We Reviewed Saints Row (2022) – Xbox Series X / Xbox One + Video Review
Saints Row Review: Bland Theft Auto
The new Saints Row is a reboot that literally brings the series back down to earth after the supercharged skullduggery and weapons of phallic ferocity seen in recent titles.
Hang on just one damn second though. Didn’t fans really like what the series was doing before?
Like A Boss
Saints Row is an open-world action-adventure similar to those other games you’ve played, set in the city of something-something, sort of like that one you’ve already seen before.
You create a character, build up your empire to becomes your own boss, drive cars, shoot people and do missions – you know, like you already did in that thing, that time.
Why that’s good or bad
Saints Row is a passable video game that meets the minimum requirements necessary to exist, but despite being an okay game, it does what so many have already done, and not as well.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have a few decent moments, but they’re few and far between.
Note: The game has seamless co-op, but we were unable to test it for the the review and may look at an additional review in future.
Want to Watch the video review instead?
Written review continues below
We’ve recently been catching up on older games like Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row: The Third, and the cold, hard truth is that we wanted to go back and play those instead.
Saints Row feels visually outdated for a 2022 game. It offers 5 graphics and performance modes on Series X (Xbox One S has no options), and yet I never found one that found a good balance of graphics and performance.
There’s really no excuse when updates of 9-year old games currently offer sharper graphics at high frame rates, with similar ray-tracing features in a bigger, more detailed world. The sound is pretty good, though.
Pap Fiction
Saints Row baffled us, seemingly trying to alienate its biggest fans by offering nothing particularly interesting to a younger generation.
I didn’t like any of the main characters either.
Your group is essentially made up of what feels like a circle of annoying college dorm-mates; except that they’re self-righteous, self-centred sociopaths who, unlike some previous games, don’t embrace it in a way that’s satirical or amusing.
Being lectured on my carbon footprint during the drive over to a heist, or socio-political topics right after a near-genocidal overreaction on a rival gang’s recent actions just doesn’t fit. It could have if written better, but it wasn’t.
Xbox One S Performance
Saints Row also releases on PS4 and Xbox One, and we recently checked it out on the launch Xbox One. At this point it runs and looks like you’d expect, more like a Switch game, blurry and choppy. It’s playable, I’ll give it that (despite feeling tougher to handle cars) … but it’s not the ideal way to play by a mile.
