Back when Doomeru brought home his first 360 I swore the second it became my hand-me-down I'd play Saints Row end-to-end with our personalized BD Wong character...Right after I finished playing Condemned...
Oh hello there! Perhaps you'd like to join our multicultural drug-running judeo-christian street gang?
But what started as a joke has led to my confession: Chewing through this GTA-knockoff was actually as satisfying as movie-buttered popcorn, and I left it behind like an explosive evacuation of last night's comfort food washed down with liquid therapy; feeling lighter, with a spring in my step.
Sure, the radio stations suck and the city is only marginally more interesting than a deserted South American island, but the controls are so smooth! And in the unlikely event that you die mid-mission, or in the more likely event that the victory conditions of your mission don't, you know, load, then you can continue from the beginning without having to drive back to it. You don't even have to kill yourself to cue the restart!
If I've gone easy on this game it's surely a testament to lowered expectations. Not encountering the bugs documented so elegantly by others, I could only shrug at the conceit used to stretch out Saints Row's hours:
You can only take plot-related missions after earning enough respect, which is gained by repeatedly performing menial tasks such as babysitting drug dealers, chauffeuring hookers, and aimless killing sprees. Earned respect is then expended on accepting a real job, and upon it's successful completion, said respect is lost. What is this, Office Space?
Yo bitch, where my stapler at?
