I hate to break it to the haters, but this was the most believable SR yet. This is the first one where all the zaniness had a context, something which SR3 and SR2 didn't have. As far as the original SR, I think it's safe to agree that it really was nothing more than a GTA rip-off, much like how Duke Nukem 3D was a rip-off of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. IOW, just because you have a rip-off, does that mean it's a bad game not worth playing?

I think it's time for a reboot, and even the good ending of SR4 implied a rebooting of the franchise.

I'm on the fence on whether the superpowers was a good idea. They are EXTREMELY fun to fool around with, but perhaps they were introduced too early in the game and therefore didn't have the mind-blowing effect the way the jetbike and harrier had in SR3. None of the abilities in SR4 seemed particularly rewarding. And the car customization was seriously overshadowed by it.

But I think that with Saints Row 5, which I'm sure will be a reboot of its franchise the way GTA IV was, basically being a remake of the first for next-gen consoles, with hopefully updated graphics. Now I'm not asking for the graphics to be ultra-realistic or anything, but instead, high-quality, kinda like Infamous: Second Son. (And to be fair, it wasn't the realistic graphics that hurt GTA IV, it was the realistic gameplay that made it frustrating.)

And I'd welcome superpowers back in a SR game, but Volition, please allow the game to progress before we're rewarded with all the cool stuff. Oh yeah, and bring bad the layered clothing for characters...and don't ever, EVER drop the character customization...it's probably the best character customization ever put in a video game, and it's what sets Saints Row apart from other games in the genre more than anything else.

I loved how Saints Row: The Third was completely absurd and wild and living in a world of its own. I wish more games would just let loose like that. The game was like an abstract expressionist just throwing buckets of paint on a canvas not making anything in particular, but unleashing raw energy.

But with this one, the main thing I hate is that there doesn't seem to be anything new, and I really wish that the whole alien invasion premise is part of a poorly planned marketing scheme.

I truly think they could've done more on the parody end with the gangs the way they did with The Third, going completely nuts with them, like a gang of wizards and witches in a parody of Harry Potter or MTG or something, giving the player character access to a dragon and other fantasy creatures to be used as vehicles and fantasy weapons or something.

Personally, I liked the gang system, and I would've been cool with the player going up against maybe five gangs or more this time around. The alien invasion premise lifted from the canceled DLC, however, makes it feel like they're not even trying anymore.

Another observation I made is that this stalling occurance only happens when I hold down buttons on the keyboard. It doesn't seem to have effect on such things as moving the mouse or holding mouse buttons down.

What could this mean?

PS: Could suggestions please be intelligent ones that don't consist of "Intel pwns AMD" or "nVidia pwns ATI?"

I'm running it on Vista.

What could be wrong with the processor if it was running fine before?

This same kind of stalling happens when I hold backspace down, although that is much less of a big deal. But when I play a game, the frequent stalling is enough to mess things up. It happens with Crysis and Bioshock, probably other games, as well.

I have the latest Catalyst drivers, but I don't think it's the video card. It never acted like this when I had my HD 2600.

Could it be the motherboard?

I'm playing Crysis at 1024x768. I can probably get it to run stably at higher settings. I don't think it's the video card, though. I moved my CPU from my old motherboard; on the old one, it worked fine.

But like I said, this same freezing problem happens during normal computing.

I've got my new computer hooked up.

I'm running on a Foxconn A7DA-S motherboard with an AMD 6000+ X2, 4 gigs of Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800, and a Sapphire HD 4850.

With every game I throw at it, there seems to be constant stuttering. This isn't video card slowdown, it seemed to be more like memory slow down, but I got more memory and it still does the same thing. It seems that every 30 seconds or so, the game just freezes up for maybe 5 seconds, sometimes more. What could be causing this?

And I also noticed that even when the hold the arrow buttons or backspace button down when I'm typing messages, it does the same kind of thing. I hold it down, but it will frequently pause. What's wrong here?