Toggle Background Color

Hello everyone and welcome back. This little quote from IdolNinja popped up while I was loading the most recent save. Rest in peace, good buddy!



Okay so we don't have enough respect to play any missions if we wanted to. So we need to go around fixing that. I started this recording session with four primary goals:

1) Get a lot of respect
2) Get no falling damage
3) Get infinite sprint
4) Do at least one version of Septic Avenger

In the service of accomplishing goal 1, my plan is to finish unlocking all the Chop Shop activities, as well as get all the Hitman lists.



To that end, let's pay a visit to the next closest Chop Shop list.



When I'm wandering around like this in the open world, I have a tendency to chase shiny object goals. So expect a lot of divergences as I stop what I'm in the middle of doing to pursue opportunities as they arise.



Also I want to take this time to complain about Stilwater's supercops. There's always at least one when you get a single star. Some dipshit with a hardon for busting perps who follows real close behind your car with his sirens going.



He didn't appreciate being brake checked.



Way over in the factories district, we find this little driveway.

The Factories list is asking for a lot of heavy equipment and other assorted industrial vehicles. Also the shitty beater that we drove over here is a Danville so...



The Chop Shop lists can be a pain if you go searching for the cars specifically. But if you just grab them as you find them while doing other stuff, then it's pretty easy to just cross off large chunks of the lists incidentally.



Like the hostage activity. Sure you could grind it out, but it's a lot easier if you just chip away at it. Also we're over here at Stilwater Caverns, which is where the first Brotherhood mission is (and where the final Saints mission is, actually.)



The highways in the game are pretty intelligently designed. So you can follow the road signs and get where you need to go. We'll be coming back to the highways in a later update, as they're pretty integral to one of the side activities I covered in this recording session.

Hitman stuff requires you to fulfill specific requirements before the targets will show their faces. In the case of Jeremiah here, we need to ride a bike around the Marina district.



Also someone asked if there was a hearse in this game. Apparently there is! It's not very good, though.









I'm not even trying to find these cars. I just see them as I drive by and grab them opportunistically.







Though there is to be said driving around with a specific car tagged. The game tends to spawn ones you're looking for if you're in the right area. So we can grab this otherwise hard to find armored car.



The money from these deliveries quickly adds up. We've almost doubled the amount of cash we started with.



I dunno why, but this Ronin lady was pissed off we stole the armored car and now she's trying to pick a fight.



Sounds like a free katana to me!

See what I mean about chipping away at it? I just grabbed the Varsity truck to get out of the area and now we've got another vehicle off our lists!





While driving around aimlessly, I found a Phoenix. So let's show off my other favorite part of Saints Row 2 - vehicle customization!



Saints Row the Third improves this in every way, but it's still quite good in 2. The idea here is you just select one of the categories and buy the upgrade.



I tend to buy everything on the first page except kneecappers, hydraulics, and nitrous.



These four things make the car super resistant to damage while handling better.



Next comes customizing the car. A lot of this is to taste. Most of the pieces cost the same, and it's all down to looks.



You can get pretty in the reeds doing this!



Customizing cars gives you a huge chunk of style, so if you do a bunch back to back, you can really up your respect income.



Finally comes colors. It's surprisingly easy to get good at color theory doing this. In general, darker but similar colors go on the bottom, which lighten as you go up looks good. So does uniform color.



Saints Row the Third will automatically add cars you customize to your garage. I'm not sure SR2 does it.



This steel and glass utopia is the much-vaunted Saints Row district.



Naturally there's another hitman list here, too.

No reason at all indeed.



It can be difficult to create narrative out of "go to this place you have no reason to be in." Also I like to generally keep the Fucking Around updates mostly narrative free. Playa has no reason to go back to the Prison, for instance, despite there being a bunch of activities there.





Nor does she have in character reasons to buy a private dock at SU. But that's what we're doing regardless!



There's a lot of stuff to be done here in the Prison, and we'll be back many times.



There's at least one tag from each gang here, for instance.



Outside the Warden's house, we get a call from Anna of all people. I'm serious. The racist lady from the first update.

"Some of my sponsors are trying to drop my show because I'm too honest...I need you to show them that was a bad idea. You're probably poor and desperate, I'm sure you can use the money."



That is also all five Hitman lists active. Some of these guys will only spawn under certain conditions, while others require just getting a wanted level. So while we can kinda chip away at parts of it, the Hitman lists tend to be something you have to actively pursue.



Occasionally you can find a helicopter here. In addition, there's a lighthouse on this same island that we can buy as a crib. Despite being nowhere near it, this helipad is tagged as belonging to the lighthouse.



Our next stop on the tour of the world is the airport. I'm trying to find a helicopter for Reasons. The funny part is, there's actually a guaranteed spawn not too far from where I am. I just don't realize it yet.



Instead...









You can't even get mad at it because it's too funny. A golf cart going at super slow speeds nudged an explosive barrel which sent it spinning away. And then it exploded for no reason.

Saints Row!



Thankfully, getting Wasted doesn't cost too much. You lose $500, which is only pocket change. And you're allowed to keep all your weapons. Saints Row goes for fun, GTA goes for realism. Fun is being allowed to keep all your weapons and ammo when you die, while realism takes a huge chunk of your cash (~10-30% on average) when you die and strips you of all your weapons.

Saints Row is a better game than GTA. Also the humor is a lot better than "GEE AMERICAN CULTURE SURE IS SO WACKY."



The nice people at the hospital were even nice enough to fix our golf cart for us.



Still on my hunt for a helicopter, I visit another known spawn location - again the airport.



Normally you go right when you enter, because all the important stuff is to the right. But if you go left...



And up some stairs and to an obscure location way back in the corner...



You can sometimes find a random helicopter spawn up here!



The Thompson is bad. Unbelievably bad. Holding the "ascend" button makes it go off into Never-Never Land.



Seriously. I was holding the control stick forward and holding A and it started banking hard to the left.





This won't help us because the game is actively spiteful at times (like now) but we can store this helicopter in our personal helipad on top of the Saints main base.



So the idea here is, you want to get into a helicopter or plane and go high up. Really high up.



And then you bail.



Unlike CJ who needs to find a parachute, Playa always has one. She's like Rico Rodriguez in that regard!



All we need to do after starting Basejumping is to land dead center in the target on the ground.



The parachute is impossible to see through, so you need to do all your aiming basically by looking at the minimap.



...close but no cigar. The "no falling damage" unlock comes from 3 stars.



Against all odds, our helicopter survived falling from a thousand feet up.



But it also fused with the pavement.



Because it's still extant in the world, we can't recall it to our garage. And I'm pretty sure if you blow up a car that you have stored in your garage, the game deletes the saved data. So now we need to find another helicopter.



My attempt to ram the helicopter out of the ground derails almost immediately.



It occurs to me that I probably have ADHD because I get very easily distracted.



But on the upside, we have another car off the lists!



My goal of basejumping temporarily forgotten, I decide to grab another quick hitman target. We just need to pull up our phone and dial (555) 455-8008



Frank comes by and Playa pops him when he stops. Simple as that!



Anyway, my desire to find another helicopter brings us back to the airport. Here I find a race. May as well knock this out since we're in the area.



This is a pretty simple checkpoint race. No other drivers to race against!



Easy enough.



It's here that I finally spot the guaranteed helicopter spawn at the airport. And this type actually handles well!



Sadly for some reason we can't set a basejumping target at the airport.



So let's try again over the Barrio.



It takes several false starts, but Playa finally sets a basejumping target and away we go!



It's not too difficult, just a bit fiddly.



And the reward is well worth it! And with that done, let's end this update by knocking out another thing I wanted to finish.



You see, I checked. Jane's phone number came at 30. So let's knock out 20 real quick.



You can attempt to mug people who are sitting down and it might work. But there are a few laws for it. First off - a cowering person is ineligible to be held up. They can't be mugged.



Don't mind me, just buying some jewelry.



Anyway, holding up someone near the police results in no money and an instant wanted level. And it appears, from testing, that you can't actually mug anyone with an active wanted level OR while in view of the police.

Also if you're mugging someone and quit fine aiming mode for any reason, you get an instant wanted level no matter how few police are nearby. So don't do that!



As evidenced here.



This guy ignored us until our 1 star ticked down to 0.



Also some people will just start cowering immediately. Just move on at that point.



This is a lot more interesting of a reward than a paintball mask. Anyway, that's gonna be it for now.

Next time will be more fucking about like this.