Volition shut down by THQ Nordic

[Saint_Proverbius]

3 is actually where the series went to shit.

Saints Row the Third was awesome. Saints Row IV's concept should have stayed an expansion and they should have made a proper SR4. I think being forced to make Enter the Dominatrix in to Saints Row IV is why they blew up the Earth. The writers of the second Planet of the Apes back in the 1960s did the same thing because they didn't want to continue writing Planet of the Apes movies.

Honestly, they should have given the guy working on the Saints Row 2 patch for the PC several more developers and artists, remastered that thing, and re-released it on everything under the sun the way they did for Saints Row the Third and Saints Row IV. That would have been a money printer.

 

[Fedora Master]

3 turned the series from a more fun GTA into a Borderlands lolrandum normiefest. It's Reddit humor through and through.

 

[Silverfish]

The reddit humor is just the cherry on top. The whole game sucks a dick. The plot is missing huge chunks, the antagonist from the marketing materials is set up for a bait and switch, side activities are turned into story missions to pad out the runtime, gunplay is slower and emphasizes a needless zoom-in, melee has takedowns that go on for ages, leaving you susceptible to gunfire, weapon upgrades deemphasize switching weapons often, respect is now a generic leveling system with boring perks (even Todd Howard would have asked for a second pass) & customization is cut down to almost nothing (unless you buy the dlc). Even the horde mode, which is probably the best part of the game, insists on switching up the map after every wave, so if you enjoy any particular map, you'll only spend like five minutes there. Most unforgivable of all, the physics in the insurance fraud activity were fucked and it takes a crazy amount of effort to get any airtime. At least Professor Genki was pretty good.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

3 turned the series from a more fun GTA into a Borderlands lolrandum normiefest. It's Reddit humor through and through.

Not so sure about that, since I absolutely hated Borderlands. I still can't figure out how that game became successful.

melee has takedowns that go on for ages, leaving you susceptible to gunfire,

I never once had this issue, and I've beaten Saints Row the Third twice, and started it numerous other times. And I do like using the melee attacks.

respect is now a generic leveling system with boring perks (even Todd Howard would have asked for a second pass)

I didn't mind the leveling system in Saints Row the Third either. The one thing I will say is that towards the end, you're insanely powerful. Cars can explode right next to you, and have little effect on you. You can fall from incredible heights with little consequence. You can soak bullets.

side activities are turned into story missions to pad out the runtime

To be honest, the only parts of the game I didn't like were the missions involving flying vehicles like the helicopter chase followed by having to find the guy in the building with a timer going. If you blow the last part of it, you have to do the entire thing all over again. There's your run time padding right there.

 

[Fedora Master]

Not so sure about that

Once again, SR 2 had style and mixed humor with pretty serious and grim scenes. It wasn't pure whacky-zany HOLDSUPSPORK humor.

 

[Fargus]

And this is why SR2 was the best in the series because it never went full retard and improved upon the first game. Most of the crazy shit was tied to activities that you had to do to unlock new guns and unlimited ammo and even these activities never had cancer like Professor Genky. Main story was actually decent, good humor and characters, cutscenes were well directed. It was over the top action game about gangs not retardation with Marvel's flying CIA fortresses, cloning or alien invasion that came in later.

Also the action was much better in the second. Headshots felt satisfying. It's like they downgraded it to pea-shooting at rubber dolls in the third game and just went with it.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Once again, SR 2 had style and mixed humor with pretty serious and grim scenes. It wasn't pure whacky-zany HOLDSUPSPORK humor.

That's kind of why I said that they should have given that guy that was working on the Saints Row 2 patch all by himself a small team including some artists and gone ahead with a remaster, then released it on as many platforms as possible. The PC port that they released was dreadfully bad, so the only versions where you can actually enjoy the game would be the XBox 360 and PS3. Had they done that remaster once they found the source code, they could have re-released it on the PC, the Switch, the PS4, the PS5, the XBox One, and so on. Hell, even on Android and iOS. Most of the work on that game was done, obviously, and it's not like they didn't release Saints Row the Third and Saints Row IV on everything they could. I'm not sure why that same line of thought didn't go back to Saints Row 2. People who already had Saints Row 2 for the PC would have gotten a patch, everyone else could get the remastered version.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

3 turned the series from a more fun GTA into a Borderlands lolrandum normiefest. It's Reddit humor through and through.

The first two Saints Row games weren’t “more fun” GTA. They were just GTA clones that came out pre GTA4. They’re in a pretty similar place as GTA during the PS2 era as far as tone goes. San Andreas is a game where you break into Area 51 69 to get a Jet Pack. It’s the reason Saints Row had dildo weapons. It’s probably also the reason Saints Row has zombies, since San Andreas has that Resident Evil reference Zombotech Corporation building in the game...although you can’t go fight the zombies. A lot of the first two Saints Row games seem to be them looking at San Andreas.

 

[JarlFrank]

They were just GTA clones that came out pre GTA4.

Didn't Saints Row 2 come out around the same time as GTA4?
It had a much more fun tone compared to the overly serious one GTA adopted with 4. At the time, I considered it a better GTA and was looking forward to where the series would be going.
Then 3 happened, and it was decent but leaned way too hard into the goofiness.
Then 4 happened and that was pretty much it, there wasn't a trace left of the original gangster game.

 

[jaekl]

Is the 1.7 million sales counting when they were giving it away for free to psn subscribers?

 

[Caim]

They were just GTA clones that came out pre GTA4.

Didn't Saints Row 2 come out around the same time as GTA4?
It had a much more fun tone compared to the overly serious one GTA adopted with 4. At the time, I considered it a better GTA and was looking forward to where the series would be going.
Then 3 happened, and it was decent but leaned way too hard into the goofiness.
Then 4 happened and that was pretty much it, there wasn't a trace left of the original gangster game.

Saints Row 2 came out after GTA IV, and they had a trailer poking fun at GTA.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

They were just GTA clones that came out pre GTA4.

Didn't Saints Row 2 come out around the same time as GTA4?
It had a much more fun tone compared to the overly serious one GTA adopted with 4. At the time, I considered it a better GTA and was looking forward to where the series would be going.
Then 3 happened, and it was decent but leaned way too hard into the goofiness.
Then 4 happened and that was pretty much it, there wasn't a trace left of the original gangster game.

Saints Row 2 came out five and a half months after GTA4, but that’s not enough time for Saints Row 2 to react to anything GTA4 did in the game.