"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.
"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.