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Only five hours in now, but oh my god more aggravating crap. Consider this "stuff that was in SR2 that shouldn't have been taken out."

First of all, why the fuck can't I climb anything steeper than a ten degree angle? I distinctly remember jumping up the side of a giant hill of rocks during a Ronin Mission in Stillwater, but god forbid I do anything similar in Steelport. As a related problem, the sheer number of chest-high surfaces the jump button should make my brain-dead character climb are impressive. The fact that I can only climb a small handful of them less so. I guess this entire complaint could be summed up as the suggestion "be less lazy," no?

Secondly, is Planet Saints seriously the only clothing store in the entire game? I admit, driving around Stillwater looking for the perfect combination of clothes was a little annoying, but at least there was a large variety. Painfully less so, here. Also, the fact that I still have to shell out five hundred to a plastic surgeon to so much as change my hair color is irritating. What part of plastic surgeon says "hair stylist" to you?

What the fuck happened to the characters? The protagnist makes sense so far, he (or she) has basically proven himself a sociopath, and I get that he'd be more mellow now that he's no longer pissed about a city he considers "his" being under someone else's control. He's still completely sociopathic, just out of violently possessive mode. But Shaundi? What? In Stillwater she's mellow, perpetually high, and not particularly good at the "violence" aspect of being in a gang. Having complete control of Stillwater and living the high life would do absolutely nothing to turn her into the violently emotional and competent person she apparently is now for no reason. And don't even argue it's 'cause Gat died, they weren't close in SR2 and she acted like that in SRTT before he died anyway.

And Pierce? I did a mission about an hour ago where the protagonist suggests sabatoge with pipe bombs and Pierce says "hahano, be the tank." Shouldn't that conversation have been the other way around? An overly complicated thought process was a pretty big thing for him in SR2, but it's apparently been dropped completely here. I feel like the writers aren't just different from the previous game, but didn't even bother glancing at the previous game to see what the characters are like. I'm not suggesting they switch back for SR4. But ffs, try to keep it consistent with the previous game (SRTT now) this time, or at least if there's a drastic personality change, make it fucking justified.

There is also nothing to spend my money on anymore. There's so few clothing options (most of which would be considered wear options of a single piece of clothing in SR2) and almost no jewelry. I never bought cars anyway when you can steal whichever you like. The cribs don't have any impressive variety, and I can't change them. This leaves weapon upgrades, and oh boy is that a thorough and expensive system.

Except  for the part where the only upgrade I've purchased is the one required by the story for my original handgun, and that gun is what I'm still using. Fine aim and head shot takes care of everything fairly easily, so what's the point? I guess I could bump the difficulty up to make the fights last longer, but they wouldn't really be more difficult. And there should be more to an open world game than shooting stuff anyway. They are, after all, marketing themselves as an open world game. I have no real problem with the silly tone the series is obviously taking in the future, but give us stuff to do. Variations of "blow shit up" and "drive fast" don't really count.

Well, I'm tired and going to sleep. I'll be back when I'm done exploring more of the game, so if anyone's reading this and not bored to shit by my ranting, do enjoy whatever I post about next (that's likely been hashed and rehashed by a million different people all over the fucking internet, by this point).

Well fuck it. Last post, 'cause even though Steam says I've only played it eight hours, and I know I'm not very far yet, I'm bored out of my mind with this game. I spent 57 hours in SR2 without even bothering to 100% the damn thing, just for comparison.

Back to my problem with climbing things, my character just climbed up on a surface that was actually over her head a few hours ago, but can't for so many other things of similar or lesser height, and I feel like it was scripted for some areas and not others. My only question at this point is if Volition was being lazy or sloppy.

Minor complaint, but the loading screens are a little jarring when I've just come from SR2, where every transition was near instant. I even get a load screen for warping to shore in The Third, and it doesn't even deposite me on the closest chunk of land anymore either.

In the vein of minor complaints, it's been a problem in each game that most headwear makes your hairstyle get replaced by....whatever the fuck that is. It's especially annoying when her hair wasn't long enough to justify that pulled up look. Also, why were all the controls remapped from SR2? It's not like there are any additional functions. Did they just force me to adapt to an entirely new control scheme for shits and giggles? SR4 should probably keep the same controls as SRTT instead of fucking it up again, after everyone has gotten used to this control scheme.

They somehow managed to make insurance fraud boring by both removing all the massive airtime and apparently either drastically cutting or removing entirely the cash bonus you get with full adrenaline, instead only giving you infinite sprint. Nice job guys.

Trafficking is even more annoying and ridiculous than it was before thanks to the addition of the brutes with flamethrowers and helicopters with snipers. Also, why is Pierce, one of the heads of such a large gang, personally running around selling this...collectible merchandise? And why are the jokes so terrible? "Don't bend the corners!" "What?" "Those are the rules, they don't have to make sense!" I can feel my brain dying under the onslaught of witticism, truly.

I've also now realized another reason there's so little call for making money in this game. Everything gets rewarded too me. I don't need to buy helicopters or planes or boats, they just happen when I get a helipad/dock, or when I finish a mission. An open world game that actively encourages mindlessly linear play? Fascinating.

Speaking of mindlessly linear play, the new mission setup is bull. I make a call on my phone from anywhere to start one, and then it's immediately "go here, do this." Having to make my way to the mission points forced me to explore Stillwater, and encouraged all the little diversions on offer. Steelport does the exact opposite with it's depressing efficiency. I feel like the names of the cities were actually clever foreshadowing on the part of the devs, and perhaps the only truly clever part of SRTT. Well, and the salem broom. That made me cackle.

I know everyone thinks the giant floppy dildo bludgeon is apparently the height of hilarity, but jesus fuck, engage your brain cells? It's awarded at the end of the ridiculous mission to the exact caricature of a BDSM club laughingly referenced by every game reaching for sexual jokes ever, and that's the grand extent of its context. It isn't like you find it in the club, or buy it from that sex shop you can't actually enter. Instead it's yet another reward for playing through the linear missions, and amounts to "have a giant purple dildo, LOLRANDOM!"

So far the only time this game has actually made me chuckle was when the pony cart was my getaway car. You know that extremely awkward, socially stunted kid who tries to fit in with his rambling, flitting from sex joke to sex joke in a desperate attempt to be a "cool kid," occasionally surprising a laugh out of his audience when he goes far enough to surprise them? Yeah, congratulations, Volition. It is you.

And then of course, there's the usual "all the guys wear actual clothes and all the girls wear sex suits for casual strolls" crap, but I don't know why I'm bothering bringing it up because apparently that's just the audience they're pandering to now. Definitely gonna be a lot more cautious about buying SR4.

Holy fuck this game is dull.

And sadly, it seems almost all of these "top things" will not be acted upon in SR4. Unless, of course, Volition was trolling us with everything to discourage- and ultimately surprise- us and the real game is, in fact, everything we've been endlessly and incessantly bitching over.

But really, what are the chances of that being that case? Sigh.

Oh, and one of the things that made me giggle the first time was when I used the "rain" cheat and discovered that it was raining without any clouds. That was very funny... very very funny, actually.... the first time I saw it. The next 4,000 times I made it rain, man was I pissed. 

And the zombies. How come the zombie cheat was often delayed? Or even on Arapice, sometimes you'd never see any zombies. Or not even there- sometimes the NPCs all glitched out and I was all alone in the middle of that goddamn city.  One of the creepiest aspects of that game was the draw distance. From afar, you see cars and people walking, but then when you approach them, they disappear like forgotten memories or something. Creepiness factor reached maximum if the bridges were raised, you were far enough, and you saw people and cars move on thin air. 

*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*.... Yeah, SRTT wasn't that polished. Wasn't that engaging.