Sinners And Saints

danielkempster

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Edited By danielkempster

Before I begin this blog, I would like to warn you all that it contains some spoilers concerning the stories of Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto IV. If anybody does not wish to have these particulars revealed to them, it is advised that they stop reading now.

So I just finished Saints Row. As I said in my last blog, I had a lot of fun with the game - more fun than I was expecting to have, in fact. I've been devoting time to it pretty sporadically, playing it in addition to serious titles like The Orange Box and, more recently, Fallout 3. Over the past week or so, though, it's been spending more and more time in my 360, largely because I'm worried about getting burned out on Fallout 3, so I'm trying to avoid excessive exposure to it. While I really enjoyed playing Saints Row, the last couple of hours of the game kind of annoyed me a little bit. Seeing as the whole Saints Row V Grand Theft Auto thing is a hot topic of discussion right now, I figured I'd vent my thoughts in blog form while they're still topical.

Consequence-free destruction. Or is it...?

My beef with the ending of Saints Row is how, after twenty-five hours of completely disregarding the concept of the moral compass, the game actually tries to make you feel something. I left the Westside Rollerz missions till last, a strand of missions fronted by some stereotypical car-loving gangsta-chick called Lin. Like the rest of Saints Row, the missions that Lin provides you with are little more than excuses to blast on fools, blow stuff up, and cause general mayhem. This is all well and good, until some bright spark decided it would be a good idea to kill off Lin, and use her death as further motive to shut down the Rollerz for good. This pissed me off a little. Up until now, the simple mission to make the Third Street Saints the dominant gang in Stilwater has been incentive enough. Why kill off a character who is so one-dimensional that I'm more emotionally attached to the stuff I pull out of my belly button? It was a decision that made no sense.

But that's just the tip of the frustration iceberg. When you finally complete all three mission strands available to you, you're treated to a kind of ending sequence featuring several of the game's characters, all dealing with the suffering they've endured. This literally had me thinking, "What the fuck?". I don't care about any of these people. The game has given me no reason to even consider doing so up until now. Why start trying to make me feel guilty now? Finally, there was the true ending, where your character is betrayed and blown to kingdom come after being lured to a boat. After the two previous blows to the stomach, this was a veritable kick in the nuts. The game now not only expects me to feel something for my own character, who up until now has served as nothing more than a finger pulling the trigger of an assault rifle, but it also expects me to feel hatred for the characters I've just been expected to feel sorry for. All this, in the space of about an hour of play. I'm pretty glad the game ended at this point, because it provided me with a valid reason to turn off the 360.

Silent protagonist does not equal meaningless story

To sum it up, my problem is that the ending of Saints Row is not only out of place, it completely goes against everything else the game sets out to (and in many cases manages to) achieve. The entire game is built on the foundation of not taking itself seriously. Everything in Stilwater is so outrageously over the top that it's impossible to come away from the game still thinking about it. You turn it on, you blow shit up, and you turn it off again. The characters you meet along the way are little more than stereotypical caricatures, strategically placed throughout what little story the game has in order to provide some half-sense of purpose. With a set-up like this, it's literally impossible to get attached to the supporting cast. You can't even identify with your own character or empathise with his motivation for embarking on these missions. Maybe it's because he's almost a silent protagonist, but I don't buy into that. Plenty of games can spin an interesting narrative with silent protagonists. In fact, just over seven years ago, Grand Theft Auto III did just that. Claude may not have been able to speak, but he was at least given an incentive of revenge to give him some sense of character. Your in-game self in Saints Row, by comparison, has slightly less character than your average chocolate biscuit.

GTAIV has so much impact because the player genuinely cares about Niko

Despite this tirade, I don't really care too about all of this. I didn't play Saints Row for the story, I played it because I wanted to have some mindless fun that I didn't have to think about. In that respect, the game served its purpose. Saints Row is a hell of a lot of fun, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anybody looking for a completely detached, yet enjoyable open world action game. Yet, it's precisely because this is all I wanted from Saints Row that the ending has irritated me. The developers clearly worked very hard to create this city that's yours to take apart and destroy in any way you see fit. To turn all that on its head in the last few missions and expect me to care about these events is, in my eyes, a pretty cheap last-minute attempt at squeezing a sense of morality into the game on the part of Volition. When compared with the expertly crafted characters and story of Grand Theft Auto IV, Saints Row's inferiority as an (attempted) gaming experience is only further confirmed. Say what you like about GTAIV, but for me it remains the defining moment of this console generation. The focus on morality worked so well because the game gave us characters we actually cared about and became attached to. The moral choices in the game carry the impact that they do because they force you to consider both the personalities of those around you and Niko's own character. That's not to say GTAIV did a perfect job of it. Depending on the decision you make at the end of the game, its impact is likely to be very different (seriously, Rockstar. Kate-fucking-McReary?). But it's certainly done a much better job of it than any game before, and certainly any game since.

In August last year I wrote a blog chronicling what I believed to be the five most moving moments I've experienced in my ten years of serious gaming. Looking back at it now, all these moments succeeded in moving me because the games drew me into their worlds and encouraged me to become attached to their characters. All of the games on that list are without doubt genuine gaming experiences. If I hadn't been so hell-bent on revenge, maybe the end of GTAIV would have had more of an impact on me and made it onto that list. If playing through Saints Row has taught me anything, though, it's that I didn't totally appreciate GTAIV the first time through (I blame the Liberty City Minute achievement). That's why I'm going to play through it again, at a reasonable pace, and truly savour the experience. Incidentally, I don't intend to pick up Saints Row 2 any time soon, if at all.

Thanks for reading, guys. I'd be really interested to hear other people's views on this. See you around.

DanK

---

Currently playing - Fallout 3 (X360)

15 years ago

danielkempster

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#1 Edited By danielkempster

Before I begin this blog, I would like to warn you all that it contains some spoilers concerning the stories of Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto IV. If anybody does not wish to have these particulars revealed to them, it is advised that they stop reading now.

So I just finished Saints Row. As I said in my last blog, I had a lot of fun with the game - more fun than I was expecting to have, in fact. I've been devoting time to it pretty sporadically, playing it in addition to serious titles like The Orange Box and, more recently, Fallout 3. Over the past week or so, though, it's been spending more and more time in my 360, largely because I'm worried about getting burned out on Fallout 3, so I'm trying to avoid excessive exposure to it. While I really enjoyed playing Saints Row, the last couple of hours of the game kind of annoyed me a little bit. Seeing as the whole Saints Row V Grand Theft Auto thing is a hot topic of discussion right now, I figured I'd vent my thoughts in blog form while they're still topical.

My beef with the ending of Saints Row is how, after twenty-five hours of completely disregarding the concept of the moral compass, the game actually tries to make you feel something. I left the Westside Rollerz missions till last, a strand of missions fronted by some stereotypical car-loving gangsta-chick called Lin. Like the rest of Saints Row, the missions that Lin provides you with are little more than excuses to blast on fools, blow stuff up, and cause general mayhem. This is all well and good, until some bright spark decided it would be a good idea to kill off Lin, and use her death as further motive to shut down the Rollerz for good. This pissed me off a little. Up until now, the simple mission to make the Third Street Saints the dominant gang in Stilwater has been incentive enough. Why kill off a character who is so one-dimensional that I'm more emotionally attached to the stuff I pull out of my belly button? It was a decision that made no sense.

But that's just the tip of the frustration iceberg. When you finally complete all three mission strands available to you, you're treated to a kind of ending sequence featuring several of the game's characters, all dealing with the suffering they've endured. This literally had me thinking, "What the fuck?". I don't care about any of these people. The game has given me no reason to even consider doing so up until now. Why start trying to make me feel guilty now? Finally, there was the true ending, where your character is betrayed and blown to kingdom come after being lured to a boat. After the two previous blows to the stomach, this was a veritable kick in the nuts. The game now not only expects me to feel something for my own character, who up until now has served as nothing more than a finger pulling the trigger of an assault rifle, but it also expects me to feel hatred for the characters I've just been expected to feel sorry for. All this, in the space of about an hour of play. I'm pretty glad the game ended at this point, because it provided me with a valid reason to turn off the 360.

To sum it up, my problem is that the ending of Saints Row is not only out of place, it completely goes against everything else the game sets out to (and in many cases manages to) achieve. The entire game is built on the foundation of not taking itself seriously. Everything in Stilwater is so outrageously over the top that it's impossible to come away from the game still thinking about it. You turn it on, you blow shit up, and you turn it off again. The characters you meet along the way are little more than stereotypical caricatures, strategically placed throughout what little story the game has in order to provide some half-sense of purpose. With a set-up like this, it's literally impossible to get attached to the supporting cast. You can't even identify with your own character or empathise with his motivation for embarking on these missions. Maybe it's because he's almost a silent protagonist, but I don't buy into that. Plenty of games can spin an interesting narrative with silent protagonists. In fact, just over seven years ago, Grand Theft Auto III did just that. Claude may not have been able to speak, but he was at least given an incentive of revenge to give him some sense of character. Your in-game self in Saints Row, by comparison, has slightly less character than your average chocolate biscuit.

Despite this tirade, I don't really care too about all of this. I didn't play Saints Row for the story, I played it because I wanted to have some mindless fun that I didn't have to think about. In that respect, the game served its purpose. Saints Row is a hell of a lot of fun, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anybody looking for a completely detached, yet enjoyable open world action game. Yet, it's precisely because this is all I wanted from Saints Row that the ending has irritated me. The developers clearly worked very hard to create this city that's yours to take apart and destroy in any way you see fit. To turn all that on its head in the last few missions and expect me to care about these events is, in my eyes, a pretty cheap last-minute attempt at squeezing a sense of morality into the game on the part of Volition. When compared with the expertly crafted characters and story of Grand Theft Auto IV, Saints Row's inferiority as an (attempted) gaming experience is only further confirmed. Say what you like about GTAIV, but for me it remains the defining moment of this console generation. The focus on morality worked so well because the game gave us characters we actually cared about and became attached to. The moral choices in the game carry the impact that they do because they force you to consider both the personalities of those around you and Niko's own character. That's not to say GTAIV did a perfect job of it. Depending on the decision you make at the end of the game, its impact is likely to be very different (seriously, Rockstar. Kate-fucking-McReary?). But it's certainly done a much better job of it than any game before, and certainly any game since.

In August last year I wrote a blog chronicling what I believed to be the five most moving moments I've experienced in my ten years of serious gaming. Looking back at it now, all these moments succeeded in moving me because the games drew me into their worlds and encouraged me to become attached to their characters. All of the games on that list are without doubt genuine gaming experiences. If I hadn't been so hell-bent on revenge, maybe the end of GTAIV would have had more of an impact on me and made it onto that list. If playing through Saints Row has taught me anything, though, it's that I didn't totally appreciate GTAIV the first time through (I blame the Liberty City Minute achievement). That's why I'm going to play through it again, at a reasonable pace, and truly savour the experience. Incidentally, I don't intend to pick up Saints Row 2 any time soon, if at all.

Thanks for reading, guys. I'd be really interested to hear other people's views on this. See you around.

DanK

---

Currently playing - Fallout 3 (X360)

15 years ago

Jensonb

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#2 Edited By Jensonb

Very good, young grasshopper.

I wasn't aware that the ending of Saints' Row was like that. It does sound kinda lame.

I also found the attempts on the part of GTAIV to make me care about Kate to be kind of irritating and shallow. I didn't think she was that great to be honest, so the emotional weight she was supposed to have didn't really affect me.

15 years ago

danielkempster

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#3 Edited By danielkempster

Thanks Jensonb.

That's kinda my point about GTAIV. It didn't do enough to make you care about Kate to the point where the revenge ending had enough of an impact. Had Kate been as fleshed-out as, say, Roman, or Little Jacob, then both endings would have had a similar effect on the player.

15 years ago

BiggerBomb

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#4 Edited By BiggerBomb

That's interesting, Dan. I was actually crushed by Kate's death. I purposely gave the finger to the Liberty City Minute achievement and went out of my way to enjoy every inkling of gameplay GTA IV had to offer. I often hung out with Kate and listened to her stories. Niko and Kate went on date after date, and with each one Kate opened another window into her childhood and the struggles her family endured. Perhaps you didn't spend time with the character, outside of the main story. Because for me personally, I had formed as unhealthy of an emotional attatchment to a videogame character as one can have.

Her death left me numb for a good two weeks after I had finished GTA IV. I love the game (so much so that I'm playing it again) and I actually believe that the death of Kate was far more impactful than the death of Roman would have been, had things been different. Again Dan, you're showing your Midas' touch. Keep up the good work. And this time, try to live with the characters; once you have, their deaths will hit the nerve.

15 years ago

danielkempster

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#5 Edited By danielkempster

Cheers, BiggerBomb.

I had no idea there was that much depth to Kate, and that's probably my own fault for rushing through the game. I guess it does depend on how much time you spend with the characters. People moan about the friendship/dating aspect of the game, but it's vital in terms of developing bonds with those characters. I got burned out on that side of the game around half-way through, so I became very attached to Roman and Little Jacob but didn't take the time to establish anything with Kate. Because I didn't fully appreciate GTAIV the first time round, I guess I have only myself to blame for wrecking the potential impact of the revenge ending.

Like I said in the blog, I'm going to play through GTAIV again and truly savour everything Liberty City has to offer. Hopefully I'll get even more out of it, and appreciate the game a lot more as a result.

15 years ago

Jensonb

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#6 Edited By Jensonb

Thing is, I didn't want to spend time with Kate. I actively disliked her because she acted morally superior all the time. As such, I had no desire what so ever to get to know her better, because I already had plenty of friends who I liked. I didn't see any sense in actively cultivating a friendship with a character I found whiny and annoying. I felt the same way about Niko's first girlfriend. Ironically, the only girl in he game so far I've liked enough to have Niko date is one who he can't, because she got on a train and went home.

15 years ago

BiggerBomb

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#7 Edited By BiggerBomb

Had you spent time with her, I think you would have liked her. At least I sure did.

15 years ago

ThomasP

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#8 Edited By ThomasP

*stays away from GTAIV spoilers*

I'm hoping to fit it in this year if I end up getting a PS3. I'll probably never play Saints Row 2.

15 years ago

BiggerBomb

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#9 Edited By BiggerBomb

BiggerBomb is impressed with ThomasP's ability to navigate through a blog, just brimming with GTA IV spoilers and the ensuing comments that contain even more spoilers. BiggerBomb is most certainly impressed and he approves of this response.

15 years ago

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