1. Combat

As a criminal, sometimes you have to resort to violence to get your point across. While GTA’s thirst for realism goes out the window when your wanted level escalates, low-level shootouts and the like just… aren’t very much fun. While Rockstar cut out the wacky and fun weapons from the older games, Volition added in even more, and the combination of tactical depth and absurd boomsticks makes skirmishes in Saints Row a lot more enjoyable throughout the game. GTA V’s auto-aiming bullet sponge enemies make us cringe every time we get into a firefight. Gun combat in video games is unrealistic by default because if it wasn’t we’d just be playing Counter-Strike, so lean into it and at least make it engaging.

2. Customization

Rockstar has slowly been pivoting the GTA series towards robust, movie-like narratives, and to do that you have to have well-defined lead characters. That’s fine for them, but when we’re playing video games it’s nice to be able to identify with our on-screen avatar, especially in a sandbox game where there’s so much freedom in other areas. Saints Row letting you take your Boss and tweak just about every aspect of their presentation, including voice actor and even gender, makes you feel like your journey through the game really belongs to you, instead of just being an actor in somebody else’s movie.

3. Mobility

One of the great disappointments of the GTA series is how little you can actually interact with the fantastically detailed worlds Rockstar puts together. Sure, the cities and surroundings are massive, but they’re also pretty empty and big parts of them are unreachable. By introducing absurd superhuman abilities, Volition is able to make the smaller worlds of their games more vertical and let the player explore with enhanced mobility options. Cities aren’t as interesting when you only see them from ground level, so being able to get high adds a ton to Saints Row.