Saints Row 2 Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 20th October 2008

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The saints return to unleash more mayhem on the city of Stilwater.

Saints Row 2 Details:

	Third Person Shooter
	PC/PlayStation 3/Xbox 360
	Volition
	THQ

18+

Out Now

1-2

Many gamers will see THQ’s latest free roaming third person shooter as a rival to Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV, I would rather look at it as an alternative, a tongue in cheek representation of gang culture that doesn’t take itself seriously and encourages the player to unleash mindless an often over the top chaos on the city of Stillwater.

Saints Row 2 is set five years after the original game and much in the city of Stilwater has changed. The Saints are no more and their old neighbourhood has been destroyed and replaced with huge skyscrapers erected by the Altor Corporation. Your gang’s territory has been conquered and divided up between several new unfamiliar gangs and it’s down to you to resurrect the Saints and reclaim the city.

Like many new games Saints Row 2 requires you to create a character to play as during the games story mode. The game features many customisation options with you not only being able to edit the look of your character but also several personality traits such as fighting style, facial expressions. You can even choose your characters voice and walking style. Also once you start playing, Saints Row 2 allows for further character customisation and by visiting a number of shops you can kit your character out in stylish clothes, tattoos and jewellery.

Whilst this may seem like a novelty to some there is actually a reason to customise your character. Items of clothing jewellery and tattoos earn you style points which allow you to increase your style rank. The higher your style rank the more respect you gain for completing activities, taking out rival gang members or just by creating havoc.

Further customisation options allow you buy new cribs and further increase your style rank by kitting them out with flat screen TV’s, strip poles and so on. You can also purchase new vehicles to enhance your style and once again these can be pimped up by taking them to a garage and fitting body kits and new rims.

Missions in Saints Row 2 can only be undertaken if you have enough respect, this system serves to prolong the games story mode and also encourages you to undertake several of the mini games featured within the game. Mini-games are fairly varied and see you competing in races, or causing damage by spraying sewage across the city streets. The game also features a mini game that sees you being paid by a film producer to impersonate a cop and dispense justice using excessive force!

Saints Row 2 is a massive game and features a lot of variation but at the core, the game is very much a third person shooter, with most of the games missions including some kind of frenzied shooter action.

After successfully completing a mission you will take control of a neighbourhood and earn a set amount of cash from it with each day that passes in the game. However neighbourhoods can be contested at anytime during the game as rival gangs will often move their lieutenants in and try and take your turf for them. Whilst a neighbourhood is being contested you will stop earning cash from it so it’s important to quickly and decisively move out any rival gang members as soon as possible.

Despite being a fairly solid game, Saints Row 2 does have one very noticeable flaw and that is the lack of challenge that the game offers. To put it simply it’s just too easy for a number of reasons. Firstly your character must have some kind of bullet resistant skin as he can withstand an unprecedented amount of lead before dropping and if that wasn’t too much of an advantage you also have a fairly substantial health bar. Enemies also aren’t the brightest and will stand clearly in the open allowing you to fill them with bullets or beat them down. In fact the only times I seemed to die was when I was seriously outnumbered or when I made a stupid mistake such as standing too close to a car that was on fire.

As well as the single player story mode Saints Row 2 also features co-operative and competitive multiplayer action. A friend can easily be brought into your game through the pause menu to undertake missions together or simply roam around and cause mayhem. The co-operative gameplay has been very well implemented and both players are free to do as they please, although one player’s misdemeanours will bring the wrath of Stilwater’s finest down on both players.

The competitive aspect of the games multiplayer option sees two teams vying for control of Stilwater, battling against each other for control of neighbourhoods. This is done by undertaking a series of random activities from the games single player mode and completing set objectives or simply stopping a rival team from completing theirs, which is obviously done by dropping them before they have time to. It can be fun at times but feels a little confused and a little more chaotic then it needs to.

Visually Saints Row 2 offers a mix of both good and bad, character models are good to look at and the game does run at a pretty good frame rate throughout, no matter how intense the on screen action becomes. Some of the vehicles in the game look a little odd while others look superb. Some areas of the games environment also look good whilst other don’t. The game also has a pretty short draw distance and it’s not uncommon for citizens of Stilwater to popup in front of your car or find a truck blocking your route as you speed down the road. As we’ve come to expect from open world games, Saints Row 2 also features changing weather effects and a day night cycle, although it must be said that the night portion is more like dusk.

The game features a pretty good soundtrack which offers a mix of rock, hip hop, 80’s and even classical music. The number of songs featured in the game is a little limited so you will often hear the same tracks over and over but they’re all decent songs so it’s of little annoyance. Voice acting can be a little over the top at times but for the most part it’s been done well featuring the voice talent of Eliza Dushku (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Michael Dorn (Star Trek: TNG), Daniel Dae Kim (Lost) and Michael Rappaport (Prison Break).

Whilst Saints Row 2 may not do anything to propel the open world action genre forward what it does offer is an over the top, chaotic shooter that pretty much allows you to do what you want. Yes it may be excessively violent at times but its fun and that’s why we love it.