Realistic Crimes
Now this doesn’t have to be uber realistic, just a shout out to the old days would do. The premise of the original Saints Row was to join a gang and do illegal shit to take out rival gangs that have a grip on different markets. Harken back to that please? Fans loved the illegal street races with the Westside Rollerz and the player character’s single line while taking on the Vice Kings.
Grand Theft Auto V carried weight in its game play. When you are doing the heists, when you are investing, and when you are screwing up and dying these things all have one realistic impact. Your money. What else is crime about? Why do people turn to a life of crime? Most of the time that is due to needing, or wanting, money and lots of it. So how can any game based on being a criminal not focus on that? In Saints Row money is a passively gained resource where as in Grand Theft Auto V it is progression. You are a nobody in Grand Theft Auto V without money, but in Saints Row you are still the leader of the Saints.
The balls-to-the-walls attitude that the series has now is charming but, for lack of better words, escalating quickly. There is only a certain amount of crazy that can be pumped into these games and they’re vastly approaching that limit. There needs to be a balance between realism, and the wackiness of Saints Row.
