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You Don't Have to go Home...
A knock at the door this late in the evening has Johnny answering. He's been expecting the Playa for a while now.
Handshakes and hugs of mutual respect and friendship are shared.
"Well, come on in..."
Playa steps into Aisha's house gingerly, not quite sure what to expect from the place that she and Johnny share.
"You wanna beer?"
"Yeah, that'd be great."
While Johnny fetches the beer, she spends some time looking around at the decorations on the wall.
The gold record on the wall, from Kingdom Come Records, brings Playa back. She allows a smile to grace her face, however briefly, while she thinks about 'the old days' when she and Gat helped Aisha fake her own death to get out of a shitty contract. That had been just one step of many in taking down the Vice Kings' criminal empire.
Johnny returns to the living room and tosses a beer over to Playa. She quite easily catches it and takes a seat on the couch to relax. From upstairs, a concerned voice calls down.
"Johnny, who's that?"
"Come to the living room and find out."
Johnny decides the best way to open his own bottle is to smack the flat of his hand against the cap, while bracing it against the table.
Unfortunately for him, Aisha saw everything.
"Johnny, I don't care if you just broke out of jail, you do not mess with my furni-"
All it takes to cut her off is a simple gesture at Playa, the sight of whom shocks her into forgetting what she had been angry about.
"Oh my God, it's you."
"Surprised Aisha?"
There's no hiding the smile on Aisha's face. Today has been a day full of pleasant surprises - first Gat breaking out of jail, and now here's the Playa in her living room and talking no less!
"What, that you're here or that you're talking?"
"Pick one."
"We all thought you were dead..."
"I almost was. Fuckin' Troy, man."
"Well, for someone who was blown to hell, you look great...did you do something with your hair?"
"I've been getting that a lot..."
Gat sighs with impatience. Social niceties have never been his strong suit. It's not that he doesn't enjoy seeing his best friend and girlfriend get along, but he's a man of action and he's been cooped up for far too long.
"Can we get back to business?"
"What's the rush?"
"I've been cooped up on death row, and that bitch's been laid out in a coma..."
"We definitely need to remind motherfuckers who we are."
"And that can't wait until after dinner?"
"No."
Aisha just shakes her head and smiles.
"You two haven't changed at all."
"Well ya know, there's a saying about dogs and blowing shit up, heh heh heh. So what's the plan?"
"We get our crew together, once we got that we can work on how we're takin' back our city."
"Sounds good."
"And where were you planning on having this little meeting?"
Playa and Gat exchange glances and start meaningfully looking around the house.
"No."
"Well, this place is pretty spacious..."
Aisha frowns and places both hands on her hips to show she means business. She fixes Gat with a level stare and shakes her head.
"No."
Playa tries to butter Aisha up instead.
"The color's very soothing..."
"No."
"Come on Eesh..."
"This ain't no fuckin' gang clubhouse!"
Her final word on the matter said, Aisha folds her arms across her chest and turns around. Gat turns to Playa and offers a sympathetic smile.
"Change of plans..."
"We gotta find a new place?"
"Yeah, you got it."
"Is Aisha gonna mind if we borrow her car?"
"She won't mind. But that ain't Aisha's car."
"Then whose is it? I never took you for a Zomkah owner."
"Ain't mine either. I don't know whose it is."
"It's mine now."
"99.0 pirate radio. Fuck mainstream."
The Twilight Sad - And She Would Darken The Memory
Pirate Radio only plays in specific parts of Stilwater and has a maximum broadcast range that mostly centers on the university, but can be picked up in the suburbs as well. Its DJ is Ken, who's Yuri Lowenthal doing his Yuri Lowenthal voice.
Anyway, I'm sure I've seen these on the road before, but I legit don't believe I've ever driven one before this moment. And, yes, it's really called Zomkah. According to the wiki, one always spawns outside Aisha's house for this mission. Huh.
The wiki also says this was the car of choice for the Vice Kings in the first game. I never played it and only ever watched DMorbid's LP, so I'll take their word for it.
"Head over to the old mission house, we should be able to set up shop there..."
"Why don't we just set up shop at the church?"
"Ultor's renovated it and turned it into a tourist trap."
"You're kidding me."
"Wish I was, we gotta find a new place and the mission house'll be perfect."
"Religious buildings are kinda been there done that..."
"We're not staying in the mission. Now check it out. Years ago an earthquake dropped part of the city below sea level, and rather than clearing out the rubble, the city built over it. There's an abandoned hotel below the mission that'll work for us."
"Alright, what's the catch?"
"We gotta evict the current tenants..."
"Sounds like fun..."
This is the bridge we used in the last update to cross over to the Red Light District. That's where we're going, actually. Just down the street from that apartment we got!
I'll give the Zomkah this, it controls decently enough. I'll have to see about grabbing one for my own personal use. It'll make a good introduction to car modding!
It's been 10 months since I played Saints Row, and even now the city's layout is somewhat burned into my brain. The mission house is pretty central in southern Stilwater.
You drive south off the bridge and hang a left and you're there.
But first... Also I have no idea why the Sons of Samedi are getting pissed off here. This isn't their turf.
"This's the place. Let's head down."
"It's certainly seen better days."
Playa makes the understatement of the century. Every inside wall is marked with at least one graffiti tag, and the carpeting smells like it got damp once and never properly aired out. The building is nasty and is probably listed as condemned in some forgotten file in City Hall.
The way down is linear, and not that long, but it's still annoying because you have to make so many tight turns.
Much later in the game, the Saints start restoring the hotel lobby we're about to step into. They never once actually spend the money to dress up the way down into the mission house. So it remains a squalid shithole.
"Oooh nice. Dibs!"
"Di-- shit."
Playa and Gat both can see the potential in this corner suite. But the universal law of dibs means that she gets it. Also between the two of them, they've wordlessly agreed that she's gonna be the boss and Gat will be her second. That way he doesn't have to get his hands dirty with managerial duties and he can instead focus on killing fools.
It's like I never stopped playing Fallout.
No idea why there's Samedi down here. The Red Light District is traditionally the domain of the Brotherhood. Or the Pimps. Maybe they were trying to move in?
"I'm surprised this hotel is still standing."
"Lucky for us."
"Who are these assholes in green?"
"Sons of Samedi. They run the drugs here in Stilwater."
"Prostitution too?"
"Nah, the Brotherhood and Ronin have the city's whores in their pockets."
"I guess the Samedi running prostitution would be a little too on the nose. Like a vice cop's wet dream."
"There's a whole street down here! Look at this."
"Like I said, those earthquakes dropped the whole block underground."
There's two tag spots here in the underground street area. One here and one where the mission is gonna tell us to go in a second.
Saints_row.webp here - Shooting someone while fire and explosions happen nearby.
And then catching fire a second later.
Once the last of the Sons of Samedi are dead, Playa and Gat come together to figure out their next move.
"These bums are gonna be a big problem for our operation unless we kick them out."
"They should get the idea if we smash their shanties."
Back across the lobby we go, to the opposite side of the building.
Out this side are a bunch of really aggressive homeless people who are rightfully pissed at getting kicked out of their shelter.
Playa grabs a nearby homeless person, places a gun to their side, and frogmarches them over to a nearby shanty. Then with surprising strength for a woman of her size, she sends him flying through the air.
A strong enough weapon, or explosives, could knock down the shanties. But if you don't have those - and you probably don't this early on - you just need to grab a nearby enemy into a human shield and then toss them into the nearest shanty.
His body colliding with the shanty makes it collapse.
The other tag spot is over here on this lower wall. It's pretty easy to find.
Once the last shanty falls, the remaining homeless folks swarm Playa and Gat with murder in their eyes.
Sadly, desperate people armed with knives and crowbars aren't enough to hold back two hardened gang bangers armed with guns.
Make Yourself At Home
"So...whatcha think?"
Playa looks around and shakes her head.
"It's kind of a shit hole."
Gat shoves one of the corpses off the couch and props it up on a milk crate. He takes a seat and kicks his feet up on top of the body.
"True dat... but it's a shit hole with potential."
Playa isn't completely convinced yet. But she has to admit Gat has a point. While she'd much rather live in opulence from the word go, she did just spend a lot of effort to clear it out, and she does hate wasting effort...
"I dunno man..."
"Oh come on, a stripper pole, some flat screens...maybe some nicer furniture..."
She eases into the couch next to Gat and also kicks her feet up on the body. A small smirk crosses her face and she leans back as well. It'll take a lot of elbow grease and hard work, but when has that ever stopped her?
"You had me at stripper pole."
"Fuckin' A..."
They press their fists together.
quote:
The streets of Stilwater are beginning to overcrowd. A recent surge in the homeless population has been attributed to an attack on an underground shanty town. It is unclear as to what precisely occurred; as attempts to interview the displaced have thus far lead only to repeated stabbings and wallet theft. We will keep you updated as these attacks directed toward the homeless continue to spike.
"The streets of Stilwater were quiet today, as apparently the homeless population of Stilwater took the day off. Sidewalks that were once bustling with hobos panhandling are eerily vacant, and park benches are strangely available to be sat on. No one knows for sure what happened to our oft forgotten and smelly bretheren...maybe someone finally gave them their two dollars. I'm Jane Valderamma, channel 6 news."
So let's take a minute to discuss the cash per day system. It's not a new thing to add to open world games. San Andreas did it back in 2004, but Saints Row 2 (and maybe 1, I don't actually know) was a step forward from that.
In San Andreas, CJ could get constant income from various stuff he'd done. But the trouble was, he had to travel around the map regularly to pick it up. Most players didn't do that because it's kind of tedious to go clear across the very large map to get $1000.
Saints Row gives you payouts from two things: owning property and gang takeover. If I'm not mistaken, each neighborhood gives another $500 to the daily total. Taking over a neighborhood also lets you buy any stores in that area. This not only adds to your daily cash total, but also gives you a permanent discount at that store!
But wait, there's more! At each crib you own, which are bases and hideouts, you can pick up the daily income. You also, crucially, don't need to own the neighborhood a crib is in to buy it. So once you start getting money rolling, it quickly behooves you to run around and buy any property you can afford.
We just barely crossed the threshold for enough respect for another mission. So next time we'll be launching straight into the followup mission, Three Kings. After that, my loose plan is to do what DMorbid suggested and get infinite sprint and no falling damage - from Factories Insurance Fraud and Base Jumping Gold Medal respectively. And then, for narrative reasons, I think Playa is gonna be lowering property values in the game's most well known side activity.