Well hey there thanks for viewing my thread. Now that we got the pleasantries out of the way I would like to ask you a question (the same one from the poll). So which do you prefer and why? For years I have tried to decide whether I liked playing in the Casinos and jumping from my private jet in GTA San Andreas or if I liked smacking people in the head with a huge dildo and have a pimp cane shotgun.

So now I was wondering what the rest of you think about these two franchises. Is Saints Row still a GTA clone or has it long left GTA behind it?

yes but GTA has gone too serious over these past years i mean if you finished GTA 4 both endings are a big middle finger to you. *not to spoil anything)

I am not a gigantic fan of GTA, but I do like the occasional romp. Saint's Row, on the other hand, never appealed to me in the least.

Iwata how can a fully customizable character that makes poop jokes not appeal to people I mean is mindless fun

EDIT: How can you not love the cockney accent in Saint's row 2

Depends on which one of each series we are talking about.

GTA SA = SR 2
GTA SA > SR 3
GTA 4 < SR 2
GTA 4 < SR 3

But of course SR 2 > SR 3

I've eased up a bit on Rockstar though for taking a different path with GTA 4 after playing RDR and seeing just how magnificently well they can tell a story. If GTA 4 had the same level of care and detail and emotion as RDR, then SR 3's way over the top cartoon antics can take a hike.

Saints Row, bitches. Rockstar lost the plot with GTA SA, which sucked horribly. I played SR2 after, and the first thing I thought of it was "This is what GTA SHOULD be."

Well I like all GTA games minus 4, because it was depressing as shit.
And I like SR2, but SR3 just made a parody of the series, which is cool for a cheap laugh but as a full game... that shit wears real thin real fast, for once I was actually happy a game being stupidly short because I just wanted it over and up on ebay.

Overall GTA is so far ahead of Saints Row, Rockstar can stop making the franchise for 20 years and they'd still be ahead. Saints Row 2 was a lot more fun than GTA IV, but every GTA game since GTA 3 up until GTA IV is better than any of the Saints Row games.

evilneko:
Saints Row, bitches. Rockstar lost the plot with GTA SA, which sucked horribly. I played SR2 after, and the first thing I thought of it was "This is what GTA SHOULD be."

So you liked the plot in SR2 but you didn't like the plot in San Andreas? Saints Row is mindless fun without any real atmosphere. GTA might not be so over the top. But what it lacks in silliness it more than makes up for with atmosphere, the sense of being in a real living place, the satirical and engaging story, the beautifully absurd, yet genius cast of characters. GTA was art long before the internet started talking about video games as an art form.

Personally Saints Row is the series I prefer. GTA in it's current incarnation seems to be going for atmosphere over all-out fun, which I totally get, but after getting the main story out the way what really holds my interest isn't how good the town looks and feels, but what there is to do there.

That being said, Saints Row 3 just seemed too disjointed and sort of had the same problem as Prototype's challenges in that they were just arbitrary chaos instead of justified (if slightly off the wall) actions as a means to gain rewards.

I would take it on a case-by-case basis honestly. The original Saint's Row is about equal to Vice City in terms of the overall fun-factor for me. I've never played the original top-down GTA games or even the hand-held/spin off games so I have no opinions for them. I loved GTA3 and Vice City but the missions left me wanting more. San Andreas seemed like it was trying to hard and some of the unskippable tutorial missions were teeth-shatteringly annoying like the flying missions. I also hated the unskippable race missions...Rockstar if I wanted to race around I'd have bought one of your racing games!

Saint's Row one wasn't perfect...but Saint's Row 2 was. Both featured awesome side quests that opened up story missions and there was enough to do so that you really didn't need to do all of the side-quests, allowing you to skip the ones you don't like like trailblazer so you could do the good ones like Insurance Fraud and Septic Avenger. Saint's Row the Third...it took a few steps back, turning fist-fighting into a QTE and telling any hint of reality to fuck off. Saint's Row 3 at least lets you dress up as The Punisher, The Hulk or, Silver Surfer is you want to which is fine but, it took away Septic Avenger and, Crowd Control!! I don't care about Tank Mayhem and Cyber Blazer dammit, I want to throw old people off of buildings and spray down buildings with shit! Another criticism against Saint's Row is how Steelport and Stillwater feel like New York City...why not make a new city? Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago? Anywhere but freaking New York City again dammit.

Short answer though is Saints Row for me. Love those games and am pissed there wasn't a SR-Drive By...it was part of why I bought my 3DS.

GTA, Saints Row doesn't even compare for me, it's full of gimmicks. I always hear people say it's "mindless fun", and I can understand that somewhat, but I don't get how hitting people with a dildo or watching a scripted mini-cutscene of yourself kicking someone in the dick for the 100th time is fun. It is at first, but it gets old quick and Saints Row doesn't make up for it with anything substantial; they just cram as much gimmicky shit in as they can. I admit Saints Row 1 was good, but only for its time and because the multiplayer was so well made, SR2 was the same in terms of single player with somehow worse graphics and a shit multiplayer, and I just feel bad for whatever the fuck SR3 was.

I love them both. Love Saints Row 2 (haven't gotten to play SR3 yet :\), love GTA4. Although I definitely prefer the handling for vehicles in Saints Row 2 over GTA4. It's really frustrating that barely trying to turn causes you to flip out in most vehicles in GTA.

GTA4 had the technology factor, while Saints Row was good, mindless fun. I guess I prefer GTA, due to the fact that it had a more lasting effect on me.

Meh. At this point, neither really. SR is blind stupid fun. GTA is blind stupid deep and thoughtful stories at this point.

I respect that GTA 4 wanted to take the series in a different direction, but it's possible to make a serious game that isn't also boring as fuck. And Saints Row the Third was trying way too hard.

Basically both series are trying too hard to go opposite directions.

GTA has so much more class and grounding....SR is to random and i felt nothing when i played SR2, except (the cripple your self minigame).....shooting cops in SR2 is like shooting card bored.

Even after the abomination that was Saints Row the Turd I still say I like the Saints row series better because of the amount of choice and custumization you have over your character and their world. Also the British accent makes everything better.

Saints row 2. 3 is just too wacky and GTA isn't as fun.

Honestly, I actually think GTA 4 was a bit of a bland game, pretty much every mission is just driving to a place and shooting dudes. And people say the story is great, but think back, how much time was spent advancing the story, and how much time was spent doing largely irrelevant faffing around. I know the Saint's row series has a lot of faffing around, but that's all contained in side missions that you can do at your leisure, rather than having to slog through them to actually get back to the plot. And let's not forget the awful 'Hey Niko, it's your cousin, let's go bowling' mechanic, cute at first, annoying as hell by the end.

Saints Row: the third, however, is one of my favourite games ever. It's more action packed, it's funny, it's wonderfully ridiculous (seriously, I'm a rarity on the escapist, I actually prefer the fact it went more nuts, I don't see why people need it to be grounded in reality to be more fun, it's its wackyness that makes it so awesome and has pushed it well into the lead in the poll), the gameplay/missions are more varied than GTA's. Also, way, way, way, way, way better customisation. I'm a caped cockney supervillain, with vehicles that match my outfit and an army of alien babes (yay, free season pass for buying it off THQ's website) at my disposal. Awesome.

Saint's Row easily get's my vote.

Saints Row... Hands down.

Character customisation, more vibrant environments and all sorts of good stuff.

SR was a brilliant game, a little clunky, but that was because I played SR2 first.

SR2 is the best in my opinion, if you wanted to spray shit everywhere... you could. Or you could just play the game a sandbox and do whatever you wanted. That's why I've racked up over 150 hours of game play time in SR2.

SR:TT was well it had potential...

GTA has been enjoyable, but I often find it limiting on thing like customisation, yes the characters a honed better and have more depth, but the whole seriousness of GTA4 left me feeling very underwhelmed.

They really don't have much in common.

Blah blah, you can drive around in cars and shoot things. That's it. I can think of a hundred other games where you drive around in cars and shoot things.

Ah well, you see there have been a bunch of GTA games that worked on PC, but only one Saints Row game, and I haven't played it because it just looked puerile.

Saints row. Although, from what I've seen, 3 is a step backwards from 2. Just doesn't look the same, they've gone completely batshit without any kind of normality. Craziness is fun, but it's not as fun without some seriousness along with it.

Since the Saints Row franchise is dead with the third i voted GTA. GTA4 was a bit dissapointing but i liked the story and TBOGT and TLAD are awesome. I have high hopes for GTA5 apart from that SR2 will allways have a special place on my harddrive.

I loved GTA because of how crazy it was and how you could mess around. Then GTA IV came and went on with the whole srs bssns thing. Since then I preferred Saints Row. The first one was pretty fun, the second one got it completely right, but the third one was a rather big disappointment. So we'll see how the fourth one turns out.

GTA was great, until they went on the whole 'dark, gritty and realistic' tour with GTA IV. Don't get me wrong, I liked GTA IV, it was a good game, but it just wasn't a GTA game. It missed some goof. And that goof I found in Saints Row. But then Saints Row 3 came along and thought that if it had enough goof, it wouldn't need anything else. *shakes head disapprovingly*

Overall, GTA still has my vote. I've enjoyed all of the GTA titles for a long time, but Saints Row already puts me off with the 3rd game.

Captcha: cordon bleu

Exactly.

To be honest, I really liked the darker, grittier drama in GTA IV. I'd like to see it go further in that direction for GTA V. I'd say they should even go so far as to remove most of the silly gags they tend to load the scenery and radio stations with, as those kind of break the immersion.

XMark:
To be honest, I really liked the darker, grittier drama in GTA IV. I'd like to see it go further in that direction for GTA V. I'd say they should even go so far as to remove most of the silly gags they tend to load the scenery and radio stations with, as those kind of break the immersion.

yes but taking all of the gags and adding realism to the game will only alienate the people who play GTA for the goofs and the craziness. I'm not saying that seriousness is a bad thing but the whole GTA was made revolving around the goofs. Remember this seriousness is only recent. As for the radio goofs, come on man you wouldn't want to blow your brains out from being too depressed with the game and also these radio stations make the driving in GTA more bearable. *cough weird handling cars cough*