Poll: Saint's Row vs Grand Theft Auto

[Something Amyss]

I'm actually hoping for this too, seriously why doesn't it have the same customization from the 2nd game? To me that is the boss, not the character I created in 3. I want my purple trench coat, sombrero wearing, hispanic badass back.

You know those features you really liked? Well, Volition listened...And removed them!

...Seriously, though, it confuses me after all the talk about listening to the fans, they nixed customisation to such an extent.

Still take it over SimLibertyCity, but....

 

[InfectedStar]

I'm going with SR3, It generally has been more fun over the years then the GTA series had been. They DID nerf the customization for SR3 but if THAT was part of the fight between the two, SR3 would take gold anyways. It's most likely because Rockstar's last good GTA was San Andreas (probably spelt wrong) and they over work their employees SO goddamn much; besides, Red Dead Redemption was ok (but not great, just original... Well, sorta. *cough* *cough* Gun! *cough* *cough*), and L.A. NOIRE was a freakin' bust. Above all else you got way more humor from SR3 and alot more freedom (plus the easter eggs).

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Both, I dont have to choose although in all honesty I did enjoy GTA4 a little more than both Saints Row's

 

[Therumancer]

Honestly the first official pre-release reviews, and unofficial leaks are kind of convincing me that THQ has lost it's way with "Saint's Row 3", because at the last minute I'm hearing a LOT more that I don't like than I like. I'm not to the point of cancelling my pre-order, but when I'm hearing it takes 16 hours tops to finish, and roughly 20 hours to get 100% if your so inclined... well that's bad, and when you consider the lower level of customization and things like that it's beginning to seem like a disappointment waiting to happen.

As far as Grand Theft Auto goes, I tend to agree, I wasn't a huge fan of "Grand Theft Auto IV" to be honest, and to be honest the trailer for the new game doesn't impress me all that much, as the protaganist just seems like another macho crime guy. The hook here of him being a guy who wanted to retire just doesn't suck me in, that's about as stereotypical as you can get even if it's new to the series. Having a female protaganist could have been cool, because you don't see that too often in crime games, but it would have needed a decent storyline. All the GTAV shows is that "our graphics are good! the city will have rich and poor sections! the protaganist will be a crime drama stereotype!"... to me it seems like they were just creating a game based on their successful formula so far.

I think both Rockstar and THQ are totally missing what people felt made their games good to begin with. Either that or they don't care because the aspects that appealed to people were very expensive to do, and they want to cut them out to maximize profit. Customizable avatars, especially good ones, with a lot of options, are not the easiest thing to do apparently, especially when you need to test all those combinations to make sure they work with all the avatar dimensions. Likewise Grand Theft Auto V looks so generic that I can't help but wonder who they hired to write this one.

 

[darkcalling]

While I've barely played Saint's Row (working on the first one atm) but I know that the last GTA I liked was Vice City. It was colorful, fun, over the top. San Andreas to me was the start of GTA's more serious bent. Not that there' anything wrong with that but I was really underwhelmed by the GTA 5 trailer.

So atm I have to say saint's row as it stands now.

 

[Kermi]

Honestly the first official pre-release reviews, and unofficial leaks are kind of convincing me that THQ has lost it's way with "Saint's Row 3", because at the last minute I'm hearing a LOT more that I don't like than I like. I'm not to the point of cancelling my pre-order, but when I'm hearing it takes 16 hours tops to finish, and roughly 20 hours to get 100% if your so inclined... well that's bad, and when you consider the lower level of customization and things like that it's beginning to seem like a disappointment waiting to happen.

I disagree with your assessment. This is 16 hours of them playing primarily the story and estimating 20 hours for 100% completion. The reviewer was only guessing when they said 20 hours to 100% it, and that seems like a really off estimate. You could make the same assessment for SR2 and remember what else the review said - none of the missions were filler or fetch-quests.

That's what I'm excited about. 15 hours of main story? No big deal. Beats 30 hours of fetch quests and wandering.

i'm a little surprised people are saying the customisation options have been nerfed - you guys all seem to forget how limited the starting options were at the start of SR2. You didn't get really good stuff until you found other stores to shop at. I think the Initiation Station has a really good starting selection, not to mention the fact there's more hairstyles and hair/skin colours available.

And we haven't even SEEN the car customisation yet.

 

[l33tabix]

Anyone excited by the GTA V teaser is an invalid. Never get excited by a one and a half minute teaser children, get excited in like 6 months or whatever when the 2 minute TRAILER comes out.

I mean, look at the recent Max Payne trailer, it's jaw dropping, as is the recent Hitman: Absolution footage. But at the end of the day, I saw tonnes of people getting hype over the Hitman CGI teaser, and I'm sitting there thinking ,"you are all retarded, Square-Enix bought Eidos so expect to see sick CGI, don't go thinking they haven't ruined the game" now I've SEEN the game, I know they haven't.

Saint's Row 3 wins hands down. Every person I know who loves GTA all say they loved to slap the cheats on a mess about. (after doing the whole game of course)
At the end of the day I got SR2 3 weeks ago and now have all but 3 online achievements, I didn't bother to do pretty much all of Read Dead Redemption and about 40% of GTA-IV because they are both shit, boring games.
Yes you can disagree, but really...who wants to go try to get a gf in a GAME, or watch TV in a GAME, I play GAAAAMMEEEESSSS to HAAVEE FUUUNNN, not to re-enact real life whilst shouting stuff in an ambiguous eastern european accent. At least in Saints you can be whatever you want to be and do whatever you want to do, pretty much.
Not to mention after using the character creator I am A LOT happier with the English Accent in this game, the one in 2 was only good because it was laughable.

 

[l33tabix]

I'm going with SR3, It generally has been more fun over the years then the GTA series had been. They DID nerf the customization for SR3 but if THAT was part of the fight between the two, SR3 would take gold anyways. It's most likely because Rockstar's last good GTA was San Andreas (probably spelt wrong) and they over work their employees SO goddamn much; besides, Red Dead Redemption was ok (but not great, just original... Well, sorta. *cough* *cough* Gun! *cough* *cough*), and L.A. NOIRE was a freakin' bust. Above all else you got way more humor from SR3 and alot more freedom (plus the easter eggs).

THANK YOU, I just played through Gun for the lols right after finishing RDR and I was like "Yep, it is 100% right, Gun was a better game than RDR and that came out in 2005 for Christ's sake." RDR is the most blatant rip off Gun in history, all they need to do is touch up the graphics a bit and add one more Hub town and you've got a completely better game right there. Oh and turn down the BS on Insane, lol. and if they could somehow blend Call of Juarez 2's aim system for when you chrouch behind stuff when aiming that'd be amazing.

 

[l33tabix]

Sure, GTA IV wasn't as fun, but damn I have so many fond memories of GTA 3, VC, SA, LCS and VCS. I could never find a single bad thing about any of those games. I love them to death

and what alludes you to the idea that V won't be like IV and will be like the old games? Cos I hope its worse than IV, everyone buys it, says it sucks, then they wait till the next console gen comes out and make Vice City 2.0 and make it more like the old games.

 

[delvin313]

Remember, past success =/= future success.

I loved the GTA series up to and including SA. I tried to enjoy GTA IV, but it wasn't fun. I mean, come on, your friends are always calling you to do boring things. The game should be entertaining me, not making me entertain sprites.

SR2 was buggy and not particularly optimized, but I had so much fun playing it. I am hoping the next instalment is also a ton of fun, and cleaned up a bit.

 

[ryankarl]

Saint's Row. because you can beat people to death with a three foot long purple dildo.

 

[TITAN59650]

I took a break from both games for awhile then my brother bought GTA IV when it came out. I played it and the entire time I was playing I went to do something then realized that what I wanted to do was in Saints Row, then I would do something else and again in Saints Row, and finally I wanted to do something else then again realized it was in Saints Row. I switched the games and I have never even finished GTA IV, it was a big empty visually stimulating world and I hated the camera angle while driving. Saints Row is just plain fun, from the game play to the side jobs like insurance fraud. I liked GTA: San Andreas but it had a lot of game crashing bugs I found, but I liked the game play concept and customization options.

 

[joshperry94]

Saints Row... It looks like its going to be a game that you can just sit back and have fun on, by messing around doing all kinds of crazy stuff...

 

[ogrebushi]

Chalk up another saints row nod here. I didnt get to play the first Saints Row too much since I never had an Xbox but got to steal plays here and there. The thing that hit me was the better drive by aiming and customizing cars... but the -biggest- thing the car garage storage is soooo much better maybe less realistic but just less of a pain in the ass. Then saints row 2 which i actually got to own waaay better. Ive been replaying San Andreas again recently and realizing uggh how could i "drive by shoot" like that and the cars handle like ass (at least on the pc) So Saints row all the way, though im sure ill still buy gta5

 

[YukaTakeuchiFan]

I'm a little torn on the issue- I do enjoy both series (I've actually played GTA since the very first game), but nowadays I'd have to say that Saints Row is the series for me.

I like the stories in the Grand Theft Auto games, but the problem for me is that they haven't really shook up the gameplay all that much in the past few games, and it feels like there's very little enjoyable to do in terms of actually playing the game once you've beaten it (no, I've NEVER enjoyed that "hidden package" crap, rewards or no, that is invalid). To me, that problem came to a head in GTA4- it just felt like there was a huge story/gameplay disconnect between Niko Bellic in the story and Niko Bellic, Sandboxing Jackass that made me feel like I wasn't doing something right (of course, taking away most of the silly or fun weapons and making most of the high-powered weapons prohibitively expensive didn't help my sandbox jackassery, either).

Maybe it's just because I'm enjoying lighthearted media a lot more these days and the huge push for REALISM!!! in games is starting to bore and annoy the hell out of me, but I enjoy the increasingly silly tone that Saints Row has been taking. The games make no mistake that Storyline You and Sandboxing Jackass You have little to no disconnection, so every insane thing, stupid stunt I do, or hideous outfit I force my poor avatar into never feels out of character or out of place. And oh are there a LOT of insane things, stupid stunts, and hideous outfits to subject yourself to. And if I ever get bored with the activities that the game lets me do for special perks (and I'm quite excited by the RPG-like perk system that's being used in the third game, by the way), I can always just fly a helicopter on top of a building and play a rousing game of "Can Pimps Fly?" with the throw button.

I just feel that GTA is starting to coast on its brand name (I'm quite baffled by how people got as excited as they did for a trailer that tells nothing about the game and close to nothing about the story), and I don't like how the last game in the series felt so much more restricting than San Andreas was. The Saints Row series has me covered in the "here's a city, go nuts" department these days, and I think that unless GTA5 goes back and has a good look at what made it a fun GAME, I may be waiting a while to pick it up.

 

[Zeckt]

Saints row by FAR! I played all the gta 3's and psp knock offs and I was really dissapointed by the seriousness of GTA4. It did not feel like a game, it felt like a movie. Mind you a movie where I don't care for the characters. Too much realism and seriousness in my game.

 

[])rStrangelove]

I don't see much of a point destroying traffic with a jet or beating up pedestrians that don't even fight back. The reason why SaintsRow fails is that every game needs some rules to master and play around with, and there are no rules, no consequences in SR.

If i choose to mess around in GTA, something happens and it usually takes about 5 minutes to shake off.

GTA wins.

 

[ColeusRattus]

I like me both of them sanboxes games!

Do get more in depth: I loved every GTA ever, including the old 2.5D ones, but I also very much liked Saints Row 2 (no xbox, so no part 1 for me).

And even though they share a similar core concept, I think they're different enough to warrant liking them both. GTA I see as a kind of satire on modern culture and media, while Saints row is more of a satire on games. It could also be summarised as GTA being more high-brow, while SR is more low brow, but that isn't meant as a measure of quality.

On a sidenote, I think the two franchises are developing in opposite directions, at least as of GTA IV / Saints Row: The Third:

GTA started off as a quite bonkers game that got more "serious" (yet still funny) with each new entry.

Saints row started on what I gather was GTA's San Andreas level of seriousness but got more bonkers afterwards.

So as it is now, with SR3 coming out in two weeks and GTA V's release not even yet announced, I don't see a point in chosing. You can simply buy SR3, play it through multiple times until GTA V launches and then get that.

But if both would appear around the same time, battling for the money in my wallet, it would truly be a tough call

 

[Squilookle]

GTA isn't even in the race anymore. It's now Saints Row vs Just Cause.

 

[Dogstile]

I like both games (SHOCK HORROR) and i'll end up getting both. They aren't the same game anymore. Vs threads are silly sometimes