It’s really astonishing how Ultor can evict everybody from their apartments who were living in the Saints Row’s territory way back in 2006 and get their homes bulldozed so everybody could have a clear view of the Phillips Building.
Governments do that all the time irl when building stuff like highways. Usually they end up bulldozing entire sections of poor/and or black neighborhoods to build stuff that the people there don't want
It can happen in real life too. I live in a neighborhood where it was crime and hoods. Then out of nowhere the rent on the house went sky high and peoples stuff were outside the houses. Then a year or two later my neighbor started building new houses, and people who were moving in had big money. I had people trying to get me to sell the house but I declined all offers. Then I started seeing new restaurants and areas being built in the neighborhood and community. Long story short they literally kick everybody out except for some that can still pay it and built everything around us.
Yea I miss all the freckle bitches, diners, and the clothing stores(as well as the musics). Stillwater only has stuff from ultor/saints(later Zin) clothing store apparently, it gets mundane after a while. Though the gun customization in SR3 & SR4 is really fun, you can make a laser blaster from the default gun options in SR4.
I started with SR2 and played SR1 later. When I played SR1 for the first time I vaguely recognized the areas but playing SR2 right after the first is a shock to the system when looking at the city as a whole
This one exit from saints row that goes under the highway and zags back and forth gets me every time, and I’m positive it’s paved straight through in 2. Also, muscle memory is taking me into dead ends because I’ve played 2 so much that 1 i feel lost in. 😅
I fell like thats the point. Stillwater in Saints Row 2 has been corporatized due to the influence of Ultor. So it makes sense that every thing would look all grey and corporate compared to the first game.
SR2’s updated map felt like such a natural progression and made a lot of places feel fresh. It would have been very easy for Stilwater to become stale before 2 even released.
@@kitcloudkicker14 Steelport is definitely based on Pittsburgh. Trust me I know. They said Stilwater is based on Chicago and Detroit because of their huge gang violence.
No only they are more buildings, places and stores in SR2, but also a lot of density of people and cars. You can tell that after the success of the first SR, Volition make enough money to update all Stillwater.
It's hilarious to see how well they nailed the rust belt industrial city in SR1 only to use none of the lessons Stilwater taught in Sr3, my god Steelport sucks in comparison.
That's the sad part. They tried to emphasize the rust belt aspect in steelport and at times I could see it with some of the housing but they didn't really utilize it, same thing happened with the reboot. They simply made steelport and SI a setting and they tell you what's happening vs showing you via the environment or NPCs. Stilwater was alive and a character in itself. I can tell you about stores and places unrelated to missions and places you can't even enter in stilwater like the neighbors with the identical houses but one is messy, grass is uncut and Christmas lights are still up. That artist who is Shaundi's friend more than likely living in the trailer park due to the statues their. Steelport... That huge church, the casinos, I guess the park. Was there even a police station or prison there?
unfortunately volition is completely different people than it was 15 years ago. And you can definitely tell it when you compare these old classics to that cringe woke reshit
@@SelectDevotee68at least it seems fair hard, excepting the Rollerz mission where you gotta get to that last truck, and the last Los Canales mission where you gotta line up a shot while someone is driving and if you get blown up, you die and have to restart and you just wish Dex would forget the RPGs and let me shoot at the damn plane, but whatever.
Personal theory: in SR1 stilwater is smaller than in SR2, Ultor moved in and gentrified saint's row, but I'm guessing they also added extra mass to the area in order to build more living areas as well as funded the remodeling of several areas of the city, that earthquake Gat mentioned did some noticeable damage which gave ultor the perfect excuse to remodel and possibly expand on a LOT of the city, and win the local government and people over as the Hughes initiative to gentrify the les desirable parts of the city was slowly turned into the Ultor initiative. So all their willingness to spend what seems to be literal millions to fix and remodel large amounts of the city helped them set a foothold since you can literally see their logo almost everywhere.
there were two quakes. the one that dropped the saint's hideout in SR2 happened 40 years before the events took place, while the one that sunk the docks from SR1 happened while the playa was in a coma
The land was already there but was very hilly. Idk if Simcity type terraforming is a real thing but that's what it reminds me of lol. Also I don't think it's ever stated in game how much time has actually passed. I always assumed it was like 20 years or something with how much things changed and how much the returning characters aged. I know canonically the devs did say at some point it was 5 years, which I guess is possible but damn that's a LOT of change for 5 years, plus people like Gat, Julius, Troy, and Dex all look a lot more than 5 years older than in the first game.
@@realCyng Gat looks more or less the same. Troy too, only he’s in a cop uniform and ditched the circle beard for a mustache. Dex and Julius both look like they’ve seen better days though.
I really like Stillwater. because it feels like a city you would see in real life and its not inspired by the most popular US cities like New York, Los Angeles or Miami. Steelport didn't feel as unique to me.
It really does feel like an actual city. There are differing districts, realistic distances and scope, parks and playgrounds, not just buildingsbuildingsbuildings like steelport. It actually shocked me how realistic the vibe was.
@@ryantabor9582 SR1 doesn't feel real though. It's a bunch of the same buildings smooshed together and a lack of tunnels and alleys. It feels like a maze especially with the random dead ends.
@@Ayaki6166 if you think about it he wanted absolute control over the city and he proves it by killing the damn executives and thinking he has a chance with the playa
Saints Row 2's Wardill Airport is actually re-used from a beta build of Saints Row 1 - the interior was used for a multiplayer mission in SR1 as well. Side note, On-Track looked way cooler in Saints Row 1.
What's really sad is that if The Vice Kings followed King and not Warren and Tanya they truly couldve been the most powerful gang (2:02)in Stillwater. Instead they influenced the saints
I really wish there were more Saints Row Map comparisons. Saints Row 2 Stillwater,to this day,is my favorite open World Sandbox in any game I've ever played next to Just Cause 2's Panau Island. All I've ever wanted is further expansions on this Map by way of a 4th Landmass area accessible by Bridges,New Customizable Cribs via Aishas House/The Price Estate/The Lopez Mansion/Benjamin King's tower/a crib on the Nuclear Power Plant Island. I'd settle for a Remastered Saints Row 2 for Ps4 instead of forcing me to pay for it via Ps Now.
Man I fucking love Stilwater. Place felt like home. Having Ultor gentrify it was such a great way to set them up as the villains. I can't believe we went from this to boring ass Steelport 😂
Crazy how a clothing company like Ultor basically gentrified almost a whole city. Kind of like how Amazon, a shipping company, has tried to do the same thing on a national level.
am i really the only person that thinks SR1 looks better in a lot of places? the activity cutscenes are way more polished, the night seems to be a lot darker whereas in SR2, the night really wasn't that dark, character models and clothes seem to look better in SR1, i like 2, but 1 does seem to look a little better with some things
Yeah, the lighting, weather, sky seem to be equalized in SR2 through a very smoggy looking filter. It affects not just the map, but the character models too. It’s still a great game, and probably the best in the series, but graphically it felt like a step from the new era in gaming (Saints Row 1), back to the PS2. I otherwise enjoy all the changes and the story behind it. Perhaps they’d explain away the filter and dulling of the lighting system to increased air pollution from all the expansion in the city, and that’s fair. But it all gives me a reason to go back to Saints Row 1 and appreciate it too. Plus it’s criminal that they got rid of the movie theaters. Those were such an innovative way to go back and play missions. Something lame about just going to your TV and doing it.
imo sr2 graphics has a better realistic approach but the colors look so bleached down compared to sr1 and the npc look similar to your character in sr2 i think out of all saints rows sr2 needed the remaster the most
Personally I actually prefer the reboot to 3 or 4, the customization and city are night and day. However 2 is a literal masterpiece, probably a top 3 open world game of all time
This video proves volition put everything they had into sr2 stilwater more buildings, hidden passages, cars, pedestrians and etc you don’t get none of that in steelport. They don’t even have a damn mall or strip club
If only we had another Saints Row game based in Stilwater, woulda loved to see the evolution onwards. They probably went with Steelport as they went to change Stilwater bit went a bit too far with the changes, so they called it something else entirely.
Well at least the King grocery store did at least open after the fall of Vice Kings. Shit makes me miss fighting the Vice Kings a little bit since now I mentioned it.
SR1 Saint's Row is the best looking quarter, it sets a balance between the gang-riddled ghetto and the NYC-style mid-class suburbs. The redesigned Saint's Row looks just hideous.
1 has a much cleaner look because 2 puts a bunch of filters and gloss and shit all over everything. It also helps 1 uses handcrafted character models. That said, 2 has so much more variety and detail it consequently made 3 a bummer to play because it suddenly became apparent it was a soulless AAA game and less of a passion project since it recycles so much shit.
I love the changes of the map between the two games. This is what I loved about Stilwater in the first two games, not just the whole map itself, but the changes from the first to second game. Now that Volition is under, and after the failure of that trash reboot, I don't know what the future holds for this series. Ever since Saints Row The Third, it seems they started to go downhill, then when Saints Row IV came out it rapidly went down the drain.
They tried to go to realistic with sr2 and made it way to drab and lacking vibrancy sr1 will forever be the better game they style to the clothing was unique to sr as well
@@saint- I re purchased both of them recently and I would Definitely have to say 2 was better, for some reason after 8 or 9 years removed from playing a game (sr1) you have fond memories of it saint row 2 was the more fun game for sure
What makes the color palet/correction great between the 2 games is that in sr1 theres was no huge industry and businesses cluttering the city up, but in sr2 due to that very thing the smog, and pollution makes for a very accurate depiction of a busy city
Seeing the rapid changes to the city gives a sort of Atlanta Metro vibe. I mean, 2015 Atlanta is very different from 2022 Atlanta; especially in the suburbs.
As Much as I love and Enjoy Sr2 The First One Just had a Certain Vibe/Feel that was and Still is Timeless Like the Underground Hip-Hop, Rundown City, Finding Ways To Get on top of Buildings with No Aircrafts, etc.
saints row 2 looks super washed out and muddy, plus the character models suck due to them being made in the character creator. julius literally looks like a sims version of himself in 2
Stilport is an amazing open world map, and stands as one of my favorites among the greats like Red Dead Redemption 2's map. Some many open world games never really make an interesting modern city map the way Volition was able to.
Ik this is an old video but when it comes to SR2, they should've let us buy back some of the mansions that we unlocked in SR1 like the lopez mansion and Price mansion PS Chinatown looked so nice is SR1, it's sad it went into such much disrepair in SR2
Kinda odd how Downtown lost its trains (Always thought it would have been fun if they updated them and made them like the japanese super fast bullet trians or whatever in SR2) and what went down at the Docks? Did it just fall into the sea and nobody bothered to fix it up? You would think it would be an important part of Stillwaters economy
Between the events of SR1 and SR2 an earthquake happened that destroyed a good portion of the city, and instead of rebuilding the places that were damaged, they built new locations on top of them. That's one of the reasons why you see old locations such as the docks completely destroyed.
This guy is content I can imagine if the next saints row game comes out he’s going to have a lot of content to offer for sure also because it’s next gen 😧
It's crazy how much money Ultor has to just come in and terraform large chunks of the map. No wonder the playa was pissed off. Playa:"You took everything from me." Ultor:"I don't even know who you are."
The Saints Row 2 version of Stilwater is very different however some of the locations remain in the same places while some have been removed like the abandoned police station, Kingdom Come Records and the Saints Row Loft crib.
It's a pitty, that you can never take over your old cribs from SR1. I always liked the Price Estate and even today I still wish for a mod, which lets you renovate it.
