At the exact moment I started writing this review, 16 years had passed since the original Saints Row game launched. As the first open-world crime simulator for the new generation of consoles, they were in a prime position to take advantage of the genre that GTA had made so famous. The subtle differences though were enough to highlight the creative mindset of Volition, leaning into the chaotic nature of the GTA games and offering a slightly goofier take. After four mainline games, the series went dormant. That was until Deep Silver acquired Volition and got to work on a soft reboot of the series, named none other than Saints Row.

Unlike the urban jungles of the original setting of Stillwater in the very first Saints Row, this entry throws caution to the wind and heads outs to the desert adjacent city of Santo Ilios. Living in the outskirts of the hustle and bustle, four roommates are hard up on money but have plenty of ambition and select skills to go around.

Neenah, the headstrong and mechanically savvy one, is the anchor of the group that the loose cannon, Kevin, sorely needs. Meanwhile, the entrepreneur, Eli, uses his skill set for crime and is set to make the dreams of “The Boss” a reality. Be prepared for a mixed bag of dialogue from these four, ranging from playful and light-hearted banter to ‘we are still hip’ dialogue that rarely matched the tone of the mission, especially considering how many corpses we were leaving behind.

That’s where you come in as The Boss. You have had enough of earning money for someone else, set to take things into your own hands and make your new gang the king of the hill. The dangerous gang land is currently ruled by three powerhouses, four if you include the police force who frequently stick their nose in to add to the chaos. The Idols, a club-centric fuelled group that are covered head to toe in neon punk drab and LED lights, boosted by their modulated voices and cocky attitude, arguably, were my favourite crew to fight.

The Los Panteros are the awkward middle child. They are a fairly generic bad guy bunch looking like they just rolled out of a bad 90s movie from the hood. The high-tech private organisation that you once belonged to, the Marshall Defence Institute, is the window to the wacky tech that Saints Row is known for, and it is a nice change from another gang that simply rocks a different colour scheme. I wish I could say that the diversity was deep in enemy variety, but ultimately, it was as shallow as a kiddie pool, with carbon copies of each enemy, and the most difficult enemies having two health bars to work through.

The bulk of my time in Santi Ilios was spent building the empire that would become known as Saints Row, which took me through a campaign of sorts with a sizeable selection of empire-building activities. Everything was entangled in crime but one of the most criminal designs was the sheer amount of bland point-and-shoot encounters, or driving from point A to point B with de-spawning traffic issues running rampant. In a strange way, it did encourage me to get creative to entertain myself, and the new pit maneuverability for enemy vehicles became my favourite weapon as I rammed cars off the road into fire hydrants, launching vehicles into the air and causing car parts to rain over the road if it exploded.

Much the same as the rest of the game, I fluctuated between loving the combat and tolerating it. The aiming system allowed for quick snaps onto the targets and was pretty generous and getting headshots. Without the snap-on mechanics, the aiming felt floaty and the kick to keep enemies at bay wasn’t worth the time it took to use it, to be honest.

To make up for this, however, there was a list of unlockable skills that can be used periodically to shove grenades down someone’s pants to clear a group, or an over-scope sniper shot that makes enemies explode with a headshot. Pair these together with passive perks and you will eventually be a walking tank, regardless of the five preset difficulties that just seemed to make enemies more of bullet sponge the harder you went.

The more you play and the further your reach grows through the regions, the more revenue you can begin to accumulate passively. Being able to access this cash flow through the apps on your phone was a nice addition that made me actually check on the crime empire that I was building.

It wasn’t always the more generic ways to earn money, my all-time favourite mini-game from the Saints series has returned, with Insurance Scam, that has you hurling yourself into traffic and comically destroying an entire armada of vehicles to rack up the points. It was just such a perplexing experience as the silly side would offer a charming relief from the story that couldn’t pick a lane on how serious it wanted to be.

Regardless of my opinions on how the missions play, it was infinitely better when you brought a friend along for the ride. The two-player co-op experience allowed me to ride on the roof of a car while my buddy rammed cars off the road, launching off the roof at full speed into my wingsuit so I could soar the skies. The massive amount of customisation allowed us to create monstrosities, or we could download a premade skin from the community to rock as we conquered the regions in the name of the Saints.

It’s worth noting there were a fair amount of pop-in issues, cars disappearing, and clipping that I had to deal with. I am holding out for some patches from the developers to bring a little crispiness to the environment, as the lighting, texture, and designs already offer a wide variety of locations and architectural styles. The visual flair offered by the Casino strip was captivating, yet sadly, they didn’t let me explore inside which seemed like a missed opportunity. My favourite part of my experience was going cruising with the list of preset radio stations with ‘The Drop’ and ‘The Cipher’ being my go-to stations for hip hop and dance beats to pump. I still am not sure if it was an audio glitch or not, but mid-mission I would often have the music drop out and left with nothing to excite me as popped off on the enemy hordes.

Saints Row has a bit of an identity crisis but I had some of the deepest laughing fits while playing with friends. There is plenty to do technically, even if there is a fair amount of recycled content and when the game doesn’t take itself so seriously, the spark that won me over 16 years ago would flair up again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go back and perform a few more insurance scams for another good laugh after a hard day’s work.

Written by: Shane Fletcher