#Saints row 2 map buildings series#

At first this sounds like a neat idea, that you can reshape the city as you progress through the game. The only things that Saints Row really adds to the mix to stand apart are a wingsuit, which isn’t actually that novel anymore and proves only situationally useful, and the ability to construct your “Criminal Ventures” at one of a few preselected lots on the open world map.

There’s a city to explore, cars to hijack, stores to shop at, and a mix of story missions, side content, and collectibles. I don’t know how much time I actually need to spend explaining the basics of gameplay, because if you’ve played any open-world crime game in the past decade and a half, you probably already get it. But all these positive elements exist in service of open-world game design that feels quite dated and a story you’ll have a hard time investing in. And the game’s open world, the Southwestern city of Santo Ileso and the surrounding desert, is handily the best in the series-brimming with fun little details and personality. To give credit where it’s due, Volition has done a fine job of giving some modern polish to much of the core gameplay-namely shooting guns, driving cars, and, uh, shooting guns from the top of moving cars, I guess. I haven’t touched any of them since they originally launched, so I can’t speak to how they’ve aged, but I know I enjoyed them enough at the time they were released, in the context of where open-world games were at that moment. To be clear, I’m not saying those earlier Saints Row games would be better to play today. The difference is, whereas the ’06 Saints Row cribbed heavily from 3D-era Grand Theft Auto, the ’22 Saints Row feels like a pale imitation of the original Saints Row games.

#Saints row 2 map buildings series#

Like the first Saints Row, this reboot feels like an obvious riff on another series of games, with some minor improvements to gameplay but very little in the way of original ideas or personality. As it turns out, the game that the 2022 Saints Row most reminds me of is the 2006 original. Well, after spending a week with the game, I have my own surprising answer to that question. Would it shoot for the relatively grounded take of Saints Row 2? The balls-to-the-wall silliness of Saints Row IV? The middle ground between the two that was Saints Row: The Third? Ever since Volition announced it would be rebooting Saints Row, the big open question among fans has been which game in the series this new version would most closely resemble.