Which Saints Row game(s) do you like to go back to most often?

Now that most of you have played all the Saints Row campaigns and activities and the newness has worn off, I'd like to know which Saints Row game(s) do you most frequently go back to when you do feel like playing a Saints Row game again, and why?

When I go back, I usually just like to play around in the open world rather than replaying missions (usually alone, but sometimes coop). Based on my own preferences, from most to least, here are the games I go back to most often:
  1. Saints Row: The Third - My favorite because of all the customization and the realism.
  2. Saints Row 2 - It's just such a great open world map and I can re-enter most of the buildings (and caves). This would be my #1 if it used the Saints Row 3/4/GOOH engine.
  3. Saints Row: Gat out of Hell - I really like the map better than Saints Row IV because it has interesting places that I can go back to. Too bad no customization, but mods help a lot.
  4. Saints Row IV - There's not much to do on the map and little reason to customize vehicles that you never need anyways. Although Sandbox+ gives me back 2 other maps that make it more interesting.
I liked all the campaigns, so I'm not rating those here.

What are your favorites?
 
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1. Saints Row 2, with all the GMOTR mod, and the awesome world.
2. Saints Row 4, the mission replay mod and Shitfaces realism mod makes it feel really nice.
3. Saints Row 3, the Shitface realism mod, Sandbox plus and the dynamic world changes highlight the best parts.
4 Saints Row: Gat Outta Hell, the map is nice, and so is playing as Gat, but other than that, it just lacks in Replayablilty.
 
1; Saints Row: The Third - The customization, the realism and his missions are much better . Steelport is a really interesting city with some good hidden places in it .
2: Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell - New Hades is really a cool city but not as good as Steelport . The flying system is so good and playing with Gat is fun . Also I like to kill demons .
3: Saints Row IV - The virtual side of it breaks many things . Virtual Steelport lacks of many things but I like the superpowers and the shit I can do with them .
4: Saints Row - Since I never played SR2 (or not really played), I would play this one but just for memories .
 
Always will be Saints Row The Third and 2 Tops, No matter what.
Best Customization, Better Activities, Perfect Sandbox.
Saints Row IV is great (When it comes to character customization and graphics), Though, I miss the vibrance that SR The Third and 2 has back in the day (And still playing both at times)
To be honest, I Don't think is THAT great (About SRIV) with all the alien-and-superpowers and stuff. and GOOTH? i was really dissapointed. don't even deserve to qualify that shit.
 
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... and GOOTH? i was really disappointed. don't even deserve to qualify that shit.
To be honest, I was really concerned when I heard that GOOH wouldn't let you play with your own customized character. I mean, the primary appeal of the Saints Row series and the thing that distinguishes it from other games is that you can design your own character, male or female, and then play the entire game as your character. And, of course, all the other customizations like vehicles and clothes. But then I remembered that GOOH is really just a standalone expansion for Saints Row IV, and it only cost 1/3 the price of a full Saints Row game. In that context, I wasn't expecting much at all. I always get a laugh out of the crazy stuff Volition comes up with for their stories, so I just expected a fun little side story and I enjoyed it for what it was.

I have to say that I was, however, very pleasantly surprised with the GOOH map design. There are some nice creative elements in the map, and the fact that you can actually return to all the locations, including indoor ones, marks a return to what may people liked about Saints Row 2. In Saints Row 2, I can go back to all the major locations, including buildings, tunnels, and giant caves, etc. In GOOH, I can also go back to all the buildings, tunnels, and giant caves, even though the map is smaller. I was much more limited with Saints Row 3 and 4. And, although I would be extremely disappointed if GOOH was a full Saints Row game, I haven't had so much fun exploring a Saints Row map since Saints Row 2.

That said, I WANT MY CUSTOMIZATIONS BACK!!!! ;)
 
Here's my own Saints Row toplist:
  1. Saints Row 2 - this is the funniest, the most balanced and polished game in the series for me, Volition really put some heart in it. The city could compete with Los Santos from GTA V (and is definetly better if we're talking about easter eggs and hidden locations), the storyline is very engaging, characters are memorable and radio stations... I'd go so far to even say that they're actually better than in Vice City. PC port is messed up (some issues can be fixed via GOTR though) and graphics aren't so beautiful but I don't really care about those things, it's brilliant game.
  2. Saints Row IV - even though it's quite hard to call it Saints Row for me and Volition went way too far with this wacky sci-fi crap, it's still much funnier than SR:TT. Superpowers, new easter eggs, lots of references to first two games and cool missions like The King of Stilwater or Saints of Rage are definetly worth mentioning. Weapons are very well done. I also like How The Saints Saved Christmas, it kinda stands out among all those turds with clothes and cheats released by Volition earlier. What I hate about this game is how they wiped out Dex - they really could put some great plot twist but they simply wasted it. The storyline itself is fucked up too but I still find it more amusing than SR:TT one. And the game is placed in Steelport once again, which I truly hate and is the biggest dissapointment in my opinion. There's almost nothing to do after finishing the game - except modding, of course.
  3. Saints Row: The Third - quite decent game but still a VERY huge dissapointment after Saints Row 2. It tries to be 'funnier' but it just becomes more childish. Steelport is so goddamn boring city and the storyline is poorly written. Most of DLCs (except mission packs and weapon DLCs, which are awesome in my opinion) are pure shit. About good things, missions are very fun (mostly), upgrade system is really good, new activities are quite amusing, customizable characters look much better (mostly because of the new engine), reward choises are quite interesting (of course they ruined it later with Unlockable DLC but let's just not talk about this little nightmare) and weapons are much cooler than Saints Row 2 ones. Still, I can't really compare it to Saints Row 2. It's fun to mod too.
And here are Saints Row games which didn't make it into my toplist:
  • Saints Row - I never played the original game because I don't own any console. It looks like a test version of Saints Row 2 but still, I'd love to play it and experience the storyline and early version of Stilwater myself. Even though I already watched plenty of let's plays.
  • Saints Row: Gat Out Of Hell - alright, this one is an ugly cash grab. Do I really have to say what's missing? I'd be easier to say what's not missing, honestly. Where the fuck are homies, radio stations, character, weapon and vehicle customization? Five 'storyline' missions, one pedestrian model, no vehicle storage - this game looks like poorly butchered SR IV. And that's exactly what it is. I like the new weapons, but there's only one pedestrian model and very few demon ones so I can't have too much fun with them. I like the new city, but there's fucking nothing to do in it. It's nice to fly around with wings but seriously, I'd prefer Wings DLC for Saints Row IV. This is the only Saints Row game which I really don't like to mod because I just feel sick when I have to test stuff. The greatest advantage? It isn't called Saints Row V (and thank God for that).
    Oh, I forgot to mention killing Dex, which is the worst thing in this piece of crap. You find Dex in the street (guys in Volition were so lazy that they didn't even give him proper model, they just put pedestrian model with visor cap) and kill him. Do it one more time. Or two. Or thousand. It's so fucking funny to laugh at oldschool fans, isn't it?
 
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My list.
SR2: To this day Stilwater looks beautiful. Loads of hidden Easter Eggs, some actual variation in character models, and NPC's that react in a more natural, organic manner. (With the exception of their constant desire to run over the Boss). The story is pretty great offering a balance of tragic moments, high-action raids and all around hilarity (such as the side mission where you sprayed buildings with feces). Tons of side missions. (However the fact that three of the most needed upgrades were tied to Heli Assault and Red Light Escort was kind of annoying). Great character customization which was made even better with the console exclusive DLC and the PC exclusive Gentlemen of the Row Mod Pack, The radio selection is pretty solid too, from 80's rock, to 70's funk to 90's\early 2000's rap, RNB, pop and techno\industrial. However graphically speaking you could tell it was one of the earlier titles for the 360 and PS3, the vehicle handling was meh ESPECIALLY with the sports cars and "heavy" vehicles, and the enemies only really consisted of basic grunts; with the only major difference being the clothes, HP and voice-lines. It's still a great game even with these faults.

SR3: This was one of the games I grabbed for the PS3 and later on the PC alongside SR2 when it first came out. Needless to say I loved it. Gun mechanics were better, the vehicles didn't handle like greasy cinder blocks, and the missions (or rather the main missions) were far more energetic than SR2. Other than the standard upgrade in graphics there is far more enemy variety than in SR2. From riot cops, to tanks and helicopters, to hitmen armed with sniper rifles, grenadiers equipped with slimmed down EOD suits, enemies that can teleport and even a small army of minigun (or even flamethrower) toting supersoldiers. Lastly I really like the new upgrade system, just wished you could toggle some of the upgrades on or off. However that's were the compliments end and the criticisms begin. For one let's get it out of the way, there is less customization the in SR2 when it comes to clothing. From what I heard this was due to THQ breathing down Volition's neck to get the game out as fast as they can despite the fact that they were working with a new engine. Melee combat was dumbed-down, for some reason you can no longer store the Minigun, Flamethrower or Sledgehammer in your inventory, the day-night cycle was removed, there are far less Easter eggs, civilians look far more generic consisting of almost exclusively fat businessmen, teens in hoodies, hipsters, bums and construction workers plus the reactions from civs are far less lively than in SR2, most of the dlc is just awful and some of it was actually content pulled from the game (great Capcom impersonation THQ), side activities such as FUZZ and Fight Club were removed even though you meet an ex-FBI operative and a wrestler, instead we get escort missions repeated ad-nausem with the only difference is that you're either in a car, helicopter or actually driving someone around the city, and the biggest elephant in the room is Steelport itself, oh sweet lord, is Steelport just mediocre. not only is it noticeably smaller than Stilwater but outside the Airport, Burns Hill, Downtown and New Barnec the city is just a bland boring mess of factories, slums and mid-rises. I get that Volition wanted to create a more down-trodden industrial city with some Cyberpunk elements but we can clearly see that in the concept art the city was supposed to be far more detailed then what we got in the final product. Here's a link to said concept art BTW.
Arapice Island- http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net...tskirts.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120827231851
Downtown Day- http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net...elport3.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120828002707
New Barnec- http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net...elport5.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120828003338
Simply put I love SR3, but you could definitely tell it was a rushed game.

SR4: SR4 is a rather odd game for me, I love yet at the same time I don't. First let's start off with the good. The superpowers are amazing, the collectibles are addicting in a sort of crackdown kind of way, the story is less schizophrenic than in SR3, you can change the pitch of your characters voice and the weapon customization is much better and they added in a decent amount of clothing. However there are a large amount of problems from SR3 that haven't been fixed. The reason why I'm saying this is that several of the major complaints about SR3 is that the activities lacked in variety, the city was a bland bore outside of a few key areas, the dlc was bad, you couldn't toggle any of the upgrades on or off and the story as wacky as it is, somehow ends up being very predictable. So in SR4 instead of having a dozen flavors of escort missions we have a dozen flavors of blow x amount of stuff up in y period of time, you still can't toggle any of the upgrades on or off after you buy them, the clothing DLC is a lot better than in SR3 but they still charged you for cheats that still flagged your save and instead of three mid-length story dlc's like SR3 we get two extremely short story dlc's that can be completed in under an hour, the story is less "hurr-duur lets be wacky" and more "random pop culture references thrown in under the wafer thin guise of parody". This all leads us to the main reason why I don't like SR4 nearly as much as the previous entries in the series. First let's start off with the enemy variety. For this we'll have to talk about the plot. In SR4 the Boss and company become world-famous politicians after defeating a small terrorist outfit\arms dealers in an unnamed middle-eastern country and subsequently stopping them from launching a nuke at DC. however this somehow catches the attention of the intergalactic empire known as the Zin, Who invade earth, abduct most of it's population and forces them into matrix-like simulations of various cities including Steelport. Now with this concept and Volitions love for parody they had a goldmine of opportunity for enemy variety. Just imagine fighting humanoid shock-troops like the Combine from Half-Life 2 or the Tau from Warhammer 40K, religious zealots that serve as a parody of the Covenant from Halo, hive-mind parasites that could've been used to mock the Zerg or the Xenomorphs from aliens, or maybe even a mix of mechanical drones, humanoids, sterile engineers, and heavy brutes like in XCOM or Mass Effect, or... just use generic grey aliens in metal tribal gear. Heck they could've even used the whole Matrix theme to reintroduce the past gangs for more than a few missions or use the "virtual reality" theme as an excuse to introduce more "out there" gangs (steampunk, medieval fantasy, zombie, futuristic etc). Lastly Steelport believe it or not is even worse than it's SR3 incarnation. Most of the distinguishable landmarks were replaced with more dull generic buildings. This makes absolutely no sense as to why they did this especially since game uses the same engine as SR3. Don't get me wrong I like the game especially the PC version since it has a slew of mods that fix most of the problems I mentioned above but there's a reason why I like the previous entries in the series better than SR4.

SR GOOH: I'll admit I haven't played this game yet, the concept was pretty interesting but I was immediately turned away by the fact that it ditched one of the SR series strongest gameplay features and had one of the most tacky, anti-climatic endings to a story arc since Mass Effect 3. You know the one, the infamous "Dex Saga". Before you say that's just a spin-off like Far Cry Blood Dragon or Mothership Zeta, it's not. It's actually been confirmed to be part of the SR Storyline. I think Fl1ppy summed up the game perfectly in this video.
 
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This is a bit off topic on my own topic but ...

In all fairness, I have not played Saints Row (the first), so I couldn't really evaluate that one in my post above. I watched the video about Dex above, and I really felt like I needed to play the first Saints Row game to understand the whole history of the Saints.

So, today I was wandering through a game store in the mall and I saw a used copy of "Saints Row" (the first) for XBox 360. I just HAD to buy it. I didn't really know who Dex was and who this Keith David guy was on Saints Row IV. So I played the first few missions, and now I finally learned who Keith David (Julius Little) is! Yay! Now it all makes sense! But I had to turn it off because I wanted to watch Extant on TV (yes, "live" TV, remember that?). So I turned on Extant and they introduced an important new character who sounded EXACTLY like this Julius Little guy who I was just listening to in Saints Row! It was freaky! And yes, it was Keith David! He's a real person! Did you know that? Why do people always look older in real life than they do in Saints Row? Burt Reynolds too! :p

So I've had my fill of Keith David tonight. :D

But I may update my evaluation if I like Saints Row one better than any of the other ones (so far -- it's better than I expected!)

Also, thanks everyone for your posts! It was interesting to read everyone else's perspectives, and it inspires me to maybe replay some of the games I rated lower.
 
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This is a bit off topic on my own topic but ...

In all fairness, I have not played Saints Row (the first), so I couldn't really evaluate that one in my post above. I watched the video about Dex above, and I really felt like I needed to play the first Saints Row game to understand the whole history of the Saints.

So, today I was wandering through a game store in the mall and I saw a used copy of "Saints Row" (the first) for XBox 360. I just HAD to buy it. I didn't really know who Dex was and who this Keith David guy was on Saints Row IV. So I played the first few missions, and now I finally learned who Keith David (Julius Little) is! Yay! Now it all makes sense! But I had to turn it off because I wanted to watch Extant on TV (yes, "live" TV, remember that?). So I turned on Extant and they introduced an important new character who sounded EXACTLY like this Julius Little guy who I was just listening to in Saints Row! It was freaky! And yes, it was Keith David! He's a real person! Did you know that? Why do people always look older in real life than they do in Saints Row? Burt Reynolds too! :p

So I've had my fill of Keith David tonight. :D

But I may update my evaluation if I like Saints Row one better than any of the other ones (so far -- it's better than I expected!)

Also, thanks everyone for your posts! It was interesting to read everyone else's perspectives, and it inspires me to maybe replay some of the games I rated lower.

Keith David isn't Julius Little though.
 
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