It's astounding how tone deaf and out of touch some AAA Game Publishers are. When you think of Saints Row, I'm really hoping you think of Saints Row II or Saints Row the Third. Whatever your thoughts on these titles, it's usual, even recommended that these titles be your introduction to the series. Despite their faults, they're not the 2022, and now that is something to be thankful for. When you build your gang up like a bunch of thugs who are loyal but violent, the last thing you want to see is a bunch of wusses take over their gang name. These people take over the gang without the slightest idea of how a gang is run in order to pay their student loans.... because relateable I guess?
The voice acting, the jokes and the story are all the weakest part of this game. It has its random charms here and there, and we'll cover those, but then you look at these cut scenes and try to find what makes these... "jokes" funny. There's some running gag about nachos, random stupidity from the characters, and there's some guy in the gang who is a whore to men and women and likes waffles. These are the surface level things we find throughout all of these characters. They keep talking one liners and order wimpy things from the bars in order to make it a funny gag that they're a bunch of light weights. What it does is insult the titles that came before it.
You can't have a good story if you don't like the characters, that's a universal truth. When you want a cool gang character with a hard life but a great sense of morals, then you've got something interesting. When they're a bunch of hipsters who take selfies and post on social media like a bunch of preteens, it's really hard to like them because you run into people like that wherever you go.
Once you get past the outer layers of the story and go into the... "bad guy"... the plot only gets worse. I'm going to spoil the "twist" for you right now. Some criminal guy wants to take over the Saints because he wants to take the main character's friends for himself. No, not a good gang or an essential set of cold-blooded street thugs, he wants friends to stay with him in some forced sitcom setting. I wish I was joking, but it's true. He betrays the main character, stabbing them, and then tries to take their friends even though he was getting to be friends with them anyway. It does not make any logical sense on any front.
Then there's the gameplay. It goes without saying that it's worse than the main original series. It may beat Gat out of Hell or it's around the same overall. You go up against "super" enemies that have these tedious shields that last forever and just soak up your bullets. Or they have indestructible time sensitive shields that blatantly waste your patience. The combat is stilted, but it isn't the worst. There's still a little bit of fun to have shooting from cars.
Cars, let's talk about those for a moment. They handle like absolute crap. Turning feels like it's lacking a steering belt or any fluid. The controls on a vehicle are so bad, it's almost jarring to play one of the older titles because once you beat Saints 2022, you've played so long that you need to get used to driving cars that aren't GARBAGE.
The police are another point of horrific lacking in mechanics. Usually, in a Saints title, the more police you kill, the harder they get and bring in armored vehicles and/or tanks. However, after you kill the police in 2022, then kill anyone making calls, your police stars disappear and no one goes after you anymore. It is so easy to lose infamy from both police and enemy gangsters, it's comical!
The game mechanics, many of them, are there to waste your time and send you on wild goose chases. Playing through the entire game is a serious chore because these side missions and unlocking new storyline missions requires you play the mini games. You know, the worst part of Saints Row the Third and Saints Row 4? They bring it into this full force and it is just as annoying, if not more.
As much as I've heard about the Insurance Fraud games, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they must have fixed the glitch, at least for the PS5 port. Many complained that, once starting the minigame, all of the vehicles suddenly disappear off the streets. This time, there were plenty of cars and it was pretty easy to ragdoll across several at once while having explosions blow you straight into the air. As said before, this game has some charm. There's some pretty interesting vehicle combat that can entertain you for a little while. Since the police are a joke, you can sit there and destroy anyone and everyone with special proximity mines and explosive human beings. Well, you drop a grenade in their trousers and throw them at someone.
There is not a lot to like about this title. After some ups and downs of an overall solid series, this game is an insult. The characters are unlikeable with absolute cringeworthy dialogue, the missions are dull and the enemies are bullet sponges that waste your time to a malicious extent. The graphics aren't bad and it seems that they fixed many of the glitches for this port, though there were several to be seen. If you stand on a car for too long, sometimes you just glitch inside of it, kicking out the former passenger(s). If you drive over a broken fire hydrant, you will float upward like a weightless feather on the spewing water. Sometimes, when you shoot people, they disappear and quite often in scenes, someone will be talking to you while you're invisible.
Just skip this title, get a PS4 version of GTA V if you don't have it, or just try another Saints Row main title game. This sandbox game was rushed through production hell thanks to changing the game in the middle of development several times. Was it worth the effort? Absolutely not. Was it decent for a laugh? Yeah, it kind of was, but that does not dignify it for a purchase. The only reason I played it was so I could review it and it only cost me 5 Virtua Bucks. Virtua GIVE ME IT BACK!
