'Commercial Success'

 Never heard of her

There goes Volition

Pour one out

Great Expectations

 Bad dog.

Positivity is one of the most powerful forces in the world, I am told. With the power of believing in yourself and sheer confidence someone can drag themselves through the worst of the worst and empower the passions and dedication of those around them, and I believe in that power. But it can be a fragile tower, building upon expectation and positive reinforcement, when it all crumbles into nothing; just as it can be a lighting rod of elation when the opposite happens. The same is true from the level of an individual as it is from the heights of a conglomerate video game development studio, and we can see perfect examples of both extreme outcomes within the space of just the last year thanks to attitudes towards two franchises that received reactions almost polar to their initial general thoughts. (I know they both surprised me.) So let us take a gander at this phenom together, shall we?

Saints Row. What can a man say about Saints Row that hasn't already been said to death? It was the discerning man's crime game, rife with intelligent introspection into the societal foils that engender criminal enterprises and the spiralling manner of modern living that points the unfortunate and uneven down to that way of life. Actually, Saints Row is nothing like that- the entire franchise is more just 'A bit of banter', at the end of the day. Early day Saints Row was considered a rather limp GTA clone, then a zany product of it's own, then a slightly overly zany friend still dancing at the party as everyone is winding down, and then an annoying drunk still stinking the place up and thrusting at everyone obnoxiously the morning after. The Saints Row Reboot was supposed to be a return to the heyday of the franchise... well, not it's origin, but more a sweet-spot just after the origin and just before the downwards trajectory. And I remember there being some actual excitement upon hearing this.

Those who knew Saints Row all had their ideas about when the franchise was at it's best, and all were being catered to throughout the marketing process with carefully, or perhaps not-so carefully, chosen platitudes. It wasn't until the first trailer that real dissent started to air. I didn't get the complaining at the time and found the only coherent complaints to be crass and/or contrived, but whether through random luck or subliminal sabotage: that shift in attitude would mark the trajectory of the reboot forever more. When it finally did launch, the most charitable thing anyone could say was that it would have been a perfectly standard open world title 10 years prior. Otherwise it was outdated, badly written, buggy, uninspired, oddly ashamed of itself and largely impact derived. Saints Row Reboot was quite frankly a critical dud. But what about commercially?

Well get this; reports have come out claiming that the Saints Reboot might have cost somewhere in the ballpark of 100 million to create; which is either evidence of simply incredible mismanagement or mask-off cartel money laundering, because that ambition does not translate to the final product. In fact, considering the recycled animations, the underpaid writing team, the 'meh' graphical improvements and the overall vast feeling of emptiness... I think that maybe people should be watching very closely what Volition put out next else we might be having a bit of a Borderlands 2/ Alien Colonial Marines situation on our hands. That would be the only way I can justify this sort of insane price tag. Oh, and would it surprise you to hear that the game fell short of expectations in it's sales? Somehow the publishers over at Supervillian-group-in-training Embracer were surprised they never made a profit; which makes me seriously reconsider my understanding of the universe because I though that was the most predictable outcome since the sun rising every morning. (Maybe if you lie to yourself that reception was 'mixed' long enough it starts to truly alter your perception of reality.)

And on the total other end of that spectrum comes a game that I had absolutely no faith in, and that a lot of people wrote off in it's early reveals, that came around to smash general expectations into nothing. Sonic Frontiers had all the makings of another 3d Sonic dud, especially given that it was coming right off the heels of the embarrassingly undercooked Sonic Forces and was trying something the franchise had never tried before, semi open-world! I thought the game was going to offer nothing but a substandard experience piece with low-effort exploratory open world mechanics and a largely forgettable overall package, and it seems that whilst I wasn't totally wrong I wasn't totally right either. The game is largely well received and managed to sell absolute gang busters from a Sonic fandom utterly shocked they've got a real functioning Sonic game to spend their money on.

In fact, I'm not the only one who lost their expectation bet when it came to Sonic Frontiers. Recently we've seen SEGA themselves, confident as they were during the marketing stage, come out to confess that the game overperformed what they were expecting, which means either they really didn't believe in their own developers or Sonic managed to truly break it's own glass ceiling in it's ascent back to some form of general relevancy. All of which is great news for the Sonic franchise, of course, which is scoring recognition points just about everywhere recently. Movies, TV shows, new comic franchise; Sonic is getting around. Maybe we can start to see an actual new take on the Sonic formula so that these games can get on the path to being something special again. (I've got the perfect pitch for a reimagined Sonic, just call me, SEGA!)

Expectation is quite the magical ingredient, is it not? Our means of preparing ourselves for the coming inevitable, either for the brace of disappointment or the elation of success. Whereas I'd imagine that Saints Row is currently in the process of burning their future plans given the thorough rejection of just about everything their latest game stood for at a fundamental level, I'd imagine the various Sonic creative teams must be running out of ideas to slap down and make more fans off of. A world of opportunity is opening up at one end of the industry just as a dozen doors are slamming shut over at the opposite end. Do you ever wonder, why to win somebody's got to lose? It's like the great universal balance requires a sacrifice before it'll award it's bounty elsewhere.

Hype is the double-edged sword, there's no doubt about that. But it's also just that tantalising fruit we can't manage to totally keep away from. Resign yourself to never get all goo-goo eyes over some upcoming new game or movie and suddenly you're the dull thud of the party. I expect something of a more critical eye when it comes to the recommendations and expectations within a coherent business analyses of their own potential success or failure, but I suppose maybe the world of speculation and prediction is so called for it's transitory nature, is it not? At the end of the day I can't help but wonder, why exactly qualifies these people to be speculator's when industry fans like us tend to have a better hit rate than them? Confidence, I guess.

Why can't I love Saints Row The Third?

 Just tell me to stay, dammit!

There was a time when the Saints Row franchise sat at a very special place in my heart and on my shelf of games to play, a time of laughs and fun, and a time that was over far before this new remake series was even a twinkle in Volition's eye. Whereas once it the total epitome of any and everything I could possibly seek out of an open world game, it wasn't long at all before I grew out of the temporary charms the property once offered and consequently grew totally out of this franchise of games. It was never a question of the crassness of the jokes, it was just the style of this approach to open world development, with irrelevant silliness and customisation given paramount importance- all that just no longer aligned with what I wanted from gaming. But that drop-off did not come around the time of Saints Row the Third either, it was definitely in the interim gap between 4 and the reboot. So if that's the case; why can't I fool myself into liking Saints Row the Third?

Though I recognise it's many failings and have since found a series that did the thing I once thought Saints Row was the master of ten times better than those games could ever conceive of, my boyhood love of Saints Row 2 has pretty much grandfathered it into a place of love and reverence within my heart. I couldn't possibly, as I am, bring myself to dislike Saints Row 2. But I cannot spare the same leniency towards it's direct sequel. Where as Saints Row 2 bought me this expansive and distinct open world dripping with side activities around an irrelevant action-gangster movie style plot peppered with dashes of melodrama to make the world feel grounded and thus of some small consequence- Saints Row the Third seemed to spit in the face of most all of that. The open world felt bland and uninspired, the side activities felt laborious and  uncreative and the narrative lost any and all allusion to grit, purpose and consequence and yet still expected anyone to care about it's drastic split-choice ending. I didn't and I never could.

And it's odd for me to lay all of this down when Saints Row the Third was a game I followed like a hawk during it's marketing phases. You must remember that Saints Row 2 was a masterclass of how to make a great crime action game to my inexperienced eyes; I worshipped that game enough to play it to completion no less than 5 times. That's perhaps not 'full completion', but I'm talking finishing all of the side activities, all properties purchased, all missions done, most collectables- pretty much everything of consequence I finished in those 5 playthroughs. For the time, Saints Row 2 was my easy 'forever game' that I could pick up to fulfil any wanting mood. If I wanted to roleplay, I'd go fashion shopping and force my insane games upon the residents, if I wanted to fight zombies I would load into the special zombie wave minigame mode, if I wanted to feel like a TV star I'd grind out the cop-show minigame. Anything I could ever want was in Saints Row 2. So when word started spreading about the newest entry to follow up my love, I could all but faint.

But beyond the honeymoon period of that first playthrough, I've found it truly difficult to justify picking up Saints Row The Third for a second playthrough. I've tried, again and again. I tried at the time, I tried again when I got an Xbox One through the backwards compatibility, I tried again with the Remaster on my PC, I'll probably try again at some point in the future when I forget how easily that game manages to consistently lose me. Some part of me wants desperately to like Saints Row, but the other part of me can't help but see a game that was designed specifically to exorcize all the elements of the Saints Row formula that I thought made that franchise. Because you see, I could have made any openworld game my playground- but Stillwater from Saints Row 2 was special because I felt like it mattered, I felt like it was real to some level and I was playing with that world's strings whenever I departed on my, often somewhat demented, machinations. But as the developers of The Third have been on record stating: all those grounding elements of Saints Row 2, the street-level stakes, the melodrama and the occasional threat of grime, those were considered necessary limitations towards the ultimate vision of the Saints Row franchise. That vision, for the time of it's release, was completed with Saints Row The Third.

Now to be clear, I don't think that Saints Row the Third is a bad game- hell, I think some parts, characters and missions are the best the franchise has to offer. In particular there's the flagship mission in which you infiltrate what will soon become your penthouse whilst Kanye West's 'Power' plays in the background, and it's all an increadibly hype mission. The spectacle and the action hits its vast heights, the mission doesn't overstay its welcome, and if you're fast enough it's totally possible to wrap up events by the time the song is over. But unfortunately, that mission is something of an outlier in a game full of missions that the developers desperately want to be big spectacle headliners. They detailed as much in the press tour for the game wherein Volition developers and designers claimed it was their goal to have at least one unique objective in every level- which itself seems like a fairly reasonable expectation, only for that desire to end up being achieved in technicality rather than in gameplay practice.

I think the limitations of the scale first became apparent to me on the introductory level, a level which was hyped to hell and back before the game released. Why? Because of how whacky and zany it sounded on paper, of course! The Saints, disguised as mascots of their now-celebrity selves, attempt to rob a bank and end up in a wild shootout which has them dangling the entire vault of the bank in the air by the hooks of a flying skycrane whilst it demolishes the top floors of a skyscraper. Doesn't that sound crazy and exciting beyond belief? And it would be... in a live action show. What you must remember is that the concept of 'spectacle' is handled differently in a video game than it is on a show- on TV the events themselves are what wows the audience, with the controller in hand it's how we have a direct influence on those events. That's partially why Quick Time Events never feel as satisfying as those epic in-action flourishes we get to pull off with the right skill, timing and/or luck.

Break down the first mission of Saints Row the Third into it's base gameplay components and you're looking at a mission which goes like this: Basic shooting gallery followed by a small three wave 'ambush' scene finished off by an on-the-rails shooting section against a boss helicopter. Those are the bare bones we have. Fleshing those bones out is what completes the product, but when it comes to Saints Row 3 the developers preferred to play up the wackiness of the cutscenes rather than the substance of the gameplay. Ultimately, a lot of mission end up feeling really straight forward or unintelligently bloated as the design direction gets lost in the pursuit of absurdity above all else- and if that absurdity managed to translate back to the gamepad, maybe they would have had something.

As it stands, the reason I can never find myself playing through Saints Row the Third again is because whenever I play through these opening acts, trying to rekindle something worthy in this package, I just end up getting bored. The sandbox feels inconsequential, the missions look fancy but play hollow and I don't feel anything for the progression of the plot or the story. Not that Saints Row 2 was a genius in any of these categories, but that game at least catered to each listed category somewhat. Saints Row 3 fails even that and what remains is a game that, for me and my tastes, aged like a grape. Now the shrivelled raisin that is Saints Row 3 bares more in common with the modern Saints Row franchise than the previous game I loved ever will, and despite lip service being played to fans of similar sensibilities, it's clear that the restraint of Saints Row 2 is still regarded as a prevailing weakness. As such, for better or for worse, Saints Row just isn't my type of franchise anymore. 

Volition's punishment.

Almost

Consequences for one's actions are rarely a concept we see explored and highlighted outside of school life, wherein it's the be-all end-all of life discussions. Because in the real world that's not entirely true, or only part of the truth, or a straight up lie altogether. Actions can sometimes never be traced to a direct causal link and who can honestly say whether or not their downturn in life is a direct result of their own negligence or a general slippery slope maybe somewhat helped along by their own actions. It's a murky and misty mire to try and tread across where there's no real right route. Except if you happen to be a company called Volition. Because in their case; Saints Row absolutely was the reason that their company is soon having the reigns around it's independence tightened.

 

This news comes from the lips of horrible Lovecraftian amalgamation monster 'Embracer Group' as they recently turned around and cut Volition's independence. Which is quite stark because I didn't even know Embracer Group owned them. Who else does Embracer Group own? Do they own me, and I just don't know it? If so, I'd really like to start getting some cheques in the mail any day now, Embracer Senpai; maybe then I'd stop laying dirt on your companies name! Embracer has decreed that Volition to be rolled under the wing of the producer Gearbox- wait, Embracer own Gearbox as well? I thought that was Epic Games! (Wait- actually now I come to think of it I just collate those two company founders as the same person because they're both equally childish. Now I remember...)

And how can we be sure that this is the victim of the recently released Saints Row Reboot game? I mean, what if this is simply because of the terrible losses of- let me check... The last game they made before that was 2017's Agents of Mayhem? Hmm... yeah I can't really see a scapegoat for them on this one. But the punishment doesn't seem to quite fit the crime, at least; not how Deep Silver seemed to describe the reception of Saints Row.  Listen to the word of 'corporate' and all you would hear, time and time again, was how the game is absolute not a failure. They said that, whilst the game was 'divisive' critically, the commercial sales proved more than enough to break even- oh wait, now I can see the subtle hints that this game didn't perform well... huh, funny I didn't notice that until this very moment...

Still, it's a little bit screwed up for your boss to ensure you that everything is going totally fine only for your entire department to be kicked out from their purview and under the eyes of another wobbly supposedly comedic video game company within the space of a few months. (Does this mean that the several chunks of menu options in the remake that were locked away for DLC will remain forever greyed out? No, apparently Deep Silver get to handle that stuff by themselves) Heck, there were members of the Volition team that themselves felt the need to bitterly stand up to the criticism of their work as self-appointed Twitter warriors. I can understand the passion, which makes sense when your very competence is challenged on a public forum; but perhaps those individuals would have ended up feeling a bit less worthless if they hadn't fought against perceptions of their game for month only for the bosses boss to agree with the haters and strip away all autonomy your studio had for the crime of delivering a truly atrocious game.

Which is not to say that I think Saints Row Reboot wasn't bad enough to destroy the franchise. If anything, the reboot's desperate attempts to strip away the identity of Saints Row to appeal to some imaginary mass market of Saints fans that were only waiting for the game to become less crude before they could really fall in love with the franchise, just highlighted how much the series was played out and empty. Honestly, Saints Row struggled to find itself years before the Reboot came around, this was just the shuddering final nail in that coffin. And since Volition's only other franchise has been itself awol for the past eleven years; I guess that made it a nail in Volition's coffin at the same time. As twisted as it sounds, this was probably a long time coming.

But does this mean the death of Saints Row and Volition? Not necessarily. The company still exists under the producing management of Gearbox, so there might be a chance for a surprise resurgence some years down the line if Gearbox can be tricked into financing such a thing. Although the scant Saints Row Reboot fans may have to come to terms with the sobering reality that it might be with yet another reboot to the brand. Afterall, pissing off the fanbase with a low quality game is one thing, but doing that and just about making a profit at the same time is pretty much a carnal sin of commercial work. The next time Saints Row sees the light of day we'll be in a different age and it'll carry the Gearbox badge and probably their cringe as well. The real question is whether or not that Gearbox logo will mean the game will be better or worse... after New Tales from the Borderlands, that's anyone's guess... (At least it might play better.)

Until that magical day, however, I suppose all we can do is look back on the demented life of the Saints Row franchise and try to remember the good in what it was. This was supposed to be the bold new face of the franchise and it was just awful. Unfortunately it was too awful to be continued, which is a bit of a shame because I was kind of hoping they'd go crazy and make this a bi-yearly series of hilariously bad cringe games. But apparently the 'I know it's abjectly terrible but I'm a hipster so I'm going to play it anyway' crowd isn't nearly as big as it likes to pretend it is on Twitter. And considering Twitter is soon to be the way of the dodo; I guess it's not really tenable for Volition to hide behind those loud accounts as proof of their apparently broad market appeal.

Of course I feel bad for Volition. I don't particularly love any one of their recent games, and have even fallen hard out of love with Saints Row 2 in recent years, but any developer stuck making one single game franchise for over a decade is unethical in my opinion. No artist wants to reiterate on the same themes they did before again and again, they want to change it up and keep things feeling fresh and interesting. Saints Row didn't even start as something unique and everytime it's tried to make itself into anything new the end product has veered closer to 'clueless' with every step. I know shifts of the status quo like this tend to lead to lay-offs; and that is one instance where I feel unabashedly bad. It is surprising I must say, the sheer stopping power of rank mediocrity. 

Slot in Voice-Acting

 Swapsies!

There is a very peculiar style of voice acting in video games that has been around for quite a while but to which myself and a lot of the rest of the world has been made aware of very recently. I'm talking about the style of VO work where a significant character, typically the protagonist, employs not only different voices depending on the character created, but different lines too. Whereas everyone else in the script remains static and responds in dialogue the same way they would to any character voice, the the inciting vocal stimuli could change from one performance to another, which is about as complicated and confusing as it sounds. Perhaps one character is providing generic affirmation responses to wildly different topics of conversation, and maybe that creates a floaty feeling to dialogue where it sounds like two conversations are being had in different rooms to different people. Who do you think handles this style of voice acting the best? Because I'll tell you straight away who's the worst.

Watch_Dogs Legion. When I said this topic had been made aware to the world, I was referencing Watch_Dogs Legion, for the way in which people reacted to learning how the 'play as anyone' feature of the game meant that NPCs would be inserted as key inciting voices that drive the narrative forward. It sticks out like a sore thumb as just about everyone fails to affirm themselves as interesting and commandeering protagonist characters, and the player is left with a personality-free husk that places pithy English colloquialisms above any meaty depth in conversation. It's actually very rare whenever there's a topic of conversation expressed that isn't just general and vague for the actually properly written characters to bounce off, but in those instances it always stands-out noticeably. Even after watching the same scene about five times, I don't think I heard a single variation performance pull of the 'I'll just jump into my quantum tunnel' back-and-forth with Bagley that was convincing.

I'm convinced that a big part of Legion's problem comes from the fact that none of the voice actors give a 'main character' performance. Which could be because they were intentionally told to act in a vague manner that could be applied over the digital faces of a dozen London citizens. All of the voices crafted best fit background NPCs that give out quests rather than front the core rebellion which drives the story, and some of the voices are literally just digital pitch-shifts of other lacklustre performances. I'm not blaming the actors, I can only imagine none of them were paid 'main character wages' for the sort of work they put in; instead I critique the entire concept for how it neuters the human element of a narrative that is supposed to be about ordinary people rising up to face injustice. Andor, this is not. 

But by happenstance, not very long after 'beating' Legion and leaving that game and it's woes far behind me; I stubbled upon a rebound game that employs something very similar. 'Solasta: Crown of the Magister' is essentially a standalone DnD 5th Edition game engine built to facilitate a very faithful digital DnD experience. One such part of that experience being choosing your character, personality and all, which means conversations can play out differently depending on the combination of voice and personality traits you employ. This becomes very obvious in scenes when your cast is interacting with one another and performances vary, key words are mis-pronounced and entire strings of dialogue capture the spirit but miss the content of the captions. And yet, I find myself looking a bit more fondly on my group of adventuring dolts than I do on the Legion gang.

I think the key to what Solasta does is A: the entire cast of Solasta is filled with less full-on character-suited voice actors, which means the slightly hammy performances fit amidst the wider cast on hand. And then B: the crew of interchangeable voices spend a lot of their time interacting with one another, in conversations that can better be warped to suit the dialogue and voices chosen. Of course these are the cherries, the base of the cake is the strength of the writing team making it so that dialogue and reactions suit together in a manner that can be respected and enjoyed. Honestly, a few play sessions in and I don't even think about the fact that my Solasta team-mates are being slotted into the hero role; the character's and their personalities work decently well together.

And as I really delved into this topic and took the time to think on it; there was one game that came screaming to mind more than any other. Saints Row. Specifically 2 onwards; how could I never consider it before? All of those games have the character customisation with the slot-in voice acting that changes the dialogue drastically during scenes. Sometimes the way the game does it is tongue-in cheek; such as the 'zombie' voice which simply replaces all the player's dialogue with undead groans whilst everyone else continues on like they can understand you fully. But other times there'll be back and forths that are witty and humorous but totally contextually different depending on which voice you pick! I always remember the first drive through Steelport with Shaundi in Saints Row 3, where the Boss teasingly mocks her until she gets a little pissed, but the topic of the mocking shifts completely depending on what voice you pick in a manner that you'd never even notice unless you started replaying levels.

For all that Saints Row gets ridden for, because it's really just a luke-warm Grand Theft Auto clone that lacked it's own swinging knock out concept once they finally broke free of that stigma, they excel in this specific front. Every game they've managed to slot-in protagonist voice roles so deftly they managed to turn it into a reoccurring joke, both with that Zombie voice I mentioned, and then with the Nolan North voice pack in Saints Row IV. (A voice in which Nolan literally breaks the forth wall as much as humanely possible.) Both through clever scripting and thoughtful performances, Saints Row manages to consistently emulate an engaged and specific character, with personality, in a totally slot-in role. I don't give Saints Row a lot of props, but to my mind they are undoubtedly the kings of that specific design role.

Having never really considered it before, today I realise that this slot-in style of voice work has to be supremely challenging to all involved. Likely invented to provide a dynamic sense of personality and breathe a little passive replay-ability into a game that is designed to be experienced many times, there are so many factors and balances that need to be accounted for just to make such a complex concept invisible. Many games present customisable voiced protagonists, but the difference between a single script read in multiple voices and a plethora of response scripts to the same prompt script can scale to orders of magnitude. which is probably why games which use slot-in voice acting don't have their players be the chattiest people in the room. Unless you're talking about the amount of voice lines in Saints Row; those devs were genuinely insane.  

Saints Row: the franchise of mids

 Sing it off to Valhalla; chuckie!

So Saints Row is dead, I think that's a truth without question in the eyes of most with the powers of basic observation available to them. Volition alienated their existing fanbase to cater to a new fanbase who, much to Volition's utmost surprise, expect fun and working products... which Saints Row... isn't. Luckily the game is going to get much more exposure and success than it deserves thanks to the brand it's borrowing from and the novelty of pointing and laughing at a trainwreck, but I think it's safe to say that after a mess like this no one with any industry sense is going to have any faith in Volition. Bare in mind that their last game, Agents of Mayhem, was another absolute misread of their target audience and how they should be marketed towards. That game sold as much as a Sunday market stand would, and whilst Saints Row is obviously going to do better than that on account of just how big this brand used to be, something tells me it's not going to change the trajectory of the downward graph investor's are looking at when they examine the Saints Row franchise.

Which all means we've lost the potential viability of a franchise that, to be honest, had already run its natural course and ended up in a pit of mediocrity. Whilst I've never been a screaming, raving fan of the Saints Row games, I have played every single one of them and absolutely remember a time when they could be considered a real contender in the market. I've enjoyed just about every game in the franchise up until 4 wherein I lost interest entirely; and there even a moment where I could have been nutto for the series; but even Saints Row 2 didn't quite live up to my expectations at that time. You see, the more I examine it, the more I come to the same conclusion; that the Saints Row games have forever been and will always be mid. Apart from this reboot which is apparently an actual poor quality mess. So if long term viability is up on the table to be cut into ribbons; I'm saying it ain't no big loss.

If we go back to the very first Saints Row, a game that many people have invoked recently as if recalling some long-forgotten masterpiece that once graced a dirty and dull world; the game was just sort of alright. It was an obvious clone of GTA that didn't even really lean into the humorous aspects the franchise would become known for too much. If anything, they attempted to lean into the same sardonic view of contemporary and thematic issues and topics that the Rockstar franchise does, only without the vast talented writing talent to make it nuanced and fun. The gameplay was as bad as every open world game's gameplay was back then. The characters were fairly one-note and predictable. Although, and I recognise that this is as substantial as waving your hand over your eyes and declaring you've spotted the 'x-factor'; there is a charm to the game. It's not a chore to play, at least not the first time. The clunky dialogue and performances fit their era; and the city of Stilwater has personality to it; which is more than I can say for literally every other open world game that Deep Silver Volition has ever made.

Saints Row 2 was probably the moment where this franchise really stepped out for itself. When GTA was edging more towards realism, Saints Row was pointing and laughing whilst leaning more towards the inanity of video game craziness. That understated side of the original was blown up into the driving force of Saints Row 2, and most all the rest of the minigames and activities that have become such mainstays of the franchise that the team are incapable of envisioning any more, were born for this game. It played significantly better than Saints Row 1, simulated a more complete open world and just generally provided a very malleable playground for destruction, much as you'd might expect from the team behind 'Red Faction'. There was also a point in time when people used to laud the story for Saints Row 2, (which is broadly just the exact same framework as Saints Row 1 refitted to slide atop 2) as the 'perfect balance between comedy and drama'. In hindsight I can certainly say there is a balance, and it is somewhat effective; but that title of 'perfection' seems laughable in a post Yakuza 0 world. Just like Saints Row 1, 2 has sort of shrunken with age and whilst I still think the game stands out as 'respectable'; it's not a generational masterpiece like the PS2 era GTA games are. One might even call it... mid tier.

Saints Row 3 was when the series got stuck. They tried to balance a tightrope with Saints Row 2, and that showed them their audience reacted best to the silly content, so they made a game leaning more into all the zaniness. Now it was all about throwing as much craziness as they could logic out: stripper assassins? We can make it work. Dildo Bat? Amazed we didn't do that earlier. Text-based adventure segment? It would have to be brief, but we could swing it! Zombie invasion? Oh, well that just sounds like a piece of cake! All of which resonated with a lot of people out there who saw Saints Row as the sillier brother to GTA, but which came at the cost of the open world. Steelport has been Volition's worst open world. A stale, grey, industrial block entirely lacking in character and distinction. And as the world became more boring to explore, the activities provided therein became more of a chore than a distraction. A check-list of 'do this for X reward' instead of 'do this because it's fun'. Progression in some angles, regression in others. Perfectly middling.

And then Saints Row 4 went off the deep end. Like your drug addict friend that you watch slowly lose all grip on themselves; Saints Row slipped into the crazy and went too far with it. Not to the point where it became offensive; but to where it became boring and predictable. Rather than be a great game in it's own right with comedic elements, Saints Row decided it was going to become a parody of it's own genre and mock any others it could get it's sights on too. Stakes stopped mattering, characters stopped developing, (which, as much as I knock Saints 3; they were still progressing as characters until 4) nothing had any weight to it anymore; which made the act of breaking the rules inconsequential. Heck, they blew up the earth and replaced it with a matrix-like simulation, subconsciously erasing all stakes and giving them the go-ahead to do whatever they wanted. And when logic doesn't matter anymore, the question then comes up about how crazy you can go; and Volition just aren't that creative. It was all pretty bland-silly, not head-churning silly, and to call the game 'mid' is honestly something of a glowup.

Agents of Mayhem is a curious matter. Created as a kind of clean break away from what Saints Row was becoming, whilst staying beholden to it's brand and a choice selection of its character's in a confusing display that made the marketing as convoluted as the Wii U's. The original pitch appeared to be that it was a television show set within the Saints Row universe, but that couldn't be possible because the entire earth was destroyed at the beginning of 4. And then Johnny Gat was in the show? How could that be? He was killed in the 'real world' which meant he'd have some trouble playing himself on TV. (Also, he was one of the gang that believed the celebrity-status was 'selling out', so he wouldn't star in a show anyway.) Basically, no one knew what Agents of Mayhem was supposed to be even contextually let alone in gameplay. (They kind of made it look like a hero shooter.) And so the game sold about five copies. I was not one of them, I can't really attest to if the game was another mid or not.

Which brings us back around to the reboot. Saints Row is not the golden standard of the industry so delivering a thoroughly average game is not, in itself, a betrayal to the shining ideals of the franchise. However, delivering a hardly functioning mess knocks an average down to a pitiable low. Also, I hear tell that Agents of Mayhem is still increadibly buggy five years after launch, so it's somewhat possible that Volition leave Saints Row in a decently shoddy state when they abandon ship from this cursed franchise. Does that mean we'll never get the masterpiece that Saints Row is capable of? Honestly, I don't think this series ever had itself a firm enough grasp on it's own identity in order to create that masterpiece. It's entire life it has existed purely within context of others. Saints Row 1 was Grand Theft Auto but scrappier and back to 'the streets'. Saints Row 2 was 'Gta but fun and silly again'. Saints Row 3 was 'your typical open world game but crude and wild where it's purpose is to make meta jokes on as many pop culture topics the team can think of', and Saints Row 4 was just an episode of Family Guy but a game. Maybe somewhere in the minds of Volition's the point of this reboot was to give Saints Row that identity, as the game that identifies with the modern struggling young adults; but they're fear of committing to a new direction, whilst simultaneously fearing associating with what came before, led to a final product totally pulled apart at the seams.

So... Saints Row...

Haters gonna hate

Final Destination is a movie franchise run under the premise that a destined death fortold by fate gets waylaid by those destined to die getting a premature vision of their demise through some unexplored phenomena. Try as they might to save themselves, and occasionally even avoid the headsman's axe, there's no escaping the fate laid out for them. I'd like to think of what became of the Saints Row Reboot as a 'Final Destination' moment; where so many of the world had that vision of exactly what this game was before it launched,  and try as they might to warn the rest of the world that couldn't quite make it out, their troubles were written in the unchanging stars. From the moment they revealed the bold new direction of Saints Row; it seem Volition were destined for destruction, although just how far the final product ended up going off the rails is a damn surprise, even to me.

Remember that this is a game that was delayed nearly half a year into 2022 in order to make sure that the thing ran right. Well it seems we might be having a bit of a Cyberpunk 2077 flashback here because despite all that extra development time we have a shockingly broken game being sold for full retail price in the current market of gaming. I thought there were basic standards that games had to meet in order to be listed on storefronts; but apparently not considering that the Epic Games version of the game launched with a bug where the Exe sometimes doesn't load the game and you need to brute force try the launch again and again until the game accidentally lets you through. All things considered, that's probably a pretty dire warning as to what you can expect from Saints Row as a whole. (Even the game itself is trying its best to ward you away; maybe we should have heeded it's advice.)

And the bugs don't end there. You have glitching out character models, weird camera lock bugs where sometimes vehicles jolt the camera in super zoom until you get out the car and get back in again, civilian AI seems to have two modes: routine and run away, the latter of which sometimes has them run directly into walls or into the thing they're supposed to be fleeing from, there's at least one captured example of a UI text box with placeholder text, some reports of UI disappearing altogether for periods of time, NPCs that disappear into thin air right in front of you, traffic that pops into existence right in front of you, and just about everything short of CTDs. That doesn't mean there aren't any Crash to Desktop issues; I've just not heard about any of them yet. All of this evidences a game that, rather obviously, was not ready to drop at prime time and to such a degree that there's no way the team were not aware of this when they put it up on storefronts for that laughable price-tag. And it all should have been frighteningly obvious to whatever board was certifying gold status for the game. Maybe Volition pulled the old "Whoops, we accidentally sent you a month's old build" to get around scrutiny. (Funny how often devs screw up build versions that you'd think would be clearly labelled. We need to set up some sort of industry standard for this stuff.)

But of course, those are just the barriers to getting into the content that Saints Row Rebooted has to offer; but what about if you're mister 'lucky' himself, the man-with-the-plan, what if you have a flawless play session? Well... then you get enjoy one of the most dated, lacklustre, empty, and cringe-inducing open world games on offer yet. You experience that game that Saints Row 4 was shaping up to be, before the decision was made to scrap the direction the franchiser was headed and just do nonsensical space/super hero crap instead. Only even then, at least the series would have some semblance of the Saints Row charm to fall back on, for those that still get a kick out of the same things that Saints Row writers do. (I realised they were a bit beyond my generation when 4 threw a cameo from Roddy Piper into the game and just expected me to know who that was.) The name game is, quite simply, just bland. But if you're into bland, and judging by the copium IVs that half of the Saints Row Reddit are on that is a common desire for gamers today, then Volition have that milquetoast, vanilla flavoured, store brand, open world- just waiting for your purchase. 

It's not just the fact that Saints Row has the ingenious idea of forcing it's side activity content into the main narrative progression so that you never have that 'go out and do your own thing' feeling you got back in Saints Row 2 where they told you to just go out and make some money and just left you to your own devices. Nor is it really the fact that even after all of these years the Volition team haven't had a single damn epiphany about a game-mode to add to the standard list. You've got 'Insurance Fraud', exactly as it's always been, bounties, bodyguard, chop shop (only with the whole car collection being a specific mission so that you don't have it be a metagame in usual play like GTA figured out is a more engaging way to do it since Vice City.) It's really the lack of even casual ways to interact with the world around you beside driving over dull and brain dead pedestrians. Why is this game even an open world? How can it justify that effort? It can't.

And beneath it all is this utterly bizarre sense that Saints Row is trying to 'clean up it's act' and become 'distance themselves from their problematic past'. What is meant by this is that the Volition developers made steps to try and erase the accusations of deeply offensive parts of Saints Rows past such as "homophobia, racism and sexual violence against women". And yes, you may have noticed how that list sounds like a questionable line-up of accusations if you've ever actually played those old games, and yes, I did steal that list off of 'DenOfGeek'. The truth is that Saints Row built itself off the ideals of irreverence in a very crude fashion telling jokes that appealed to shock factor above everything else, which made some of them more more flashy and prone to aging badly than more clever formed jokes might have. You can choose to try and twist this into some deeply offensive past to characterise a past of vicitmising that Saints Row had never been accused of in the moment, but that would be a little bad faith and an aggressive damnation of fans who charm in that silly 'chuck it all at the wall and see what sticks' approach.

The problem is that the Saints Row Reboot also falls for this bad faith assessment and aggressively tries to distance itself from the free-spirited, hope this shocking joke gets a laugh, past; whilst trying to slide itself into what feels like a watered down version of that exact same style of game making one wonder what the hell the team even wanted in the first place. For example, they've removed jokes like the car shop being called 'Rim Jobs', or the burger shop being called 'Freckle Bitches'. Two jokes that are literally only offensive to those who are sensitive to rude words, and Saints Row Reboot contains one mandatory section at the beginning where the player character swears for two minutes straight during a drive home. It's this tonal dissonance that alienates old fans and then fails to recapture them with a half hearted 'do-over' attempt that just feels pathetic and non-committal. Like slapping someone and telling them they're a vile scumbag because you two used to joke back in highschool, and then telling them half-forgotten badly told knock-off versions of those same old jokes desperately hoping they'll find them funny and be your friend again. That is the reason that even hardcore fans can't look past the bad writing or substandard gameplay like they used to. (Although to be fair, the fact that the gameplay literally hasn't changed since Saints Row 3 doesn't help their case much either.)

Dated, is the term throne around again and again but it's really just a part of a fascinatingly flawed whole. The game is broken and dated in a way that repels potential new fans, charmless and dismissive in a way that rejects old fans, and uninspired and bland in a way that utterly precludes all illusions of possible respect you might have for it. Some stragglers still definitely lift up their head and declare "I'm having fun with it" or, increadibly, "Don't knock it until you've played it!" To which I say, try playing literally any other game of it's genre or even previous games of the same series and you'll find your expectations of what a fun-time can be will be vastly expanded, and, the point of reviews is to be able to make informed decisions without wasting your money. No one should have to waste $60 to realise a game isn't worth that money. Plain and simply, Volition pooped the bed, and after a colossal screw up this bad, I can't possible imagine any publisher giving them the funding to attack this franchise again. So for the foreseeable future, Saints Row is dead. Killed in most pathetic and bland manner possible.

Our new Saints Row

 A game about Student Loan- playing the people's tune.

So the Saints Row games have certainly entered a very weird space in the most recent entries, and now even more so for this remake, reboot, thing we have ahead of us. Whilst most remakes are a celebratory time where fans are reminded and drawn to the classic games of yesteryear that they love and yearn for, Saints Row's newest game has sort of placed itself in an adversarial position to those originals games and now it sort of feels a bit odd getting excited using those old games in preparation for this new one. Of course that doesn't go to fully describe the player/game split that has ruptured in the time following the reveal of this remake, but I think it's a touch on why people are finding it so hard to get aboard that ever elusive hype train. What are we even waiting for?  A game that wants to distance itself from everything this series popularised, or which wants reframe all of it under a totally different approach? I genuinely don't know what we should be expecting, and that's more than a little because of heavily mixed messaging and utterly questionable team comments, and thus though I want to be excited for a new Saints Row that isn't going to be continuing the cursed Saints Row 4 plotline, I literally cannot track the path to that excitement. (But I'm still trying)

During the Game Awards we got ourselves a much more sensible gameplay presentation of what this game will look like, which was so much more welcome than that abominable cinematic from the first reveal and it builds upon those snippets of game that we saw during the interview sections of marketing. Is it going to magically bring things back to the gritty street gang aesthetic from Saints Row 1? No- but personally I don't particularly care about that because I think that Saints Row 1 was a mediocre GTA clone and Saints Row 2 was a perfected version of that formula, but that still wouldn't fly in today's world. We've just moved on so much in design meta, in fact I feel like we're reaching a point in the gaming industry where people are growing sick and tired with half assed open world games in general. A lot of Saints Row games probably clock into the quality scale at just above 'half assed', but that doesn't make them any less of the problem with these incessant and ill thought-out genre games.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm looking for this Saints Row remake to actually take a big step in revolutionising itself from it's predecessors, and that means more than just forsaking those previous game's tone in favour of whatever the hell this new game is trying to be. (Funny? Is that what it is? Saints Row has always been super hit or miss in that regard) Key areas of improvement are all easy to label, but unfortunately are the hardest parts of the game to get right. The game world has been terrible ever since we lost Stillwater, base your world on a real city to capture some of that heart and intent to the overall city design, which was totally absent in Steelport. The gameplay has always been floaty, which for a series as action heavy as Saints Row feels like a nigh on crime. And there could be some effort put into exploration beyond late game icon chasing. (Don't be Ubisoft, guys.) Everything else Saints Row does great, we'll just have to see if they've managed to pick up any of that previous slack sufficiently.

The gameplay trailer from the Awards show certainly did have a pizazz to it that I was looking for, but evidently it still hasn't resolved my nagging concerns seeing as how I'm still voicing them. Santo Illeso is very pretty looking in my opinion, although I have noticed that there so far hasn't been a single piece of footage where we see action taking place in a predominately metropolitan part of the city. The desert red-rock aesthetic appears to be everywhere and it takes away from the overpowering and typically domineering atmosphere of a real-life city. What they've captured, oddly, is the aura of a town, basked by the world around it, instead of a city jutting up in stubborn defiance of nature. It's not a look I hate, but it's already making every scene feel samey, and if I can't get out of one environment I've grown bored of in order to spend some time in another: how long will it be before this entire gameworld starts to feel stale?

Gameinformer were kind enough to post some actual mission gameplay for the Saints Row Remake/ Reboot/ Sequel as well, so we can get a sense of what the game is like when the entire screen isn't nauseously throbbing to the beat of an ill-advised backing track. (Yeah I think trailer aesthetic people need to seriously be told to stop more often.) Right away from watching the footage I can tell that something in the gameplay has changed from how Saints Row has played in the past, and it's a change that I'm liking the look of. Driving is the easiest to judge without getting my hands on the thing, and it looks more satisfying and robust to the point where, unless I'm very much mistaken, it could be that resistance and weight will actually exist in this universe! (Starkly different from earlier games.) Of course this clearly isn't exactly Forza level car physics and cars are still bouncy enough for this to remain a shameless action game (actually, I worry that the cars are perhaps a shade too bouncy) but basic foundations look solid for game that at least drives better. 

Gunplay is another area of noticeable improvement, although that's going to be much more a case of "I can tell how good it is until I play it", but I say that I notice some definite improvement with the utmost shock because I was near certain that Volition would leave this part of the game high and dry. Gunplay looks fine right now, with a sort of snap over-the-shoulder perspective introduced in order to fit a slightly more in your face and grounded moveset. Enemies have health bars now, but they don't appear to be garishly large and feels more like a visualisation of enemies about as tough as they were in previous entries. (Which raises the question of why one even needs health bars at all, but I'm guessing the armoured enemies from the Ultor/STAG stand-in faction are going to justify that with robot mecs or something else similarly contrived) The player moves with an agile spped to them and though there doesn't appear to be an inbuilt cover system to the game or any of the other typical trappings of your best third person shooters, I could still imagine a world wherein a big fire fight might actually be a solid and enjoyable experience and not a bullet hell groan fest like in the past. There's even a very rudimentary fist fighting mechanic in the game that I imagine will be misbegotten and a waste of development time as well as a lighting system which is a tad too aggressive for indoor locations, as evidenced in the way that it makes the inside nigh-on blinding. (I wasn't expecting RDR2 level systems in play here, I can deal with some jank.)

With everything that the game has shown itself to be in the marketing material, I'm becoming fairly set on my assessment that the Saints Row Remake is glowing up as a solid b-tier game; and that's totally fine. I feel that somewhere along the way Saints Row of the past got a little too into itself and tried to use pure spectacle to suck all the air out of room from other big names games, (that and tons of shock factor, of course) and thus the games started to come across a little tryhard some of the time. (Not as tryhard as Sunset Overdrive, but you can see in Saints Row sapling that would grow up to become Sunset) So far this iteration seems comfortable in it's skin and what it wants to do, and what it wants is to be a game that'll be fun to kill some time and screw about in. Is it going to revolutionise the industry or reignite the golden age of Saints? Probably not, but as long as it does what it needs to do right, then it doesn't need to blow us away with any of that other stuff.

Although on a personal level all of this does reignite this nagging question of 'do we need this game to exist?' I mean honestly, why does this remake need to even be launched, what are Volition going to say with this game that hasn't been said with past entries? I ask because to be honest, I think I'd rather something with a bit more legs to spread out and be new got worked on. I don't know, I just don't feel a special spark off this game, and certainly can't justify this being the sort of title I'll mark on the calendar and rub my hands waiting for. It just sort of feels like Watch_Dogs without the hacking, but then Saints Row does always seem to have this charm which has filled up that hollow space in past games before, so maybe that intangible and elusive boon will flare up to win this title some points once again. Or this will come out as the incredibly average middle of the road game it seems destined to be. Welcome back to the Row, I guess.

Oh, THIS is Saints Row

 Now that's what I'm talking about

See, now this is why I said I wasn't going to write this game off straight away. That reveal was the pits, true, but that just leaves Volition with nowhere to go but up and a good way to start that process is by giving us actual gameplay! (Why wasn't the gameplay the reveal instead of the bad trailer? That's anyone's guess) It seems that emotions are still very raw when it comes to Saints Row, where the temperature hasn't quite set and the outrage hasn't touched every corner of coverage just yet; and so from where I'm sitting I think that this in-depth little snippet we've had gifted to us, though presented in a style I vehemently despise, could hold the remedy for a lot of what ails this game's early advertising. That identity crisis issue- well, it hasn't be resolved as such, but it has been elucidated upon us. Overall, if you watched that mess of CG crap and said "I have no idea what this game even is", watch this footage and you'll know. They covered mostly all of it.

But here I am claiming to know the secrets of the Saints Row universe; I know what this new game is, do I? Then how about I put my money where my mouth is, to quote one of my favourite picks from the Saints Row 2 soundtrack. It's Watch_Dogs 2; they are trying to create Watch_Dogs 2 in the Saints Row world, it's blatant, it's kinda style-less; but that is what they're trying to do. But what do I mean by that? Well, Watch_Dogs 2 basically broke itself down into a story of 'faux relatable' but highly marketable young adults fighting the 'corrupt powers that be' and proving how 'punky' and 'unique' they were through pretty cookie-cutter characteristics, such as being funny/quirky and wearing a digital mask all the time, being techy and... gosh that really was all there was to that character honestly, or being the leader person who then doesn't become the leader because of a contrived and non-sensical story beat that makes the player character the leader. (I won't pout. Some people liked the WD2 cast.) Well, substitute 'fighting the powers' to 'starting a criminal empire', and you've pretty much got what this game is going for. Teens shoved at the forefront of a story that wants to ride some 'relatable edge' that'll lay the weight of the narrative all on the characters and how strong they resonate with the audience.

And at face value you might think, "A character driven Saints Row? What are they thinking?", to which I would remind you that character has always been at the heart of Saints Row, (well, always since II) and it's one of the few shining beacons of this series. Johnny Gat, Peirce Washington, Shaundi back when she was cool- these characters were the solvent holding together all the wanton chaos and carnage, and following their personalities was almost as much of a draw for these games as shooting people to death with Dubstep guns. In fact, I'd argue that these games ended up becoming too character focused, to the point where the dynamics between teammates almost felt like they were devolving into dysfunctional sit-com territory; and I'm talking about before Saints Row IV where they intentionally leaned into that style of characterisation in order to sell a joke. (Everything about Saints Row IV was designed to land jokes. Not least of all the game itself.)

So coming back to a character heavy approach to presenting the new Saints Row world is nostalgic, even if this new cast have somehow managed to make me hate them all in less than 2 days. Okay, so maybe hate is a strong term, when I think about the searing disdain I feel towards Pillars of Eternity's Durance I remember the true meaning of hated; but I'm still not jiving with this new crew off the bat. They seem equal parts exaggerated and understated, in who they are trying to portray and how they are designed. A design philosophy that can totally work when pulled off correctly, don't get me wrong, but when it's not done right it just feels vapid. Take shirtless guy, we've been given a name I just don't care to remember it. He's the really 'out there' one who's a little bit wacky and crazy, and get this, he want's to be a TV chef. (Wild!) But in the clips we've seen of him so far this has been realised as him telling the odd lifeless cooking quip (I've already heard 2. Neither elicited a reaction) and wearing a silly mask. And he's shirtless. (I guess that counts as personality) And sure, these are just the previews, but I'm already noting that these characters aren't jumping out the screen to me, and if this is going to be all about character... well, I'm worried.

At least the city looks sick. One of the standouts of the developer update was their bragging about this new city of theirs, Santo Ileso, a southwestern redrock valley that is quite unlike anything we've seen from the Saints Row brand before. The team have stood up and called this a part of their bold new step away from the past games, new characters, new city. (You know, as if the Original Saints Row games didn't already switch the city up once) They've even had their main voice actor brag about how this is the best city yet which- well, yeah. Stilwater was kind of nice, and I liked the suburban vibe of some of it, but Steelport is one of my least favourite open world cities ever. It's garish, ugly and lacks any heart whatsoever, describing my disdain is near impossible, I just hated Steelport. Topping those two ain't no great feat of ingenuity. Yet still I think this new city looks very open, bustling with character and it simply glimmers under this engine of theirs.

The looks are, I think, going to be the most divisive part of this game, in regards to the art direction. Personally I have no problem with the 'simulate realism' style of art direction, but I'm sure there are some series veterans out there that are mourning the subtly exaggerated features and colours, which grew almost cartoonish as the series became more wild. At least in this direction change the staff are making no effort to move away from their customisability, which has always been a standout of this series for it's sheer range and diversity. However, I will implore the team shut up about how the 'way you take over the city' will be customisable, implying that our final Santo Ileso will resemble our own personal taste. Nice try, V, but I fell for that before during the Saints Row The Third marketing and I won't easily do so again; you're just going to give me a drop-down menu of different clothes for my gang-members to wear, aren't you?

What has been touched on the least, but what I'm most intrigued by, are the small tweaks to the gameplay that seem apparent this time around. Saints Row has never been the most solid in it's moment-to-moment action and combat, wherein all actions typically feel floaty and gunplay lacks any impact. One might call this a natural symptom of making a third person shooter, but I would refer the gunplay of modern GTA, Max Payne, or even the original Watch_Dogs. It can be better, and I think that would make the actual core gameplay loop a lot more fun to stick with. I've heard that Agents of Mayhem (I looked up the name) did some improvements to the combat gameplay just in order to sell it's concept better, and so I hope the team have leaned into that craft even more for this reboot. For what I've seen so far, this looks like it might be the case. I mean there is a roll now! It's way too fast and moves too far to be considered a roll with any impact or weight to it; but it's some sort of tactical movement. (Wait, was there a roll in the old series? Now I'm forgetting things. And I'm too lazy to download one quickly and check)

"Humour, over the top and Badass" are the pillars which one developer coined during this interview, his own attempt at providing a unique selling point. Now of course, calling that an approach unique to Saints Row is simply laughable; just look at Borderlands, modern DOOM, old Duke Nukem, oh and Yakuza! (Seriously, Volition; Yakuza beat you at your own game any day of the week.) But at least they have some direction they want to shoot for and a belief, skewered though it may be, that they're set to be trail blazers. Right now I'm seeing Saints Row as a reverse Starfield for me, in that the more I learn about it the more excited I get. I'm perhaps not there to jump on the game yet, which is worrying considering how soon the game is to launch, but I'm feeling it's rhythm rock my joints a little. My advice from here, learn how to take criticism. It's kinda galling for this game about being 'badass' and 'edgy' to be made by people turning around and calling everyone "Haters" for not loving the reveal trailer. (Still, this is shaping up to perhaps be an alright game.)

Saints Row, huh?

 You look... different

I didn't sign up to the Gamescon event the very second it dropped this time around, not after the nearly 2 hour snorefest that was the Mircosoft event. (Why are manufacturers even getting their own events now at Gamescon anyway? Why does every gaming event have to be E3?) I was a little busy too, but I did manage to catch up about halfway through the thing. I tuned into someone else watching the gamescon stream (as I always like to get a feel of the sort of vibe these game reveals are getting right off the bat) and witnessed a man half bored out of his mind lazily acknowledging a barrage of room-temperature reveal trailers. I'd heard that today would be the big reveal date and in fact the original stream even listed it in the title, so I wasn't sure if I'd missed the announcement yet or if the big one was upcoming. My questions were answered when, said streamer, just happened to reply to a comment and say "Huh? What games have we seen so far? Umm... there was the new Saints Row, I guess." So that was how I was treated to the perception surrounding this new game, no excitement, no disappointment, just bland acknowledgment. And after I saw the trailer I can kind of understand that sentiment too well.

First of all let me take you right back to another game which I remembered just now, one that echoes this situation quite a bit. Do any of ya'll remember DMC? Wait, I should call it by it's proper title: DMC: Devil May Cry. I'm talking about the game which announced itself as Devil May Cry 5, and was poised to reboot the Devil May Cry franchise, only to rub everyone the wrong way out of the gate, to the point where Capcom literally undid the reboot and made the proper Devil May Cry V their next DMC universe game. That game did seemingly everything wrong in the marketing department, it removed all recognisable characters and imagery, skewered the tone and slapped a boring title at fans expecting them to go along with it without being teased into the affair. Of course, that original trailer would be what fans would end up looking back on fondly as characterisation deteriorated severely by the time of release, but the relationship between fan and game started rocky and was so off a cliff by launch that the game still gets looked on as some sort of abomination upon man, whether that be fair criticism or not. I did not lay this story down here for no reason.

'Saints Row' immediately does its darndest not to resemble what Saints Row was in all but the most perfunctory way; to the point where many people shared the same misconception that this was a Watch_Dogs game before the title reveal. How badly do you need to screw the vibe of the game until it's this unrecognisable to fans? This badly, apparently. Although, to play devil's advocate, this is sort of the point. 'Old School' Saints fans had been whining for a while about how the embarrassing decent of this franchise into absurdity didn't build on the game we all loved, Saints Row 2. 2 famously juggled jokes with drama, made you laugh in order to make you care, and tried to retain some sort of realism in it's world. Saints Row 3 kind of tried the same thing, but it veered a little to far into the crazy train which Saints 4 then drove off a cliff. Yet there were still fans in the backseat when that train burned, so my question is; did Saint's Row ever have a chance nailing the announcement of a Reboot?

I mean think about it, really do; what the heck are the team even rebooting? The largely mediocre GTA clone of Saints Row 1? The 'We can do GTA but more fun' of Saints Row 2? The 'Screw GTA, we have Dildo Bats' of Saints Row 3? Or the 'references are funny right? RIGHT?' of Saints Row 4? (I never played 'Gat out of Hell' or that other game I care about so little I refuse to look up it's name) All these games have their fans (Actually, Saints 1 probably doesn't) and no one game rightly represented all of what Saints Row was. (despite what the independent fandoms claim) So who the heck would a Reboot be appealing to? Which part of the fans do the team want to cater for? I think, upon reflection, that they've tried to appease all of them- which only begs to question why this needed to be a reboot at all. (According to Gat out of Hell's synopsis the events of Saints IV was already retconned; why not just make this the next sequel?)

To back up my wild assumption as to the developer's intentions, I call to the witness stand; that trailer which everyone pretty much hated. First of all, it's all CGI and tells you utterly nothing about the game is question, bad start. Secondly, the trailer doesn't take place in Steelport but an entirely new city, thank god. Thirdly, the trailer seems confused as to what it's even going for. It shows a very grounded beginning scene of typical gangster-types in some sort of deal that turned sour, (Very 2) then there's some flat jokes and talk about how this whole 'criminal thing' is working like a business startup, which is something parroted in the game's official description so presumably that's a genuine element of the aesthetic. (very Saints Row 3) Then the trailer devolves into a stupid over-the-top chase through the city with one car driving backwards off rooftops and... I don't know, this sounds like it should be cool but I just don't care. Oh, and there's a weird shirtless guys who stole Wrench from Watch_Dogs mask with the digital expressions things. (Firmly IV) So the styles kind of clash and this game consequently doesn't firmly fit the vibe of any game before it.

That's... fine actually. The whole point of a Reboot is to try new things and Saints Row has demonstrated before how it's never been married to one style of aesthetic, storytelling or even the laws of reality themselves. But there's something even more that's pushing past the general scepticism that usually accompanies a Reboot, something that leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth regardless. Oh yeah! The game doesn't show off the fact that it's Saints Row at any time! (Besides a shot of a Cactus vaguely in the shape of a Fleur De Lis) The characters don't wear purple, not a single character from the old games is present, the zaniness doesn't shine with the puerile idiocy of Saints Row, beyond the title screen at the end- which has a different design from the old series- there's no indication that this is a Saints Row game. Which is a problem, isn't it? Even if this is a reboot, shouldn't there be some representation of what made the original special present in your trailer? Else why even make a game under this property at all?

And the fans felt this void, clearly, given their guttural rejection of this game in a practically unanimous fashion. In less than a day of this being up fans are throwing mud at this game with the same ferocity they did back when DMC was announced, maybe spurred on by the fact that still the only gameplay we've seen is a brief tease that refuses to hold on a scene for more than 1 second. (Why not spend more time developing that and not the CGI waste-of-time?) Things are so dire that the Saints Row Twitter has had to bat down false phantoms that are arising from the chaos; like the claim that there would be no customisable character in this game. (Of course there is, no god would be so cruel as to force players to play as one of those plywood boards from the trailer.) At the very least I'll say that I don't think PR for this game will get nearly as bad as DMC's did. (NinjaTheory really have a lot of unaddressed skeletons in their closet from that mess)

So what of this new Saints Row, and more importantly, does it have any potential? Well, I'll say for one that the little snippet of gameplay looked pretty cool to me. The game looks like it's going in a completely different design direction than the franchise was originally headed for, but the whole 'realistic design direction' approach isn't exactly inspired. It's hard to say, I'd have to see more. Which is the key here. If we could see the game, then there would less space for people to stew over what a crappy announcement that was. I know someone in this company understands that blindingly obvious fact, I just need them to speak up more during board meetings. I'm not about to write this one off just yet, but I do have to formerly acknowledge and record this announcement, for the ledger, as a swing and a miss. I'm sorry team, they can't all go your way. 

Video Game jobs

Workung 9 to 5, what a way to make a living!

In the world of fictional story telling, we are all ruled by our desires to be something extraordinary. Whether that be a particularly skillful individual or particularly lucky one, a great many of wish to shirk our more mundane daily duties and embark on some epic, life-changing adventure. In particular, one thing that none of us want to deal with is the responsibility and effort that comes with a soul-crushing nowhere job. (Unless you're one of the lucky ones doing what they love. In which case, god speed to you good sir.) With that in mind, isn't it a little bit funny when those power-fantasy driven video games that we play enforce some dull job upon us?

I'm not talking about being tricked into doing various repetitive task, or rather not just that, I mean the times in which the developers thought it apropos to simulate a real-life job within their world and have players slog through it. Of course, some games are built around such a premise and those I take no issue with. Classic video game 'Paper Boy', for example, has players simulate the life of a bicycle-bound newspaper delivery boy who has the worrying tendency to smash the front windows of everyone too cheap to subscribe to his service. (Sounds like this kid has a future in the Mafia.) Other games, however, are clearly focused around other endeavours and yet take time out of their 'save the world' schedule to have you waste time in exchange for chump change.

One set of games which made an absolute habit out of this practice throughout it's entire main-lineup is the Fable series. These games are based around the well-worn concept of a born hero struggling to save the, very English, kingdom of Albion from the baddie of the week. Of course, such campaigns are hardly cheap for an aspiring hero. One needs to keep themselves flush with a stead supply of healing potions, new armours and weapons, and the latest fashionable haircut (and I'm just listing the essentials) none of which is handed to the player for free. Thus, in every game there comes a time wherein the hero must take to the streets and perform 'jobs' in order to fund their adventures, at least until they can get into more profitable endeavours. (Like real estate. I'm serious.) In Fable 3 your Hero is given the choice of being a blacksmith (fitting enough), Lute player (okay...), and Pie Maker. (How many pies does this society realistically need?) Not only is this the best way to raise income in the early game, but it is the most direct source of capital for the late game too, meaning that even once the Hero raises to the highest office of the land, (as they do in every game) the citizens of Albion can still enjoy the presence of their reigning monarch at the local pie stand.

Another title that approaches the concept of 'jobs' in a manner that is a little more fitting, would be American highschool simulator; Bully. Just as with most Rockstar games, Bully is full of side activities for the player to embark on to various ends; some confer respect with particular factions, most award some sort of collectible upon their completion and a few give cold hard cash. But unlike other Rockstar games, In Bully the protagonist is a highschool kid, meaning that the side jobs available to him are suitably- part time. In Bully, players are given the choice to join a paper route in order to make some extra pocket money, or take to mowing lawns to get what they need. Both tasks are as tedious as they sound but offer enough consistent cash to make them worthwhile pass-times. Plus, unlike in real life, you rarely have to wait for new cash-in-hand opportunities as the grass seems to magically grow the second before you go to cut it. Bully is kind enough to award money for completing quests too, meaning that one isn't forced to subject Jimmy Hopkins to such vivid glimpses of his future careers if they don't want to. (Choice is nice.)

Looking towards other Rockstar games, The Grand Theft Auto franchise is full of side jobs throughout their titles. (Especially in the 3D era) In 3, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories and both Vice cities, you can assume the role of a taxi driver in a makeshift version of 'Crazy Taxi'; San Andreas and Vice City both have prominent meta game threads whereupon you run a chop shop in order to be rewarded with unique vehicles and one can even find a rare job in Los Santos wherein you become a part-time pimp. (Okay, that might just be exact clone of the Taxi mini-game in a different vehicle but I'll count it.) In the same vein, the Saints Row series also had a decent number of jobs for the player to partake in, although the tended to get more outlandish as the games did. In Saints Row 2 you could become a reality TV cop or a Demolition derby driver, whilst in Saint Row 4 you ended up trafficking weapons and starring in a murderous version of Takeshi's Castle.

Seeing as how things are threatening to get a little too exciting, let's tone things down to the most sedate level possible; namely, the jobs of Skyrim. As this is a title that take place in a fictionalized version of the dark ages, it is only fitting for the daily life of Tamriel to reflect that- simpler time. And, as this franchise is a lot more poe-faced than Fable, that means you won't be getting any 'guitar hero' style lute mini games. (Maybe in TES6.) In Skyrim, one can make an honest living by partaking in three peaceful job opportunities, lumberjack, miner and farm hand. All of these activities are mostly automated and just require the player to have the right tool for the job, (Except for farming, in which there is no requirement) and they are all excessively boring for a player to partake in. Whatsmore, the 'living' you make from these jobs is hardly enough to keep fed all day, let alone support you throughout the game. This is a key example of a video game job that literally exists for nothing more than role play potential.

Okay, this next topic may not have a one-to-one comparison to a real job, but it's still a game concept formed around the work of manual labour, so I'd be remiss to disclude Death Stranding from my list. In Kojima's latest art-house thriller,(?) the protagonist is thrown into a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world in which his assigned task is the transporting of key materials all across America. (Think U-haul, only without the trucks.) This mean that aside from all of the weird supernatural goings on and bigger than life characters, the meat of the gameplay is essentially just the act of walking from one point to another for hours on end. In that way, Death Stranding does truly capture the tedium of cross-country courier work. (I assume Couriers have to fight off bandits and other worldly ink monsters too.)

There is one game out there that is notable for the way how it features 'going to work' as one of the key game play features. It simulates finding a job, keeping a job, and trying to keep your sanity in the moments in between. And no, it's not some psychological horror game, (Although that description I just made up did sound like a cool indie title)I'm talking about 'The Sims'. As a game that attempts to simulate the going-ons of everyday life, to varying levels of success, it only makes sense that the working life is represented within the gameplay. Throughout the years Maxis have adapted the way that they've presented jobs, but since Sims 3 they seemed to have hit a sweet spot between having players act out some jobs and having them plain disappear for 8 hours for others. (That's how you tell the difference between boring jobs and jobs so boring that game developers can't even figure how to pretend it's fun.)

At the end of the day the inclusion of real life jobs in video games can seem perfunctory, but I like to see the situation as one of perspective. In these adventures wherein the lionshare of time is spent robbing banks or fighting dragons, it's nice to take a step back now and then and appreciate the slower moments. (Even if your appreciation is marred by the fact that your character is currently partaking in back breaking labour.) At that point is because a question of pacing, which I think is a discussion that is very unique within the world of games compared to other forms of creative media. Although I will say, at least one of the jobs I mentioned today does very little to calm my nerves and instead invokes vivid spikes of hypertension akin to PTSD. But that's just me.

I'm not seeing enough movement!

I'm walking here!

I would argue that the ability to move is a rather integral part of our function as human beings, heck, as animate beings. (I don't think anyone is going to fight me too hard on that front.) It allows us to transport the rest of our fleshy sacks to the places we need to go. (God, I'm literally describing the utility of movement.) but despite the fact that everyone is familiar with methods of movement, or perhaps because of it, representing transit in media can be difficult. Simply writing the sentence "I walked down the road", conveys the result but not the action. You know what I did but you have no idea how long that road was, how long it took me to go down it or if I walked in the street or on the pavement. Movies often have people move from location during cuts rather than show you their journey through traffic (Unless your director is James Nguyen). You do still get some great, ponderous shots of people journeys like the sweep across the desert in 'Gallipoli' but those are usually to establish the desolation of a scene or allow the audience to admire the shot.

"But we don't need to every step in the characters day." You are rightly thinking. And of course we don't, if it irrelevant to the story being told, it doesn't need to be there. I'm sure there is some art-house film that dedicated itself to capturing the struggle of the average transit to work, but you won't be seeing that crossing over to the mainstream anytime soon. We don't have time for that, our time on this earth is limited, is it not? So why am I even bringing up this inane line of thought? because in many video games the protagonist's mode of transport is a carefully considered concept. How fast will they walk? Can they run? Should we add vehicles? Can we add Vehicles? What about planes? Therefore I thought it might be fun to break down the main modes of transport as the are represented gaming and talk about the struggles that developers have to keep in mind in order to realize them.

Firstly, we have the most common form of transport available; Ambulatory movement. Humans and animals have been putting one foot in front of the other in order to propel themselves for millennia, so you'd think that bringing such a concept to video games would be a 'walk-in-the-park' (See what I did there? I'm not proud, either.) but you would be wrong. Walking is an unavoidable part of many games so it is imperative that developers makes sure that it feels right. We humans may not mind walking down the street to the shop but try walking in GTA and see how long it is before you want to gouge out someone's eyes. Therefore developers need to think about the speed the player moves, ensuring it is both believable and fun; the weight of the movement, making players feel grounded in their world but not rigid; and the consequence of walking, how much will the camera bob and sway. etc.

There are too many games to count that feature some form of walking and running, but I think it is the likes of the openworld Rockstar games that consistently nail this aspect. Rockstar have been creating third person action openworld games for decades and therefore it should surprise no one that they are good at doing it. As their games have progressed, Rockstar have managed to improve upon the weight of the character immensely. Compare the floaty nature of GTA 3's Claude with Red Dead Redemption 2's Arthur and there are several solar systems worth of difference. It is part of their dedication to the construction of a believable gameworld to ensure the player feels rooted in it, movement is the glue that fixes all of that together and Rockstar practically own the patent for that stuff.

Next we have another popular mode of transport, vehicles. According to figures from the US department of energy, at least 16.5% of the world's population know how to drive a car. (Or at least have a licence, there's no current way to account for mental acuity.) this means that just about everyone in the world has at least seen an automobile. Humans have been hitting the roads in motorized vehicles since the 1800's and we'll likely continue to do so until the things start flying.

Obviously, many games have a handle on driving mechanics too, but few games handle them well. Saints Row and GTA have a vast selection of fun-to-drive vehicles in their repertoire but they don't handle particularly realistically. Play an actual racing Sim (Or just drive a real car like a weirdo) and you will notice how heavy and cumbersome those steel beasts can be. This is because video games often find themselves torn between the realistic versus the fun. If Grand Theft Auto's cars weighed anything like they should (Which you can achieve by messing with some gamecode.) suddenly you won't be able to pull of the ridiculous jumps and flips that people love to do. If Saints Row's cars were as flimsy as real cars, then every car you own would burst into flames within a minute. Creative liberties are taken for the good of the overall product.

Here's a fact you likely knew, 71% of the planet is covered in water. That means it was inevitable that mankind would figure out some way to traverse the thing, they had to get around to it eventually. Swimming is now a popular activity amongst people who are not me, and they've even gone and turned it into an Olympic sport. Personally, I can't think of a single thing that would encourage me to cross a body of water, but then I'm an introvert shut-in who hisses at the daylight, so I'm basically a vampire. (There's a thing about vampires and running water, isn't there?)

For whatever reason, Video games have always had a tough time whenever it has come to depicting
swimming. It has always been associated with the dreaded 'underwater level' and so it was a longtime until anyone managed to perfect underwater movement. (Rockstar still aren't there yet.) When it comes to recent games, I would say that the ideal example for underwater transit would be in Subnautica, but then again that is out of necessity. The entire premise of Subnautica is about being stranded on an ocean planet, so they needed to make the swimming feel weightless and effortless. Practised swimmers may point out that real swimming is actually neither effortless not weightless, but I merely direct them back to my 'realism versus fun' point from earlier.

But swimming isn't the only way that humanity has devised for travelling over bodies of water. Recently, we've come up with the idea of strapping people inside of metal death machines and launching them into the air. (Yeah, I'm not a big fan of planes.) Orville and Wilbur Wright famously established the path to air travel at the turn of the 20th century with their Wright Flyer. Nowadays commercial flights are a part of everyday life, and we're stuck with it until 2077 when aerodynes will become a thing. (I'm already saving up for mine.)

Flying has found a home in many video games. It's hard to mess up, really. Air resistance is more of  a bother for actual pilots and technicians; when you are merely simulating flight, things become a whole lot easier. There are great flight-capable vehicles all over gaming such as; Star Wars' starfighters, Far Cry's handgliders, GTA's planes and Just Causes' Grapple hook. (Yeah, Rico's hook is only 'technically' flying but I'm including it anyway.) Some games avoid implementing flying for presentational reasons. Despite featuring dozens of winged lizards, Skyrim had no flying mounts when it launched in 2011. This was explained by the assertion that if people could fly, they would spend their time looking through the land and not at it. Skyrim revolved around making players feel like a part of the world around them and therefore it was in Bethesda's best interests to saddle the player with more conventional means of transport. Then Bethesda released 'Dragonborn' and revealed that the real reason that they didn't add dragon-riding earlier was because the mechanic sucked.

The video gaming medium has a lot of issues unique to it, and solving the presentation of movement is one of the key ones. Fidelity in gaming comes to odds with creativity and fun all to often, making the establishment of a believable environment difficult. So much consideration goes into every single step that you take ingame, ultimately to ensure that you never notice that hard work. To most it is one of those irrelevant background details that never enters their sphere of conscious thought, but to me it is the foundation of solid gameplay. (the 'legs' if you will.)