Hope you enjoyed this half video essay on Saints Row (2022)/half eulogy for the game studio that made it. Not something I'd usually talk about on this channel but I felt compelled after Volition got screwed over so badly earlier this year. I wanted to create something that was in the spirit of the Saints Row series so you'll find this video is a lot crasser than usual but whatever. The Saints Row games were extremely formative for me growing up and it was great to get the chance to talk about each of them a little bit here. Volition did some amazing stuff in their day, best of wishes for all those former employees! I hope the times haven't been too tough since August.
0:00 Intro
0:27 The Main Character of the Video Game Industry
7:17 GTA Fans and SR Fans are Natural Enemies (Like SR Fans and other SR Fans)
16:00 The Sins of The Saints (-row developers)
24:53 Saints?! NOOOOOOOOO!
37:27 Playa Boss
48:06 Ignore Everything I Said Before This Point In The Video
57:35 And The Saints Go Marching In
Some Addendums:
On all that Rockstar Bashing stuff I just wanted to add that I really don't want it to come across that I hate all of their games or anything. Also, despite what I said about Niko Bellic's story I do want to add that he is probably my favourite GTA protagonist out of them all. Which is what makes GTA 4 consequently such a disappointing game for me because I just wish Niko was given some better material to work with. I wish his story was told in a more interesting developed game world with more interesting developed characters. Rockstar I think struggled a lot telling stories in the HD GTA era, but they found much more success from the Red Dead Redemption games and I think that's because a period setting allows for more opportunities where realism can actually be made enjoyable. Cosplaying as a cowboy in the old west is fun because the old west doesn't exist anymore but LA and New York City are very much real places that you can still go to and live in and commit crime in if you really want to. On the other hand, I do have a lot more hope for Grand Theft Auto 6 since Florida is already a pretty wild place in reality and it at least looks there's gonna be less focus on melodrama and more on capital-C crime with the whole Bonnie and Clyde angle they got going on. We'll see what happens in 2025.
Also I know I was probably alone in my Saints Row The Third Remaster hate and my comments about being able to play the old Saints Row games so just to be clear; I have absolutely no desire to gatekeep or police how or where people get access to their video games. The video game industry at large is so anti-backwards compatibility and anti history and it's uniformly just unfair to expect everyone to experience a game in the exact same way you once did years after it's release. The discussion around how much can and should be changed/updated for a remaster is one for another day but for all those who want to experience the Saints Row series and prefer the ease of the Saints Row: The Third remaster to the original I won't hold anything against you. If you wanna play a game just play it and don't worry what nerds on the internet have to say about the 'intend way you're supposed to experience something". If that matters to you then the information is readily available online and you can police yourself and if you don't care then just go and have your fun. There are Six Saints Row games and unless you have an Xbox S or X it can be super difficult to play them all. Do what you gotta do.
Also, Kevin isn't actually a homosexual.
I apologize for believing he was more interesting than he actually was.
B+