Saints Row 3 driving makes me sad

I've been working on my Steam backlog of games lately; first Dishonored, then Prototype 2, I just finished Saints Row 3 (in honor of the spectacular looking 4) and I'm about to start Darksiders. Now, I ended up stopping Prototype 2 before I finished due to technical issues, but I was having allot of fun with it. Going from that to Saints Row 3 highlighted something for me though; the driving is the least fun part of Saints Row 3.

That may just be relative to the rest of the game, and the thing that stood out to me was the specific bounds of this feeling; driving tanks and helicopters and hoverbikes was good, but having to drive a car between objectives was a chore. And there are some obvious factors: this is partly a personal thing because I'm not big on non-mario cart racing games either, and the PC driving controls were not the best (compared to say Borderlands 1 or 2). At least SR3 didn't take a mod to be drivable, like SR2

The default sensitivity range was a bit high for actually staying on a road.

It goes deeper than that though. Conceptually and viscerally, these sections just feel less fulfilling than the rest of SR3, and which is a shame because you have to use driving to get around so much. For example, driving a car and dealing with traffic just seems less cool than flying a jetbike or running up walls and leaping over rooftops. Yet you have to drive to get around the whole game. In theory, later in the game you have the jetbike and could use it to get everywhere....but you only pick it up it at certain places, and you can't fast travel between cribs anymore so you guessed it, you have to drive to those cribs to get the jetbike.

So to do this...

...you have to do this. Try not to hit that truck, too.

However, the bigger issue isn't just the surface appeal, but the actual way behavior is incentivized while driving i.e. it encourages careful driving (or at least not hitting people or cars) and that seems out of place after running around beating pedestrians with a floppy purple dong because you can. Now, there are rewards for doing big jumps, or running over people and other vehicular shenanigans in the game, that's true. While you're screwing around between missions, driving can be fun and the town can be your personal demolition derby or grand prix.

Its when you have to drive to objectives that it becomes arduous, because then the mindset is different; you want to get to the start or objective and all these other cars are in your way. If you hit them or run over a cop or gangmember there's an alert that can create a literal roadblock between you and where you're trying to go (or you could take too much damage and blowup). All the other cars on the road are now hazards rather than targets. So when you're on your way somewhere and just want to get there to do that fun thing, the distance forces you to drive, and to get there without getting bogged you have to actually be careful about your driving.

As opposed to running over rooftops and gliding across the city.

Whee!

The comparison is what really made it stand out as the least enjoyable part of the game for me. Driving was something I had to do to get between places I wanted to be in SR3, while freerunning around the city was enjoyable itself in Prototype 2. You were less constrained about where you could go, there was still some thought to navigating the skyline, and gliding around was cool. I liked running around searching for collectibles. In SR3, I didn't bother cause getting to them was irritating.

To be fair, allot of the stuff around driving is good; vehicle delivery helps, and the fast hijacking does look and feel cool. I think one time I ended up shooting a gang member, then when his backup arrived, jumped through their windshield and sped off in their car, and that's cool to allow. But once I had the car it was less fun and that was sad. Yahtzee Croshaw has pointed out that open worlds are only as good as the way to get around them, and going between these two games, I can definitely see why.  Fortunately, it looks like Saints Row 4 has learned its lesson.

"Whee" you say? Oh you're right, Whee!

photo credits: avideolife.com, g4tv.com, guides.gamepressure.com, co-optimus.com