wild with their ideas. Imagine that they're giving a decently written speech but their voice is wavering so hard from nerves that you can't understand them. There's also a ton of repetition in everything you do which makes it feel very stale. Overall I give the game a solid C+/B-. It's got some seriously great new ideas but no confidence to back it up. If they had the confidence then I think it'd be a solid B title.

Edit: I know I wrote a whole drat shitload of about it but if I somehow missed anything or something needs clarification please let me know

# ? Sep 15, 2022 14:34

StupidSexyMothman: Aug 9, 2010

the really low ammo count feels like it's a setup for a "here's infinite ammo, go hog wild" mission reward or perk or something, but if that exists in the game i haven't found it.
same deal with each model car having some sort of special ability; it's cool that this car model now has infinite boost available, but I'm not going to drive across town to the one JimRob's to put a nitrous boost on this particular version i just jacked at a red light so that special is just pointless.

what's everybody using as their favorited vehicle? i snagged a Reaper, painted it purple & maxed it out and the imbalance between this offroading nitrous towcable hearse & the junk everyone else drives is a lot of fun and then i drive directly into a Panteros monster truck tire and it's instantly destroyed

# ? Sep 15, 2022 15:24

Cowman: Feb 14, 2006; Beware the Cow

oldskool posted:

the really low ammo count feels like it's a setup for a "here's infinite ammo, go hog wild" mission reward or perk or something, but if that exists in the game i haven't found it.
same deal with each model car having some sort of special ability; it's cool that this car model now has infinite boost available, but I'm not going to drive across town to the one JimRob's to put a nitrous boost on this particular version i just jacked at a red light so that special is just pointless.

what's everybody using as their favorited vehicle? i snagged a Reaper, painted it purple & maxed it out and the imbalance between this offroading nitrous towcable hearse & the junk everyone else drives is a lot of fun and then i drive directly into a Panteros monster truck tire and it's instantly destroyed

I ended up just cranking up the amount of ammo given by enemies in the accessibilities menu to the max just because otherwise I was running to the gun store after every minor fight just because I ran out of ammo.

# ? Sep 16, 2022 01:30

General Dog: Apr 26, 2008; Everybody's working for the weekend

Cowman posted:

I ended up just cranking up the amount of ammo given by enemies in the accessibilities menu to the max just because otherwise I was running to the gun store after every minor fight just because I ran out of ammo.

Even after upgrading the weapons? I upgraded the assault rifle to max pretty early in the game and barely had to worry about ammo again

# ? Sep 16, 2022 01:50

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

After i posted about not having any game rebooting bugs, i had a game rebooting bug where getting into my helicopter would gently caress up my point of view so that I was directly over the ground. Currently finishing out the wanted app before continuing the main quest after clearing the map and placing all ventures except for whatever the final one turns out to be.

https://twitter.com/soonmot/status/1570229544090476544?s=20&t=BoH0yVbGFsQ3D9hN1vMFqw

The big problem with the wing suit is no easy way to launch into it. I unlocked the AI driving thing, so I figured I could just do car launches now but you're so close to the ground that you can't even dive for an altitude boost. Turning sucks too, I loved gliding in arkham city and was hoping the wingsuit would upgrade into something like that.

Soonmot fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Sep 16, 2022

# ? Sep 16, 2022 01:51

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

Soonmot posted:

The big problem with the wing suit is no easy way to launch into it. I unlocked the AI driving thing, so I figured I could just do car launches now but you're so close to the ground that you can't even dive for an altitude boost. Turning sucks too, I loved gliding in arkham city and was hoping the wingsuit would upgrade into something like that.

After a while you can bounce off people to launch yourself higher, which is different from the divebomb attack but you do of course need people to load in first which doesn't always occur.

# ? Sep 16, 2022 02:29

Inzombiac: Mar 19, 2007; PARTY ALL NIGHT

EAT BRAINS ALL DAY

No one is going to outclass the wingsuit from Just Cause. You have built-in propulsion via the grappling hook and boosters.

Not that people shouldn't try but drat.

# ? Sep 16, 2022 02:31

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

Dawgstar posted:

After a while you can bounce off people to launch yourself higher, which is different from the divebomb attack but you do of course need people to load in first which doesn't always occur.

yeah, it's great when there are people but W E L P

# ? Sep 16, 2022 02:47

The Lone Badger: Sep 24, 2007

Does this game let you layer clothing like SR2, or is it single-item like everything else?

# ? Sep 16, 2022 02:59

General Dog: Apr 26, 2008; Everybody's working for the weekend

The Lone Badger posted:

Does this game let you layer clothing like SR2, or is it single-item like everything else?

It does let you layer clothing; it�s probably the most robust dress system I�ve seen since SR2

# ? Sep 16, 2022 03:00

The Lone Badger: Sep 24, 2007

General Dog posted:

It does let you layer clothing; it�s probably the most robust dress system I�ve seen since SR2

Sold.

# ? Sep 16, 2022 03:03

Inzombiac: Mar 19, 2007; PARTY ALL NIGHT

EAT BRAINS ALL DAY

The Lone Badger posted:

Sold.

I spent a TON of time in the pre-release Boss generator. There's some incredible stuff out there.

# ? Sep 16, 2022 03:09

Lakitouille: Oct 12, 2007

Soonmot posted:

The big problem with the wing suit is no easy way to launch into it.

You can launch yourself into the wingsuit with impulse trap.

# ? Sep 16, 2022 06:54

LIVE AMMO COSPLAY: Feb 3, 2006

The toxic waste collection minigame is fun but I'm not sure if the other drivers are supposed to go insane or if it's just a fun bug

# ? Sep 16, 2022 08:01

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

LIVE AMMO COSPLAY posted:

The toxic waste collection minigame is fun but I'm not sure if the other drivers are supposed to go insane or if it's just a fun bug

It's hard to say. I think in every SR game where driving was a factor in a minigame of some sort the other cars suddenly act like they've had a seizure so... maybe?

# ? Sep 16, 2022 14:28

StupidSexyMothman: Aug 9, 2010

LIVE AMMO COSPLAY posted:

The toxic waste collection minigame is fun but I'm not sure if the other drivers are supposed to go insane or if it's just a fun bug

the waste makes people glow green & turn into murderous psychopaths but i think that's only mentioned in a radio news stinger

also idk if it's intentional or a bug but the drivers-going-nuts doesn't trigger until you've broken a barrel open, if you drive super cautiously the drivers are just normal

also speaking of the news stingers, I'm 35 hours in and just noticed that the news clips are in Spanish if you're listening to one of the Spanish stations

# ? Sep 16, 2022 17:38

Freaking Crumbum: Apr 17, 2003; Too fuck to drunk

LIVE AMMO COSPLAY posted:

The toxic waste collection minigame is fun but I'm not sure if the other drivers are supposed to go insane or if it's just a fun bug

in SR3 when you'd just drive around town not on a mission, like 99% of the cars would behave "normally" and try to follow the rules of the road as much as the game's AI could allow

then any time you went into a side mission where you had to drive a vehicle as part of the mission (like the ones where you're driving around with a tiger in the front seat) every motherfucking car on the road will swerve across 8 lanes of traffic to attempt to intentionally t-bone you or otherwise ram into you

i'd say if it didn't begin as intentional design, they certainly didn't see fit to remove that behavior

# ? Sep 16, 2022 18:25

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

oldskool posted:

the waste makes people glow green & turn into murderous psychopaths but i think that's only mentioned in a radio news stinger

It happens when you go to pick up a truck at the far west part of the map, there's a couple of toxic psychos wandering around but it's not really a big deal.

I do like that the news reports report on everything and not just random missions and they're all saved so you can listen to them whenever you want to if you miss them, like for some reason your card explodes.

# ? Sep 16, 2022 20:19

Soonmot: Dec 19, 2002; Entrapta fucking loves robots; Grimey Drawer

oh drat this is short! If i didn't spend so much time clearing the neighborhoods and all the ventures and wanted app, i could have beaten this in like two days.

Enjoyed it though, used the female british voice which had some nice dialogue flavor

# ? Sep 18, 2022 02:33

ShakeZula: Jun 17, 2003; Nobody move and nobody gets hurt.

Just finished this, and really enjoyed it! My only previous Saints Row experience was 4, which I liked a lot but was obviously zanier than I expected this one to be. All in all pretty standard open world fare, but it was fun and the humor mostly worked for me.

ShakeZula fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Sep 29, 2022

# ? Sep 29, 2022 16:24

Jimbot: Jul 22, 2008

Game's fun with a friend but we put it on hold due to the bugs because when we were having a ball it threw cold water on the experience and it just happened too many times. I don't mind the characters all that much but there doesn't seem to be much to them and your relationship with them starts in the middle of it, so the camaraderie falls flat because I don't know any of these people. It feels like their most interesting idea was "these folks turned to crime because of late capitalism" and from there it was a bunch of ???? then "Profit, maybe?" at the end. The shooting isn't very interesting either. I just want to shoot people in the face and that's the end of it. No health bars, so special enemies just quick and satisfying shooting. The perk system is stupid because it's not a RPG and you don't have "builds". Most of them are worthless save a few so why they aren't just permanent bonuses is just mind-boggling. Do you want faster ADS movement for doing more damage while hitting an enemy from behind, which rarely happens and what the gently caress even is this perk?

The overall design is a massive mess. They really need to focus on what they want to make instead of throwing a bunch of ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks and what doesn't then take all of them and put them in the game anyways. There are a lot of good ideas in the game and the customization is almost to SR2 levels (while exceeding it in other aspects) but there wasn't any real coherent vision and it feels like a bunch of disparate design decisions thrown together without much thought. It's a decent foundation, the real star are the customization and the city but the rest of the game lets it down. They need to step up their game and redesign everything from the ground up if there's a sequel. They also need to figure out the tone they want to hit. I like SR2's edge, maybe not beating on homeless people, but you were a savage monster in a world of savage monsters. Your pals were fun and you got along with them, which anchored you to the character, but you were ever bit as brutal in the story that reflected how you played the game. Gonna sing Take On Me by a-ha on my way to murder a bunch of gang members to steal their turf while dressed in the gaudiest outfit imaginable.

I like this reboot more than a lot of other people but it's a seriously flawed game.

Jimbot fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Oct 11, 2022

# ? Sep 30, 2022 22:45

stringless: Dec 28, 2005; keyboard ⌨️ cowboy

Jumped back into it, assuming it would be less of a buggy mess a few months on.

lol

Lots of cases where missions have to be restarted because some trigger didn't work (enemies didn't show up, or when you're intimidating the property developer he just doesn't spawn in the car so you're stuck waiting for him to get out), lots of freezes when restarting, plenty of crashes.

# ? Dec 20, 2022 20:12

General Dog: Apr 26, 2008; Everybody's working for the weekend

Guess they just gave up?

# ? Dec 20, 2022 20:30

stringless: Dec 28, 2005; keyboard ⌨️ cowboy

They put out an update at the end of November, and like, the game is improved by it. It's just still hilariously unstable lol

Like now there are garages all across the map
Supposedly they made "several improvements to aiming" (it's still complete garbage though)

# ? Dec 20, 2022 20:48

StupidSexyMothman: Aug 9, 2010

& let's not forget COSMETICS!
https://twitter.com/SaintsRow/status/1602710216931409920
https://twitter.com/SaintsRow/status/1605247461395677184

also they released an update to SR4 that broke the game lol

# ? Dec 20, 2022 21:05

General Dog: Apr 26, 2008; Everybody's working for the weekend

This game is the unfinished horse drawing meme where the rear is customization options and the head is combat/mission design.

# ? Dec 20, 2022 21:10

RBA Starblade: Apr 28, 2008; Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

I've just been replaying the others lol. Going through Saints Row 1 for the first time and man the original was rough lol

Maybe when/if this hits steam now they got absorbed or for 15 bucks I'll pick this one up. It's a shame though

# ? Dec 20, 2022 21:36

BitBasher: Jun 6, 2004; You've got to know the rules before you can break 'em. Otherwise, it's no fun.

I just picked it up and played through for the first time. It's... okay? It's janky and seems just unfinished?

It really feels like a game made with the duck analogy. An artist paints a duck who has never seen a duck, only heard them described or read about them.

It got better towards the second half, but just feels half assed. Like they had to tick a bunch of "saints row" checkboxes.

# ? Dec 20, 2022 22:58

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

RBA Starblade posted:

I've just been replaying the others lol. Going through Saints Row 1 for the first time and man the original was rough lol

Yeah, the original one is just straight up GTA and it's only in the second one they start to play around with stuff.

I wanted to like this one and there's stuff I did enjoy but it feels like the thing they need to bring back from SR2 is the mission structure. You barely feel like you get any involvement with the gangs in this one. (Honestly I felt the same about the other Saints Row games, even if the gang thing doesn't really matter so much in 4.)

# ? Dec 20, 2022 23:01

Jimbot: Jul 22, 2008

I got back into the game to try it out with the supposed massive bug fix update from November and I still maintain my opinion about it. With a friend you can find fun but doing this solo is much less fun. Mission design just never kept with the times. It's like they saw most people complain about the "boring" stuff in GTA V and decided that every mission needed some balls-to-the-wall firefight in it and missed the point of having peaks and valleys with missions. Having "slow" ones just serve to enhance the action-packed ones and offer you a way to do some character and/or world building. Having balls-to-the-wall firefights isn't bad in of themselves but as reasons we're about to get in to they don't really hold up and the encounter design is extremely pedestrian.

Shooting still remains awful. 2's shooting is floaty and not super satisfying but enemies at least died when you shot them in the face and you could get infinite ammo and other ways to mitigate how rough it was. 3's was a massive improvement yet somehow they regressed past where 2's gameplay was - it's kind of impressive. The turn acceleration being a primary culprit but also enemies being bullet sponges, even when you turn their toughness down in the options, is another huge mark against it. Audio mixing is still very weird with some dialogue being super loud and a lot of the ambience being super soft despite standing right next to people. The driving model is wonky too with most high end vehicles having a really stiff turn radius while the junkers handle really well and can make really tight turns on a dime. Very GTA IV "driving a boat" car handling with some of them though you can at least drift in this game without spinning out.

I like the idea of the skills but some still remain broken, like quick draw and dual wield only works when it feels like it. The perk system is junk as having to equip them is just bad design - they should be accumulative. The writing still remains a nothing thing to me. Some character writing is fine and some missions are good, especially the LARP storyline, but the tone remains a massive disconnect for me. They either have to decide to go hardboiled gangster stuff like in 2 or go clownshoes nonsense like in 3, this splitting the difference does not do it any favors and it comes off as irreverent to its own story. Personally, I'd love to revisit the tone of the second game. Where it's played deathly serious while your character dresses like a clown than to have a clownish story where you're also dressed like a clown, but that's just me. Not a fan of being dropped in the middle of these characters' relationship either as I don't connect with them the way your player character does.

It's a huge disappointment because the stuff around these issues is quite good. The world's interesting if a bit barren, the customization is fantastic, the activities while not always a hit are at least varied. It's just missing all the small details that made 2 such a massive success in the eyes of its fans - the almost reactive interactions with the pedestrians, the hidden shops and details, calling numbers you find in the world to get voice messages, hidden activities that'd probably be too edgy or juvenile, an understated sing-along that just happened randomly. It wasn't always about the customization and hijinks, though those were part of it too.

I hope the game did well enough to warrant a sequel because I imagine a lot of development time went into the tech. It's a pretty decent engine so they just need to build upon it and spend more time in the design and storytelling. If this is the best Volition can do these days then I think whatever they were going to do as a developer has already been done. But I'll reserve that judgement if we get a sequel and see how that turns out.

This game was my biggest disappointment for 2022. At least with others on that list I enjoyed them a ton and found aspects of them to be disappointing while maintaining a very fun and fantastic core experience. This game doesn't even offer that.

Jimbot fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jan 2, 2023

# ? Jan 2, 2023 17:26

Elrond Hubbard: Mar 30, 2007; To ERH
*everyone applauds*

Can you wear a 'FEEL BOSS' tshirt in this one?

# ? Jan 3, 2023 08:09

Wee Bairns: Feb 10, 2004; Jack Tripper's wingman.

The game has many faults, but I've at least gotten my sale-price money's worth out of it.

And I'll never not laugh at most of the LARPing stuff, the exaggerated "fatalities" and assorted "pew pew ker-plow" voicework.

# ? Jan 3, 2023 08:25

stringless: Dec 28, 2005; keyboard ⌨️ cowboy

I agree with the long post

I keep loading it up every couple of days and doing one or two story missions then bouncing. The LARP ones are fantastic, the art theft one was hilarious but annoying

# ? Jan 3, 2023 08:30

Powershift: Nov 23, 2009

This game is on a free weekend on Xbox Live this weekend.

It's wild how busted it is, especially this long after launch,

# ? Jan 6, 2023 13:04

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# ? May 7, 2024 10:46

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

I seem to recall the writer who was behind SR2 and arguably the only person who was able to make the blend of 'over the top crime drama' but crime drama you could do in a hot dog costume has long since left Volition.

There just doesn't seem to be enough story there. Part of it is I think SR2 had the best plot progression system with the whole 'do this story mission/activity and take over this territory' and you got that increasing build up from, say, running away from the cops with Maero to having a giant monster truck death rally to cap off the Brotherhood storyline. The story felt more integrated into the game. Of course there were a lot more territories in Stilwater too. I thought we were going to get something close to it with Neenah and her thing with the Panteros and the car and all and... not really? Kevin and Eli don't even really have that. There's a lot of, I dunno, tantalizing glimpses but not much else. Sadly it's hard to find actual critique of the game because most people are just mad about minorities and saying capitalism is maybe not good.

# ? Jan 6, 2023 13:41

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