User blog comment:Krisars94/Dishonored's 4th anniversary. A reflection/@comment-16533050-20161009194133/@comment-16533050-20161009211837

Not to swerve too far off topic, the story element was well done in SR2 and it is probably the best in terms of settings, characters, story development, and a nigh perfect sequel to the original. To me it is the epitome of what the game was trying to accomplish.

There was some whacked out humor, but it was blended perfectly with the rest of the world. The fact that the rest of Stilwater (the city setting of the game) was normal while the main protagonists and antagonists fought each other in seemingly more outlandish ways brought a perfect blend of realism with offbeat humor. There were and to me still are some of the most perfectly done, poignant and artsy cutscenes in that series (as well as some crazy fun ones as well). To mix the two concepts as well as they did, while having one of the most alive cities I've seen (for its time), is pure writing gold.

Saints Row: The Third went a little too far and the game felt more like copy-pasted settings haphazardly strung together into something the devs and writers thought were a plot. The humor started veering too far to the left and started becoming ridiculous.

The bad thing though, is that the gameplay itself was vastly improved, driving was great, and combat became awesome, and there were some great new character ideas. However, a lack of story and 'I don't really care anymore' attitude kinda took away from all that. The devs made great strides forward with the mechanics and initial ideas, but the writing just didn't capitalize on it.

With SR4 and then GOOH, the humor was pushed so far over that everything became a joke, and a poorly told, and unfortunately oft-repeated, one at that. The sly humor and craziness which were highlights became the norm and basically you were playing in a cartoon. Any sense of reality was gone and the fact the whole thing wasn't even real gives like ZERO drive to invest, play, or even care what happened. Normal became a treasured thing amidst the constant outlandish buffoonery, but unfortunately there was nothing normal anymore - it was all just whack-a-doo. Meh.