Saints Row 2's features

[divided_throwaway]

I wanted to start this discussion to bring to attention this game I really like, and how other games right now don't generally live up to this in its various respects. I understand that the game was a console port and often has issues with its PC ports, but I wanted to bring to attention this game for the features it has.

Features are listed in the spoiler:

Spoiler

 

For instance, compared to a game like Grand Theft Auto 5, Saints Row 2's character customisation is highly complex. You can change whether or not the character has an open or closed breast pocket when wearing a suit, add logos to various clothing, determine whether they tuck in a shirt or not and are able to cross dress. You also get to wear a hazmat suit and you can customise the graffiti art you want to use in the graffiti minigame. Many of these customisation features ceased to exist in newer Saints Row games much to my chagrin and in most other games as well.

http://gtaforums.com/topic/752751-why-wont-rockstar-let-us-tuck-in-our-t-shirts/

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/634490-grand-theft-auto-v/67299889

Closer to real life, you can seat 4 people in two-door convertibles like this:

 

 

Unlike with comparable cars in GTA 5:

 

Your character in-game is also able to effect its environment; as well as with the animations the character can perform while idle, if you own all the in-game businesses, you will have an in-game portrait of your character on an advertisement of said business:

 

 

I haven't seen a similar feature in other games.

 

You also have the ability to assign a default facial expression for your character:

 

 

change your character's fighting animation, default walking style and you have a sex slider which finely adjusts your character's phenotype so they resemble a man, woman or neither.

 

In-game, you have a high number of destructible and usable items for its genre: small trees can pulverise when hit by a fast and large enough vehicle; parking metres can be picked up and used as improvised melee weapons.

 

The main character's "cribs" (comparable to GTAO's safehouses) have diverse interiors; I'm disappointed that that game had to recycle the same interior even though it was and is capable of using resources for more.

 

After missions, you can access the interiors of the buildings you completed missions in, such as the Police Station and the pagoda-styled Ronin building in Saints Row 2; in contrast, in GTA V, you require game exploits to do the same, such as with a Twitch stream by iAmSp00n with him and his friends in the Humane Labs and Research building.

 

I feel like that the only aspects that GTA V can compete with is in vehicle customisation (more complex than in Saints Row 2, where you can change vehicle horns among other things) and map size.

Yes, APB: Reloaded exists if I wanted complex customisation; I played it, but its gameplay was mediocre (way too much like a traditional third-person shooter, lacked cross-dressing and other customisation features in Saints Row 2, motorcycles and I can't really tolerate the microtransactions system; plus, the game seemed to crash a lot on the laptop I ran it), which I fully came to realise when I discovered that the game was made by Ruffian Games (who also developed Crackdown 2, another game of mixed reception. I played Crackdown 1 and although the game was really basic in gameplay, it was fun until an update which meant I can't resurrect gangs after killing their bosses).

 

I understand that during the creation of Saints Row: The Third, Volition Inc.'s publishers then (THQ) were nearing bankruptcy, but I am annoyed that they decided to make exactly the same game in terms of looks and feel after THQ declared bankruptcy. I'm also annoyed with the game industry that they produce games without such features in mind; I feel like they're not taking advantage of the processing power available to them as well as making the game replayable. Saints Row 2's features, highly complex customisation and ability to interact with the world makes the game highly replayable and better worth my money than a game like Call of Duty or Battlefield.

 

Sadly, this game is recognised for its poor PC port for Windows and SteamOS due to poor developer effort; I don't want to see this game fade into oblivion and I would like future game developers to be inspired by this game.

 

All I ask is for future game developers to take inspiration from this game, and I would like people here to give their thoughts.

[divided_throwaway]

Mods feel free to move this if you think I can gain more responses through that way.

[Misanthrope]

I feel you. That's why I play Skyrim then and Fallout 4 heavily nowadays: Mods, like tons of fucking mods. Though I had a blast with Saints Row 2 as well 3 was a bit more meh and 4 felt like another boring superhero game. Like whoever tought that on a game where you focus heavily on driving you should give the player the ability to basically fly at will really dropped the ball. Is not like the game was massively large to explore like Just Cause 2 and 3 but it was a lame copy/paste of the exact same fucking city I already knew. Except now I get to stay on top of empty roof after empty roof with nothing to do...yay!

[divided_throwaway]

25 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I feel you. That's why I play Skyrim then and Fallout 4 heavily nowadays: Mods, like tons of fucking mods. Though I had a blast with Saints Row 2 as well 3 was a bit more meh and 4 felt like another boring superhero game. Like whoever tought that on a game where you focus heavily on driving you should give the player the ability to basically fly at will really dropped the ball. Is not like the game was massively large to explore like Just Cause 2 and 3 but it was a lame copy/paste of the exact same fucking city I already knew. Except now I get to stay on top of empty roof after empty roof with nothing to do...yay!

The skyscrapers are a fucking waste. Seriously, if you're gonna plant so many of them in a map, at least make them have accessible interiors. They're all useless and serve no purpose than to look pretty and create inconvenient obstacles in flight.

 

Plus, I really hate the speed limit that you have for all vehicles (and I presume even flying in SRIV) in GTA and Saints Row so maps take forever to cross; you have taxis that can take you between parts of the map in newer GTA games, but only up to Saints Row 2.

 

I want more developers to play Saints Row 2 and make games based off of Saints Row 2; Saints Row 3 and 4 are bigger wastes of time and money for everyone, especially since multiplayer is cooperative only (you have children's games that are competitive like Splatoon).

 

Unfortunately, as Saints Row 2 has no influence, games just feel boring since no one wants to compete with Saints Row 2.

 

Saints Row 2 on consoles was fun itself without the mods. I don't mind mods, but I feel like it's a bit disappointing for other games to need mods just to be fun, e.g. GTA IV at the worst.

[Vavetti]

3 hours ago, divided_throwaway said:

 issues with its PC ports,

That's a slight understatement.

It's know to be the worst pc port of all time, and for good reason...

But the game itself is great, shame you need GotR to have it work somewhat properly.

[Misanthrope]

1 minute ago, divided_throwaway said:

The skyscrapers are a fucking waste. Seriously, if you're gonna plant so many of them in a map, at least make them have accessible interiors. They're all useless and serve no purpose than to look pretty and create inconvenient obstacles in flight.

 

Plus, I really hate the speed limit that you have for all vehicles (and I presume even flying in SRIV) in GTA and Saints Row so maps take forever to cross; you have taxis that can take you between parts of the map in newer GTA games, but only up to Saints Row 2.

In GTA (not 5 though cause of the online nonsense) I always modded common cars to go stupid fast. I remember having endless fun in San Andreas by modding the sports bike to basically super speeds but not so much you couldn't control them and I was able to scale up vertically on the airport ramps and do insane flips and shit.

 

Good times, we did so much with such simple games just by editing INI files back then.

[divided_throwaway]

10 minutes ago, Vavetti said:

That's a slight understatement.

It's know to be the worst pc port of all time, and for good reason...

But the game itself is great, shame you need GotR to have it work somewhat properly.

I hear that PS Now is coming to PC, so people can stream the game instead of have to suffer through the bugs. NVIDIA's GeForce Now doesn't even offer it. Now it's all a question of whether or not people will use PS Now to play Saints Row 2.

 

I appreciate the porting of Saints Row 2 to Linux because it widens the audience, but I think that now Vulkan's out, it can help Volition Inc. better optimise the game if they bother with it.

 

Unfortunately, the gaming scene this decade is a bit like that from the earlier days of it: no damn innovation in terms of features, but pretty graphics. 3D games just feel like platformers now since you can't interact with the map in a sophisticated manner and character customisation is highly simplified. Damn you, 90s nostalgia!

[Vavetti]

2 minutes ago, divided_throwaway said:

I hear that PS Now is coming to PC, so people can stream the game instead of have to suffer through the bugs. NVIDIA's GeForce Now doesn't even offer it. Now it's all a question of whether or not people will use PS Now to play Saints Row 2.

 

I appreciate the porting of Saints Row 2 to Linux because it widens the audience, but I think that now Vulkan's out, it can help Volition Inc. better optimise the game if they bother with it.

Highly doubt many people will use it to play SR2.

And you'll still be capped to 30 I guess, not terrible since on pc it won't be doing an awful lot better.

[divided_throwaway]

Just now, Vavetti said:

Highly doubt many people will use it to play SR2.

And you'll still be capped to 30 I guess, not terrible since on pc it won't be doing an awful lot better.

I don't know how or what will bring that sort of game back. I've been thinking of developing a game like it, but I'm awful at coding and being motivated, and I doubt I'd be able to get people on board to help me with the project; I hope one-man game projects are common, though, because it'd make the process less daunting.

 

On another topic, Koei's games make me really dizzy because of its high frame rates; funny, since I play first person shooters as well at 30+ FPS.