Current Events > I just beat Saints Row 2. Honestly much better than the GTA games.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Except for Vice City.

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2's the best

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Yeah, Saints Row 3 is both a step up and step down from Saints row 2 in some ways.

I enjoyed the 3rd the most

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Unfortunately two is the peak of the series. 3 and 4 were fun in their own ways but 2 is the best.

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While both series had dumb goofy humor I feel like SR went a little too far with that. Plus, they weren't as memorable as a whole like the GTA games were to me. SR did do some stuff better, but overall GTA is much better overall.

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ApexEditor posted...

Yeah, Saints Row 3 is both a step up and step down from Saints row 2 in some ways.

It's just a step down

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SR2 is my favorite open-world crime simulator of all time.

sutree posted...

It's just a step down

That's not true. I vastly prefer SR2 but The Third is much more polished. It controls better, is more stable, and less glitchy.

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Agreed. 2 is great, it knew it was a game.

GTA is impressive and can tell a story, but it throws the whole "fun" aspect out the window.

I never played sr1 or 3, tried 4 but couldn't get into the aliens or superpowers thing. Too bad they didn't stick with the formula they had with 2.

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Saints Row are bargain bin GTA games.

I bought SR 2 out of a bargain bin some time after GTA 4 failed to keep my interest after the first few hours. Turned out it was more GTA than GTA was at the time, and I loved it. I don't know if it quite tops San Andreas for me personally, but SR2 was far better than it had any right to be. And it still has one of the best character creators / customization of any game I've played.

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The character models in SR2 were complete shit thats why I like the Third bc the models were WAY better.

3 and 4 are good but theyre "wacky" gta now.

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Southernfatman posted...

While both series had dumb goofy humor I feel like SR went a little too far with that. Plus, they weren't as memorable as a whole like the GTA games were to me. SR did do some stuff better, but overall GTA is much better overall.

I was talking specifically SR2. I cant judge the rest of the series. I know it gets much sillier but SR2 was just the right amount of over the top, and overall just more fun and consistently enjoyable than most GTA games.

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Lairen posted...

3 and 4 are good but theyre "wacky" gta now.

Yeah considering the series reputation I was surprised how not super wacky SR2 was. It was more like self aware campy bad assery.

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I wish the PC port of Saints Row 2 was playable without mods.
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Saints Row games may be wacky and fun but i still prefer GTA tbh.

IndustrialTrudg posted...

Yeah considering the series reputation I was surprised how not super wacky SR2 was. It was more like self aware campy bad assery.

Its very weird cause SR1 and 2 have a similar serious tone. 3 has maybe one or 2 serious parts but the rest is wacky. 4 is practically a parody of gta and super hero games.

I like them all a lot but their tone is everywhere.

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Beveren_Rabbit posted...

I wish the PC port of Saints Row 2 was playable without mods.

I played it on PC and it was mostly fine for me. Maybe it was pre modded, but I only had minor issues.

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ZevLoveDOOM posted...

Saints Row games may be wacky and fun but i still prefer GTA tbh.

I strongly prefer SA games and stopped playing GTA after 4 and have no interest in 5. SA was the last GTA i enjoyed.

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ZevLoveDOOM posted...

Saints Row games may be wacky and fun but i still prefer GTA tbh.

Honestly didnt find SR2 to be anymore wacky than the GTA games.

Lairen posted...

Its very weird cause SR1 and 2 have a similar serious tone. 3 has maybe one or 2 serious parts but the rest is wacky. 4 is practically a parody of gta and super hero games.

I like them all a lot but their tone is everywhere.

Yeah tonally it reminded me of Yakuza at points tbh. Some moments were downright brutal.

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Still haven't got around to playing 2. Played 3, 4 and Gat Out Of Hell. 3 is easily the best - although it's not entirely absent from 3; they rely far, FAR too much on missions that are just wrapping some story context around the side activities in 4 and GooH. (I could see it being arguably justified in GooH due to being a smaller side game, but 4 has no excuse.)

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I want to show you one characters tone:
Gat:
1: Serious
2: Serious and now very sad and pissed
3: Dead
4: Uh you save him. Hes fine.
GooH:Um hes in literal hell after the literal world was destroyed.

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GTA III > GTA Vice City > Saints Row III > Saints Row II > GTA V > da rest

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Dakimakura posted...

GTA III > GTA Vice City > Saints Row III > Saints Row II > GTA V > da rest

I dont think gta3 and Vice city aged well. Sure at the time they were ground breaking but now.......

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Lairen posted...

I dont think gta3 and Vice city aged well. Sure at the time they were ground breaking but now.......

Probably but my rankings are from when they first came out as I played them all when they first came out.

Edit: from nostalgia alone though I doubt my list would change if I played them all again right now though.

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Lairen posted...

I dont think gta3 and Vice city aged well. Sure at the time they were ground breaking but now.......

I played Vice City a few months ago and while its janky as fuck, it's still a lot of fun and is trimmed of the more boring stuff that tends to plague GTA imo.

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SR 2 is the best. I still remember going onto pimp street and starting a fight just to get attacked by a army of pimps that I used my various fighting styles to fight. I also remember going through the whole game only using the desert eagle and having coast. Not to mention that it isn't linear like 3 (never played 4) and you can fight the gangs in any order you want. Hell you can even slowly take territory from all of them before doing a boss gauntlet. So many creative ways to reach the end of the game. While I liked 3, especially the gang where you have to go into a vr simulation, it jsut didn't have that same feeling to it and I was pissed that johnny died at the beginning. So it's a step down for me.

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all i remember from sr2 and 3 was the frustrating cheap rubber banding ai that respawns non stop in vehicle missions.

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I think Saints Row is a fun alternative, but GTA outclasses it in pretty much everything. I dislike the driving in the entire SR series. Forced side missions SR 2 are pretty annoying. Wouldn't mind its character creation in GTA, though.

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Saint's Row 2 went to some seriously dark places. So much so that 3 and 4's "goofiness" by comparrison felt like an attempt to try and correct it. But, it didn't need correcting. It was just damn good storytelling.

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008Zulu posted...

Saint's Row 2 went to some seriously dark places. So much so that 3 and 4's "goofiness" by comparrison felt like an attempt to try and correct it. But, it didn't need correcting. It was just damn good storytelling.

GTAIV did the going to dark places thing way better.

SR2 is alot of fun. I still play through it once a year or so. I love grabbing random people and just tossing them off a cliff or into traffic. The music selections are great too.
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GTASA: I cant wait for the next one!
GTAIV: I dont care to play any more GTAs....

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evil_cricket posted...

I think Saints Row is a fun alternative, but GTA outclasses it in pretty much everything. I dislike the driving in the entire SR series. Forced side missions SR 2 are pretty annoying. Wouldn't mind its character creation in GTA, though.

I dont see how gta outclasses it in everything. GTA tends to have a lot of boring missions while I didnt dislike any if them in SR2.

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Conflict posted...

And there's also that Ronin mission where Gat just beats the shit out of Shogo for ordering Aisha's murder. I haven't played the game in 12 years and these moments still stick out to me

Yeah that ones stuck with me too.

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IndustrialTrudg posted...

I dont see how gta outclasses it in everything. GTA tends to have a lot of boring missions while I didnt dislike any if them in SR2.

Eh, it just boils down to opinions. A large part is that the physics engines in GTA are infinitely better, imo. That goes for everything from driving to shooting. Even with the occasional 'boring' mission, overall it's a more enjoyable game to me.

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I just need saints row 5 already

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evil_cricket posted...

Eh, it just boils down to opinions. A large part is that the physics engines in GTA are infinitely better, imo. That goes for everything from driving to shooting. Even with the occasional 'boring' mission, overall it's a more enjoyable game to me.

Fair enough I agree with vehicle physics. I dont recall gta having decent shooting physics though.

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IndustrialTrudg posted...

Fair enough I agree with vehicle physics. I dont recall gta having decent shooting physics though.

I just prefer the feel of the guns and character movement in GTA, and I don't have a problem with lock on targeting. Saints Row feels sloppier to me, and the shooting doesn't really pack the same punch.

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Conflict posted...

And there's also that Ronin mission where Gat just beats the shit out of Shogo for ordering Aisha's murder. I haven't played the game in 12 years and these moments still stick out to me

Burying that guy alive felt very satisfying, after what he had done.

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Yeah, I was surprised by how dark SR2 actually gets. Aside from the Sons of Samedi, the storylines were darker than most of the GTA games.

I think my favorite is the secret post-game mission. The former head of the Saints confronts your character and says that you started the Saints to stop the Vice Kings from destroying the city. But the Boss is a psychopath and the Saints are now just as bad. The Boss doesn't listen and just shoots the guy. It's an interesting deconstruction of the typical protagonist of this game. Yeah, you were doing goofy shit and running people over and doing those fun little rampages...and they all make your character a complete psychopath. It was really interesting to me, but then SR3 went super fucking goofy.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Oh, not just that. They hide her in a car of a monster truck rally and trick her boyfriend into crushing her.

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ApexEditor posted...

Yeah, Saints Row 3 is both a step up and step down from Saints row 2 in some ways.

Yeah its when thr craziness is bumped up a little too much. 4 the gameplay is fun but I cant take thr game even slightest bit serious.

But yeah I wish they'd keep making games. They could always start a new story arc with a new MC.

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Yeah, one of the things that really stuck with me about SR2 was that, in the middle of all the wacky and borderline-juvenile chaos, shit could turn really dark at the drop of a hat; and for reasons I still can't fully explain, those jarring tonal shifts actually worked.

On my first playthrough I chose the Gang quests in the following order - Ronin, Sons of Samedi, and finally Brotherhood - and in hindsight I feel that I got pretty lucky with that choice, as it was optimal in terms of story progression and leaving a positive effect on me. Ronin hits you fairly early-on with Aisha's death, but it's a more secondhand tragedy since Gat is the one most affected; still, it was a great way to actually get me invested in the plot and characters early-on. Then you've got a more detached sense of downtime with the Sons, and finally things get much more personal with the Brotherhood, with the murder of your protege quickly escalating into a nemesis-like rivalry with Maero, something that is given extra weight by the fact that Maero starts off as a fairly reasonable guy.

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Was this the one with Holding Out For a Hero? Because that was a super fun moment.

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