I knew I'd regret saying that on this board.
Sorry guys. I've tried playing Saint's Row and its sequel at least three times a piece and nothing keeps me hooked in.
But you liked GTA IV, right?
Liking GTA IV but not Saints Row says some interesting things about your preferences. GTA IV was a well-intentioned but entirely too serious "Open World" game where there was nothing to do except the storyline. Saints Row is more about user choice than the main story. Look at the character creation stage: SR gives you millions of variations, and GTA IV gives you a different tracksuit jacket. After playing for an hour. GTA IV sends you out on story missions, Saint Row says -- "wanna blow shit up? here are some grenades."
Most of all, SR is even player-facing in its mission save/load. GTA IV says "TRY IT AGAIN, STUPID. IN FACT, DRIVE YOUR ASS ALL THE WAY BACK, SO YOU CAN DO IT AGAIN." Saints Row says, "Huh, that's too bad. Want to try it again? Here is the last checkpoint, with all your ammo and armor in the same condition, and your car is parked at the same fucked-up angle you left it on the curb."
So... basically you want to be with someone who treats you badly and disregards your needs.
This is actually a pretty sound analysis. Unless it was your original intention to make a joke, I
do enjoy being abused and dominated. However, that has little to do with why I enjoyed GTAIV and why I didn't enjoy SR. Honestly I still can't decide why I liked GTAIV so much, it's actually kind of frustrating. I agree with most criticisms, at least the ones about the repetitive mission structure and lack of mid-mission checkpoints, and yet still I loved the shit out of that game.
I feel I should mention I have a hard time enjoying open-world games, so while I'm sure SR nails everything fans of that genre are looking for, I can't stand sandbox games in the first place. It doesn't seem like SR does much else for people who are looking for more than just a really dynamic open-world experience, which is great, but not what I'm looking for.
At least he's not one of those fegs who hates Saints Row because it "stole" everything from GTA or some similar pathetic reason (Image removed from quote.)
Yeah I never understood this mentality. If anything, Saint's Row is the reason I love GTAIV even more. Without SR, I don't think Rockstar would have ever realized how much they fucked the player over on a regular basis with their previous game design philosophy.