Saints Row 2 Review

Our resident gangsta’, Sith Lord Jim, avoids the po-po &

takes a break from busting caps to tell you the dealio.

by Sith Lord Jim:

©2008 Jim McIntyre:

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People have been constantly asking me whether Saints Row 2 is better than Grand Theft Auto 4. It’s a question I hate. To me it is just like asking whether Burnout Paradise or Forza 2 is better, they may have similarities, but they are vastly different games.

Yet if I had to answer the question I would really have to say that both do some things better than each other. A better question would be which title did I have more fun with, and the answer to that my friends, would be Saints Row 2 by a landslide.

I must admit I went into Saints Row 2 with fairly low expectations. I had enjoyed elements of the first, but seeing all the mediocre review scores SR2 had been copping my excitement rapidly evaporated. A compelling story line, fun game-play, a crap-load of customization, and tons of things to do quickly blew my low expectations away.

SR2 picks up where the original left of, with your character waking up from the coma he has been in for the last few years after the explosion that ended the first game. The Saints have fallen apart, Gat is in jail, Dex is working for Ultor, and Julius is missing. At first glance it may not seem like much of a story, but the characters and the dialogue really do wonders to drag you in.

The game-play is the same as the original, but in case you missed that one in brief the core of is doing missions, and then doing activities to gain reputation, which you need to do the missions. This changes things up and makes sure that monotony never sets in.

If you do get sick of having to do activities in between each mission you also can just go and fill your reputation bar a few times over. You can also gain reputation from things such as gang kills, combat stunts, and vehicle stunts. These things also are scored between 1 bronze star and 3 gold stars, with the gold stars netting you more reputation.

Variety seems to be one of the games biggest draw cards. Missions although all involving killing things are varied and keep things feeling fresh. There are also numerous activites and all feel vastly different. Some become slightly more tedious than others, but all are enjoyable. Also changing the action up are the new diversions, these include things like car surfing, and drive-bys. That’s not even mentioning all the different collectibles. There is a hell of a lot to do in this game.

If all that wasn’t enough, all the activities and missions can also be done in co-op either online or via system link. I was thoroughly enjoying this game and then I tried co-op and quickly became addicted. It is a game that is full of moments that should be shared.

Sights like your manly, heavily tattooed, gangster gunning down fools while wearing nothing, but pink panties are perfect examples of this. The only issue I had was the difficulty did not seem to scale when you had a second player, meaning that things that are normally easy are ridiculously so.

The dialogue and characters are all brilliant. Hearing your gangster threaten to kill someone for making fun of his music can never get old. Your lieutenants are all very likeable characters and you will likely find yourself empathizing with them. The moment when this dawned on me was when I found myself actually annoyed at the gang who injured one of the characters.

What really helps this dialogue and gangsters to be enjoyable is the fact that the game never takes itself too seriously. The game is full to the brim with tongue-in-cheek humor.

Customization is everywhere in this title. You can customize your character, cars, cribs, and even your gangs. While the crib options are fairly limited all others have plenty of options and customizing these can reward you with style levels which act as a multiplier for your respect that you earn.

My largest issue with the game was the AI. There was just far too many times that for no reason a civilian would swerve and run into me. The worst of these was when I was defending a building and a van that did not belong to any gang and was simply a civilian drove up two sets of stairs just to run me over. This erratic AI  behavior although frustrating, never really broke the experience for me.

If you are considering this game simply for the multiplayer I’d suggest reconsidering. The multiplayer is patchy at best and a mediocre lag-fest at worst. There are 3 game modes, which all go by a more gangster name, but they are team deathmatch, deathmatch, and activity completing as a team. The activity one or strong arm as it is called was the best of the lot, but the lag was a major issue.

It may not be as immersive an experience as GTA4, and graphically its not as impressive, but I had a lot more fun with this one. Awesome co-op and stacks of replay-ability make this something you need to at least try. Now back to my hoes.

“9/10

©2008 Jim McIntyre:

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