Virtual Adept

I have put in enough hours into Saint’s Row to finally write a few things about it. First of all, Saint’s Row is the only Xbox 360 game that I have bought new when it first came out. I paid $55, because I had a $5 off coupon at Best Buy. In my estimation, this is the only 360 title truly worth spending full price on. The game is essentially a next-gen high-definition clone of the Grand Theft Auto series, but it is a very well done clone, and it does offer some new things to the genre.

Make no mistake, this is a M rated game, for adults only. Please don’t let you kids play this game, it is extremely violent, has strong sexual themes, has lots of foul language, and the whole game is filled with criminal activities. You don’t want your kids imitating this. At all. As always, what age is responsible enough to play this game is dependent on the kids and the parents. I think anyone younger than 15 is probably too young but YMMV. The ESRB rates it for 18 and older only.

The basic goal of Saint’s Row is to increase the standing of your neighborhood gang, the 3rd Street Saints. The Saints are called that because their base of operations is an old abandoned church that is on 3rd street in the section of town called “the row”. The Saints are a mixed race gang, which is good, because with the very excellent character creation system for the game, you can make a character that is pretty much any color, any style, nearly anything you could want.

Saint’s Row has one of those facial morphing things that lets you change all kinds of things like how far the eyes are appart, the color of everything on your body (eyes, hair, skin, etc), a bajillion different hair styles, etc. If you want to make a character that looks like you, it’s probably doable with this face maker. During the game you have a lot of customization over wardrobe but you have to earn the cash to buy your hreads and some of them are excessively priced so for the really sweet looking styles you’re going to have to work your way up to them.

There is a story of a sort to this game, which you learn more about by completing missions. Most missions are blocked to you until you earn enough reputation points to unlock them. A lot of the missions and activities in Saint’s Row have a black humor to them. It’s funny, but in a sort of crude way. The radio stations also have a black satirical humor feel to them, much like they do in the GTA series. In addition to a fantastic soundtrack offered by the built in radio stations, Saint’s Row also lets you play playlists from music you have stored on the 360 hard drive.

Many missions will result in the Saints taking over more neighborhoods in the city. Controlling more neighborhoods will increase the amount of money going into the gang’s coffers. Sometimes rival gangs will try to re-take the neighborhoods you’ve already won, so you will have to go back to those neighborhoods and defeat the gangs that are invading it.

The controls for driving in Saint’s Row are extremely intuitive and work very well. It only took me five or ten minutes to get the hang of driving with the Xbox 360 controller. This is unlike GTA for PS2 which I never could get used to. The way you shoot out of vehicles works a lot better than GTA does, you can actually aim and shoot pretty much like normal, you don’t have to swith to some goofy side view mode and only be able to shoot out the sides. All in all the driving just feels right in this game. The streets also seem more realistic, especially the freeways which really did feel like driving on a freeway.

Saint’s Row has a lot of little touches that make an overall big impression. The water effects look amazing, with realistic reflections and wave patterns. Neon glow of the street light reflecting in the puddles of rain water, the rain effects feel realistic as well. Every building in the game looks unique. The city just feels alive, like a real city. The attention to detail of the artists and coders is amazing.

Sound effects and voice work in Saint’s Row are all exceptional. The game has a killer soundtrack which you hear by listening to the radios in your cars, much like GTA series. The cars all have a realistic sound to them. Weapons fire sounds good, and has that satisfactory feel to them. Wrecking and explosions all sound right. The rumble in the controller is put to good use here also.

While you’re out driving pedestrians will try to jump out of the way, cursing you as they do if you get too close to them. There are a finite number of character models used for the random pedestrians, but it’s a pretty big number because unlike in GTA games, you never see two identical pedestrians walking around in the same area. Even the cops that come when you start being bad will be unique. The AI is pretty good, also. Opponents will take cover if available, and will try to flank you so they can get you in a crossfire.

The gameplay revolves around story-focused missions, pick-up-anytime “activities”, and just freeform gameplay. Activities are kind of neat because you can do them over and over if you want and get more money if you need it. One of the early activities has you rounding up hos for a pimp that is sympathetic to the Saints’ cause. You drive around shooting rival “bad” pimps and getting their hos to go back with you to the ”good” pimp’s crib. If you need health you can eat food that you buy at the fast food joint “Freckle Bitches”. You get the food to go, but you can only carry four meals at a time with you. If you need ammo, head to “Friendly Fire” gun and ammo shop. Guns cost way more in Saint’s Row than they do in real life, but that is more of a game balance thing to prevent you from equipping extremely potent weaponry too early in the game. Your ride got all smashed up or you want to pimp it out? Visit the mechanics shops for repairs or lots of customization options.

A lot of activities and missions have you blowing up, stealing from, or otherwise killing rival gang members. While doing missions or in freeform mode when you kill a gang member your hostility meter with that gang goes up. The higher it gets, the more they come gunning for you when you’re in their turf. Same goes for the cops, which are essentially just another “gang” in this game except they also protect “neutrals”. You kill cops and that makes more cops come after you. Your hostility meters go down slowly over time if you stop killing rival gangs or cops. If you’re in a hurry to get them to zero, drive up to the nearest “Forgive and Forget” and for a donation they will put you back to zero on all hostility meters.

Several new-to-the-genre features in Saint’s Row eliminate much of the frustrating aspects of the Grand Theft Auto series. First of all, being killed, which is called getting “smoked” in Saint’s Row as opposed to “wasted” in GTA, puts you back at the nearest hospital and fails your mission. But you only lose some cash, your weapons are not taken away from you. Same thing with getting busted by the cops. You end up at the police station with some fines taken out of your cash, but you still get to keep your weaponry. This is pretty important because weapons cost money in SR instead of being power-ups like many of them are in GTA. 

Another great feature is that if you fail a mission, it will ask you if you want to restart or just quit. If you say restart, it takes away any weapons or reputation points you earned, and puts you back to the point where the mission started automatically. But if you say quit you keep the weapons you found and any respect you earned, but you have to drive back yourself to the mission start point and restart it. This gives the players a choice so if they want to restart a failed mission more quickly, they just pay a little price for it and don’t have to spend a lot of time driving back to the starting point.

Another great new feature of Saint’s Row is the crib and the garage. You have cribs all around the map (but you start with just one). Your crib lets you change out your wardrobe. Your crib also has a garage, where you can store a bunch of cars. I’m not sure yet what the limit is but the starting crib will let you store at least 8 cars or so (which is about how many I have in mine now). You walk up to the hot spot next to the garage and it brings up a menu asking you which car you want to drive, then you select it and the garage door opens and that vehicle is waiting for you to take for a spin. Another really nice feature is that if you blow up or somehow lose your car, you can still get it back by going back to your garage. Blowed up cars cost some money to replace but you don’t have to go find a new one and re-customize it.

Saint’s Row also lets you save anywhere, anytime. No more having to run back to a hideout to save the game. You can save and quit and be on your merry way. When you load the game, however, you won’t be in exactly the position you were when you saved. For one thing, you will appear back on the map at the closest “save point” from where you were on the map when you saved. Additionaly, if you were driving a vehicle you won’t be in it anymore, you’ll be on foot. This is a minor inconvenience, and if you want to just stick with driving back to the crib to save you can do that, it’s got a save point there too.

In sum, Saint’s Row is a superb game, well worth your time if you enjoy “urban crime themed” games like the Grand Theft Auto series. The game has a different feel to GTA but it still feels and plays similar enough that fans of that series will feel right at home here. The difficulty level of SR is lower than the GTA series, so casual gamers will like this game better than they liked GTA. Keep this one away from the kiddies, however, it’s definitely too racy and too violent for the little ones. Saint’s Row is simply the best game for the 360 so far, go buy it, now!

Final Grade: A+, a must buy!

I was reading on Interscription yesterday about Saint’s Row and Khidr posed the question “what would you like to see in the ultimate urban sandbox adventure?” I wanted to take some time and write a meaningful response, so I decided to think on it a while and make that a post on my own blog.

First of all, lets go into the background of this “genre” of game so we know the current state of the art in this style of game. This “genre” really didn’t take off until Grand Theft Auto 3 came out. There were games before that that were open ended and offered similar freedoms, but GTA3 defined the genre as a genre, and was also the first to be widely imitated.  GTA3 took elements of a bunch of other genres and mixed them together to form something refreshing and something that really had a lot of immersion because of all the things you could do in the game world.

Over time, the GTA series has improved and added more and more features. In the latest game, GTA San Andreas, elements of RPG and strategy were added to give the game even more depth. Tons of new minigames were added. The game is still primarily an action/adventure but because of all the added gameplay elements it feels like much more. Saint’s Row is a lot like GTASA except it’s in high def.

So, back to the question. What would be my ultimate urban sandbox adventure?  I think first of all I would ditch the whole “gangs and thugs” theme, which is way overdone at this point. There is no reason that this same “genre” of gameplay can not be done using different themes. Here’s some suggestions:

Grand Theft Horse - a wild west themed “urban” sandbox game, where you move from frontier town to frontier town doing missions, defending the town from injun uprisings, pony express, rescuing the rancher’s daughter from her virginity, the stuff of true grit heroes. GUN sort of did this but it messed up by making it mission based rather than a seamless world where you could do all the stuff it did without jumping into a “jarring” misson mode. And honestly GUN just didn’t have enough content, it isn’t a third the game of GTASA. Still, it did an okay job and is well worth a play if this subject matter interests you, especially at it’s bargain prices you can find it these days.

Grand Theft Cyber - How about a game set in William Gibson’s dystopic future of Neuromancer? Samurai chicks with razor claws and mirrored shades. Cyberpunk or just science fiction settings in general would be a refreshing change from the tired old gangsta urban themes. They could do one set in Shadowrun, also, that would so own. If Microsoft did something similar to the gameplay of Shadowrun for Sega Genesis, but in 3D and more mini-games and things to do, wow, I’m getting wood just thinking about that game.

Grand Theft Chariot - how’s about a game set in Rome during the height of the Roman Empire? You cold do chariot races, participate in trecharous sentate politics, be a mercenary or a legionaire helping to keep the territories in line, or so much more. Ancient Greece would also be a good setting, or just about any historical setting that there are good movies and books about. Gone With the Grand Theft Wind. Grand Theft Tank circa WW2. Grand Theft China. Grand Theft Privateer (aka Pimps at Sea ).

Grand Theft Dragon - fantasy themes are still very popular if a bit overdone, but I could still enjoy a good game set in a fantasy setting with gameplay similar to the GTA series. This has been done before, of course, the latest game of this sort being The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Oblivion is an action/adventure and an RPG. It’s action oriented, but it is also an RPG with levels and skills and stuff. If it had more mini-games and if the horses had worked more like GUN it could have been even better. More interativity is needed, more care taken to individualize the NPCs, and such, but overall a very good job, and easily one of the best games of 2006 if not the best. Morrowind is a bit dated but it offers a lot of the same “non-linear, immersive world” fun that Oblivion does. The Gothic games are another good example.

But lets get back to “urban” themed games. I would like to see even more mini-games seamlessly built into the game world. And not just about killing or driving, we need lots of new kinds of interactivity. Pick up a basketball and get into a game with some kids. Buy a skateboard and take it to the skating park and it switches into Tony Hawk mode. Buy some bait and go down to the docks and fish. Buy a bunch of ingredients and become Chef Boyardee. Visit a casino and play the slots, blackjack, or a nice round of Texas Hold’em. Visit the arcades and play Pac Man or Spy Hunter. Have gratuitous sex with your girlfriend and prove your sexual prowess. Okay, just kidding on that last one, I’m sure no one would even think of doing that.

I should be able to do some normal jobs too, instead of just being a thug all the time. Like maybe I can do a mailman job or delivery boy, or I could be a taxi driver, a fireman, putting out the fires that got started when I wrecked the SUV into the gas station, an ambulance medic (including CPR mini-game), a cop, a detective, a construction worker, etc. Why not let me be a computer geek programming in a cubicle all day long?

Another thing I think is essential to the ultimate urban adventure is for the game to include more RPG elements like GTASA started doing. My favorite genre is RPG after all, and what I really want is a game that is fully immersive but with RPG stats like Oblivion and in other settings besides just fantasy. There should be some experience points system so you can improve your character over time. Having the ability to customize the character would be nice (and not just looks), and the choices you make should have an impact on what you can do in the game. You should be able to learn different skils and make choices while developing the character.

 My last point I want to make about the ultimate urban sandbox game is that it needs to be more targeted toward a mass, casual audience. The GTA games are too hard. Casual gamers do not like repeating the same extreme difficult missions over and over and failing and having to drive back to the mission place over and over again. Turn down the difficulty and/or add difficulty settings to the options so that casual gamers can get in on the fun too. Ideally the game should be able to turn on and off settings to make the game more or less difficult.  Oblivion has a slider bar. And keep the mini-games easy enough that a beginner can do them, and then gradually ramp up the difficulty to them or something. The goal here is not to challenge the player but to give them freedom to do whatever they want.

Another big, big help to this kind of game would be to add Save Anywhere ability. Repeating hard missions would be a lot less cumbersome if I didn’t have to drive back to the start of the mission and then restart the mission cinematics over and over. Saving mid mission would really help. I don’t care if you want to give me the Big Pussy Achievement on XBL if I chose to use it, I still want that option.

While I’m sure no game could ever be the “Ultimate” game, it’s fun to think of all the options. What are the features you would want in your “Ultimate Urban Sandbox Game”?