Posting the same review for Saints Row and Saints Row 2 because they meld together in my mind thanks to how similar they are and how close together I played them. I do remember having pros and cons to each though and they are separate games.

Saints Row 1-2 aren't great games, but they've got something special. The primary problem with them is just how many side activities you have to do to rack up enough respect to continue the main quest. It's a great idea because it forces you to engage with all the side content and you'll find yourself doing a lot of minigames and going shopping and whatnot to earn respect, but it goes too far with it and you feel like all you're doing is side quests and they're getting samey and you eventually drop it. However, the gameplay until you drop it is awesome and I've never enjoyed shopping for clothes as much as I did in Saints Row 1-2. Might not be the best or most polished games around, but they offer something special I haven't found elsewhere and I love them for it.

The first Saints Row game is fine for the most part, the characters are the best part of the game, the story is straight-forward, and most of the missions are pretty fun, albeit a bit a bit challenging with no checkpoints. However, I will say there's a lot of things about the game that bugs me. The activities get pretty boring after a while, some of which are clearly more fun than others, I hated most of the Los Carnales missions (don't even get me started on the final mission), and I find it very annoying how often you'll be losing a lot of ammo, especially when all the shops close at night. I will say for the time it came out and for what it's worth, it still has its high points.

This is my first time going through the series seriously so I started with the first game. the story I think is pretty cool for what it is and has some great characters like Dex and Johnny Gat, the game has a lot of mid 2000's charm that's shown in it's setting and radio stations. the biggest problem with this game nowadays is easily it's gameplay because sometimes it's either piss easy or janky and frustrates you, the biggest drawback of this game is locking the main missions behind the respect bar which I can usually look past but the side content you do for the respect bar in this game is mostly pretty fucking bad. and the respect gain is so fucking slow but honestly I'm still glad I played through it and I can't wait to try Saints Row 2

*Completed the Vice Kings missions, haven't finished.

Let it be noted that Saints Row is innovative in that the first two Saints Row games effectively have 3 play-at-your-pace linear story arcs, the anthology of missions for each gang feels like 3 games of their own. In addition to allowing the player to choose which to start, it is non-linear in allowing you to play between arcs, so you can finish a mission of one gang's mission arc, and start a mission for another gang.
Another series (Grand Theft Auto) has done this, but not quite in the way where there is always a different mission for a different story arc available to the player for most of the playthrough.

"Mom, can I get GTA San Andreas?"
"We have GTA San Andreas at home."
GTA San Andreas at home:

Pros:
- great voice cast and performances across the board are very entertaining
- lots of unique cutscenes and dialogue depending on who you're working for or cruising around the city with
- there's some great attention to detail that you wouldn't expect from a small studio's first attempt at an open world sandbox
- cars feel good to drive and there's a lot of variety with how different kinds of vehicles handle
- some of the most ruthless police AI I've experienced in any GTA game or clone
- missions and strongholds are [mostly] fun and provide the most gameplay variety

Cons:
- just about everything else
- shooting never feels right, no matter how much I played with the sensitivity
- on foot you kind of get used to the shooting mechanics (after like ten hours) but it's practically impossible in a moving vehicle
- a lock on system would've done this game wonders
- activities are incredibly repetitive and they're tied to progression, you need to complete them over and over to continue the story
- often times activities will have you driving from one end of the map to other, and there's no retry option like in missions, so you have to go ALL THE WAY BACK just to give it another go
- you're constantly at the mercy of the RNG when it comes to enemy AI, especially in vehicles
- missions do let you retry but there's no checkpoints or drive skips, so again you could be driving from one side of the map to the other over and over and over again until you get it right
- the enemy AI combined with the touchy shooting make this game way more difficult than it needed to be
- the early hours of the game don't give you nearly enough money to afford ammo, which you almost always need to purchase yourself to prepare for missions/activities
- when you die you lose tons of money after spawning outside a hospital
- if you're stuck in an activity without ammo, you're shit out of luck
- stores close at night meaning you have to wait around if you need to buy more ammo (the only ways to time skip are by taking multiple taxi rides or visiting one of the three movie theatres)
- plenty of visual bugs and screen tear, honestly playing the game for extended periods of time gave me a headache
- the activities stretch this 8 hour game to 20 grueling hours

The best thing I can say about Saints Row, aside from the cast, is that it laid the ground work for a fantastic sequel that improves in practically every way. I can understand preferring the setting and subject matter over SR 3 and 4, but if you think this is a better game than those you're just kidding yourself. I've never been so frustrated with a GTA clone in my life. This is one I will never be going back to.

I like this Saints Row game in particular. Its a bit different looking back at its roots, this game was getting off the ground after a long development. What I like about Saints Row is freedom you can pick the activities you want even at the start of the game. They all aren't the most perfect or fun though. Hitman is just the worst activity, but has the best unlocks. Despite its flaws it was a cool concept. I liked the games story its very basic but some of the characters have some really good voice acting like Benjamin King and Julius. This game does some things better than Saints Row 2 like the soundtrack, graphics, and even how the cops look. I feel like were better than the sequel. The only big flaw with this game is how you shoot out of the vehicles while driving, it feels difficult. There is a ton of screen tearing and when things get to hectic the frames can drop like flies. The multiplayer looks cool but I never got to play it.


"You ready for this son?" - Benjamin King

The original Saints Row. A solid 360 exclusive, a solid early console title (since it came within a year since the 360 came out) but definitely a game that has aged rather...roughly

I know much of it was caused by it coming out before a lot of features that we now can't live with were becoming the standard (such as checkpoints) but there's a lot of other questionable gameplay design choices that were (thankfully) all fixed by the 2nd or 3rd game. One gripe I have with the game is the frustrating amount of grinding the game forced me into committing to by forcing me into performing the side activities. While some of the side activities can be entertaining and I can understand the design philosophy (most players wouldn't play the side-missions otherwise unless they were seeking to 100% the game) I do believe it's not being done justice here given how hit and miss the side-missions are, especially in comparation with the subsequent games which both have improved the side-missions as well as make the game much less of a grindfest, relying you to play the bearable side-missions until you can't gain any more experience from them (or if you're lucky to realize the hostage submission gives a decent amount of experience for what it's worth).

Side-Missions aside, the story, while nothing memorable to write home about, was alright enough. The missions were challenging but in a fun way for the most part. They're definitely very arcadey and straightforward, especially when we're talking about the Stronghold missions. I definitely enjoyed the missions for the most part because they were challenging enough while also not feeling too unfair (well, the lack of checkpoints made them seem more unfair but looking at the big picture they weren't too bad)

The overall atmosphere was pretty charming. I'm very nostalgic about the mid 2000s so given how the game came out in 2006 it definitely felt like a time capsule from the era. Everything about it made me look back at 2000s hip hop culture (for better or for worse) as well as the 2000s overall.

Saints Row, quirks and annoyances aside, is a solid gta clone. If you want a straightforward gta clone with a gangwar centered story then I can't help but recommend the game if you own an XBOX 360, XBOX One or XBOX Series X. The game is exclusive to the XBOX, mainly the 360, but the developers have made the effort to make the game available on the newer consoles, in order to help the game not stay forever stranded on one platform for the rest of time (looks at you, JSRF). The lack of ports is explained with the fact the developers have apparently lost the source code, thus being unable to natively port it to any newer platform or the PC. Is it worth picking up a 360 for? No, not really. However, is it worth dusting off your old 360 to take it out for a whirl for, maybe to even hype yourself up for the reboot? Sure. There's a lot of fun times to be had.

The original Saints Row was back before Saints Row became this post-ironic commentary on video games and pop culture so expect it to take itself much more seriously than what you'd expect with Saints Row 3 or even 2. There's no dildo weapon, no barrel rolls, no futuristic stuff or any of the most outwordly. The most out there you'd get is with the radio commercials, gangsters wielding rocket launchers or with Stefan the fashion consultant speaking in third person. The game is a straighforward gangster story with little of the quirkiness that ended up defining the franchise.

3/5