How woke, bad, and cringe is this game and are there mods to de-woke it?

[JCD3nton]

I loved Saints Row 1 and 2 back on the OG 360 but moved away from the series once it got stupid. Right now I'm trying to decide if this new Saints Row has any redeeming value whatsoever or if I should just pause my Humble Bundle for the month. The aesthetic and characters of this new game do not look good at all. So:

1) How does it play? Are the missions at least good and does it have some nice classic GTA-style gameplay?

2) How insufferable are the cast and story?

3) Are there any mods to replace the Diversity Squad with a bro crew of hardcore thugs and chads or otherwise de-wokify the game?

[AntKED]

Just buy it and try.

[Ingel Riday]

1. The shooting is fine. Most vehicles handle poorly and vehicle physics are atrocious. The missions... a lot of hit and miss. The vast majority of the game is grinding minigames to boost passive income so that you can buy new businesses that unlock new minigames.

2. Utterly.

3. Guffaw! No, but Gearbox cut out a LOT of dialogue. It does help, somewhat.

I'll give you a personal anecdote. Playing this game, which I bought on sale about two weeks ago to sate my morbid curiosity, made me angry. Incredibly angry. So angry that I yelled to no one in particular about the awful writing and gameplay.

"You have a costume store with lots of various outfits, but every heist mission you dress the crew IN THE SAME PRESIDENT MASKS AND TUXEDOS. You claimed that this game was for modern audiences, but POINT BLANK CAME OUT IN 1991, YOU IDIOTS. Your unicorn modern audience people weren't EVEN BORN THEN! Point Blank was a movie their PARENTS watched as kids. You know, the parents you no longer want as customers! OH MY GOD! Enemy vehicles spawning out of thin air, ten feet in front of me. Pedestrian vehicles programmed to overtly swerve into my path whenever I have a notoriety level, just to muck with me. A checkpoint marker on the 'getaway sequence' and magically the ten cars following me disappear and my character smugly proclaims 'we got away. We're good!' THIS STUDIO CALLED US SAINTS ROW FANS TERRORISTS FOR MOCKING THEIR GAME, LITERALLY, and this... this is what I'm a terrorist for mocking? To chide this level of failure makes me no better than AL-QAEDA? @&@& OFF!!! Saints Row 1 was better than this, and THAT CAME OUT 16 YEARS BEFORE THIS GAME. 16 YEARS. IT RAN ON A CONSOLE WITH 512 MB OF RAM! BETTER THAN THIS."

A neighborhood Karen heard me from the street, because I was apparently that loud, and called the cops on me. She said it sounded like someone was being threatened by a maniac in the home, and two officers pounded on my door with their hands on their pieces. I explained the situation, got mocked by one guy for playing such a cra#%y game in the first place, and then they confirmed my narrative with my wife.

So yeah... I don't have any kind words for this game. I'm almost at 100% complete and it has never, never failed to disappoint. Don't just "buy it and try it." Go buy one of the other Saints Row games. You can get them on a lot of storefronts and they're all better than this. Agents of Mayhem is better than this, and that game was atrocious too.

edit addition: I actually split my lip biting down my anger on a later mission. I just... how can this writing be so awful? "Marshall is using the non-compete clause you signed to steal the Saints from us. Oh noes!"

WHAT?!?! A non-compete clause would imply that the player character could neither start nor sign up with another privatized military company (PMC) for X number of years. Usually non-compete clauses have some logical limits. Ex: I bought your coffee shop. You can't open a new coffee shop in the same geographic area for X number of years. You could open one in another town, though, but not here. Also, you not being able to open a coffee shop doesn't mean that you couldn't open a bookstore or a laundromat. I can't BAR YOU FROM HAVING A JOB IN ANOTHER INDUSTRY.

The new Saints aren't a PMC. They're a bloodthirsty gang of drug-running, mass-murdering lunatics... who claim to hate capitalism and yet spend all their time being the most capitalist characters that I have EVER SEEN IN A VIDEOGAME. They've bought up over a dozen businesses to use as fronts for every crime known to man (except prostitution, because that's triggering), and not one of said businesses involves PMC work. NOT ONE.

But you know what? Even if one of the front-companies did do PMC stuff... so what? The Saints aren't a corporation that can be seized. They're a violent gang of fiends squatting in a church. Threatening a man with death until he gives you his deed to a building does not mean you LEGALLY OWN THE BUILDING. All the Saints' businesses are owned either through shell companies / fake legal entities or just via pure murderous intimidation (it's in your name, Frank, but you know who really owns this. Cross me and I burn your home down and eat your children). There'd be no legal way for Marshall to seize a completely illegal street gang and claim it as a subsidiary. Heck, you couldn't even consider the Boss a legal employee / owner of the Saints, because the Saints aren't an official employer. They didn't incorporate. They don't file W2s. They don't do income taxes. They're criminals. Did Volition's writers think that the Crips and the Bloods incorporated in Delaware and have annual meetings about what equipment to Section 179 to lower their expected taxes for the year? Eli just refers to the gang members as "employees" and meetings as "corporate board meetings" because he's an idiot and the writing is terrible.

Just... God. GOD HELP ME. This is a level of garbage that is unfathomable. Don't waste your time. Be better than me. I just had to know.

________________________________

Also, in case anyone has bothered to read this and is thinking: "well, the lawyer says that the Saints raiding the Frontier prison and blowing up the cargo train was competing with Marshall, so there!"

NO. NO. NO. If I sign a non-compete clause with Google and they fire me with cause because I really mess up... breaking into Google HQ to steal a bunch of money, blow up some servers, and attack some of my former colleagues in revenge would not be "competing with them." It would be felonious theft, felonious vandalism, felonious assault and battery, and so on. I wouldn't be violating a non-compete clause. That's absurd. Just pure garbage writing.

[JCD3nton]

The non-compete likely has many, many other legal hurdles to being enforced. For example, an enforceable noncompete generally must be ancillary to another valid agreement, but it is likely based on the facts you lay out that even if there was some sort of other agreement, it would be void as a matter of public policy for illegality. A non-compete must also be reasonable in terms of duration, scope of activity restricted, and geographic area, but from your post it appears these basic limitations were included. Lastly of course, there must be valid consideration for the non-compete. In all, it sounds like a major plot twist of this saints row game was based on a completely erroneous legal premise and I cannot accept that. I do not want the game even for free.

[*BeeStoic*]

Originally posted by AntKED:

Just buy it and try.

♥♥♥♥ no, dont buy this ♥♥♥♥, i cant get my wasted hours back.

[Blue-Eyes White Dragon]

1. no its garbage,
2. I don't know if you've ever met anyone in real life who is extremely arrogant, always overconfident, likes to brag about themselves and tells really stupid jokes. This is the most embarrassing game I've ever played (and I'm not exaggerating) in terms of storyline.
3. no this woke pic of sht is beyond saving tbh

[Autoro]

Bet no one here using the word "Woke" can correctly define it.

If diversity offends, then a) reflect on why seeing different people offends you and realize you're a bad person because of your judgement of others, and b) don't play Saints Row. It ain't for you, and that's obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together.

[ReBoot]

Totally woke. You have to pick your pronouns, literally worse than Hitler!

[Naked Gamer[TTV]]

I love watching people whine about "woke" things. It's just as simple as all the other decisions you make in your life. If you are afraid of something just stay away. Whining about it just makes you look weak.

[Punani]

Originally posted by Naked Gamer:

I love watching people whine about "woke" things. It's just as simple as all the other decisions you make in your life. If you are afraid of something just stay away. Whining about it just makes you look weak.

Nothing wrong though with people going against this woke crap. Especially when it happens to certain media that you used to be a fan of, for example.

@OP

Regarding question two and three. No it is crap and cannot be saved.

Regarding question one: The gameplay is decent, the map is kinda interesting and the graphics look fine.

You can find it on certain sites for between 1-2 euro. For that price it is worth giving it a shot

[Naked Gamer[TTV]]

Its just genuinely funny to me. Because all of the folks that complain about "woke crap" just look like a bunch of whiners to me. Let folks be whoever they want to be. I mean you could wear a dress as a dude in saints rows other games. Its no big deal to me. If your complaining about the pronouns, don't use them. It doesn't bother me at all that the use of pronouns are in the game. I still use he/him. It really isn't a big deal until folks start getting their proverbial underwear in a bunch over it. Chose to be proud of who you are, you don't have to be what you aren't.

[Punani]

Originally posted by Naked Gamer:

Its just genuinely funny to me. Because all of the folks that complain about "woke crap" just look like a bunch of whiners to me. Let folks be whoever they want to be. I mean you could wear a dress as a dude in saints rows other games. Its no big deal to me. If your complaining about the pronouns, don't use them. It doesn't bother me at all that the use of pronouns are in the game. I still use he/him. It really isn't a big deal until folks start getting their proverbial underwear in a bunch over it. Chose to be proud of who you are, you don't have to be what you aren't.

I am pretty confident that almost anyone who hates the current woke movement would completely agree with you. Actually, I feel you might not understand what people mean with the woke movement.

People should be whoever they want to be. That is what any sane person wants! Want to wear a dress as a dude? I would not give a ♥♥♥♥. Probably I would not want to hang out with you, but it should be a free country and thus people should be able to do whatever they want.

The problem with woke is that it limits the freedom in favour of pleasing minority groups. You see it everywhere, at work, in movies, commercials but also groups like BLM that push for the removal of statues, change names of roads etc.....

Let me even phrase it better. In your post you mention ''Let folks be whoever they want to be.''

This is exactly what the woke movement does not want.

[The Incredible Magical Cupcake]

"Woke" is the symptom of two failed generations, possibly three, maybe even four...

[Krystof]

The engine is fine for the most part, everything else isn't.

Nothing gang-related other than monotonous fetch points on the map for cash and xp. You kill white people because you need money for student loans and rent.

The missions could have been funny but woke isn't funny. Taking a criminal you broke out of jail on a team building retreat before teaming up sounds like a funny set up, right? Until you play it and can't wait for it to end.

It's ok to play, story aside. The map is pretty flat, empty and boring. Killing and blowing up stuff is always fun, but after 5-10 hours you'll realise they are trying to waste your time with collectables. Even the Wing suit is pretty boring, they were too lazy to animate the different landings so instead it has Goat Simulator physics.

[Liss]

Originally posted by Naked Gamer:

I love watching people whine about "woke" things. It's just as simple as all the other decisions you make in your life. If you are afraid of something just stay away. Whining about it just makes you look weak.

If you are afraid of people standing up for themselves just stay away. Whining about it just confirms you are weak.

[The Study of Trees]

It's "lame" in the same way that the original saints row was. If you're desperate for an open world game, it's fine. If you're somehow emotionally invested in saints row as a franchise you may not like it.