Fourth Time Lucky?

For my recent birthday, a friend of mine bought me Saints Row IV for the PS3. I thanked him, while inwardly I tried to decide if it was intended to be a joke present. After all, I had also received a craptastic Argos solar-powered bird/light the exact same day from another friend. You see, the reason why I didn’t already own a copy of Saints Row IV was due to my history with Saints Row games, which has been both long and painful.

In 2006, I optimistically bought the first Saints Row, hoping it would help tide me over until the inevitable 360/PS3 GTA title arrived. It was a big disappointment to me – the cars handled like derailed trams, the gameplay was poor and the graphics bland. I also didn’t like any of the characters, the story or the sense of humour. GTA may have a childish sense of humour, but somehow Saints Row aimed even lower… and missed.

In 2008, I bought Saints Row 2, hoping they would have fixed, expanded and improved the game in every way. Unfortunately, this game was just as disappointing to me, if not more so, given that it came out after GTA IV, a game which really made Saints Row 2 look and feel terrible in comparison.

I swore off the games, enough was enough. That said, in 2011, when the hype started to build for Saints Row: The Third, I was somehow talked into investing. Once again, it was a glitchy, ugly, unfunny mess, and I was predictably disappointed. A lot of people enjoyed Saints Row 3, but it left me utterly cold.

I don’t know why I bought all these games, over and over again in a cycle of wasted money and disappointment. As the famous saying goes, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.” I was done with the Saints Row series. Don’t get me wrong, they certainly had their fans, but I wasn’t among that number.

When 2013’s Saints Row IV rolled around, I stuck to my guns. I steadfastly held on to my cash, and let the game pass by me, happy that I still had my £40 instead of my usual Saints Row buyers remorse.

Of course, when I was given the game, I figured it would be rude to not try it, even if it was just for a couple of hours so that I could tell my mate that I had given it a go. After waiting through 6 patches totalling 2.5GB, and a lengthy from disc install, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for more of Saints Row’s usual crap. And it was crap, the same old Saints Row bullshit. Or at least it was at first, before very quickly opening up to reveal a game that’s equal parts Crackdown and inFAMOUS. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an blurry mess, and the sense of humour is a puerile and unfunny as ever, but for the first time in the series’ history – I was genuinely having fun.

the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results

The cars still drive like crap, but within an hour, you can run faster than a car anyway so cars end up being nothing more than something to throw at enemies. With telekinesis. While jumping hundreds of feet into the air with a single bound. That sounds fun, right? But then, all the Saints Row games sounded fun on paper. For the first time, though, it actually is as fun as it sounds.

So, I’m back aboard the Saints Row bandwagon, and will be actively interested in Saints Row 5, Saints Row V or Saints Row: The Fifth, depending on which of the series’ naming conventions they decide to use next time. You could say: I wanna be among that number, oh when the Saints come marching in.