(Old review – from the original HNTDAAB) Publisher: THQ Developer: Volition Year of Release: 2009 Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 Saint’s Row 1 was an unoriginal rip off of Grand...

(Old review – from the original HNTDAAB)

Publisher: THQ
Developer: Volition
Year of Release: 2009
Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Saint’s Row 1 was an unoriginal rip off of Grand Theft Auto sold only to cash in on the wait for GTA 4. However, when GTA 4 was released and proved to be a very different game to it predecessors, players looking for the stupid game that San Andreas had popularised soon bought Saints Row. The sequel starts out with the same tone of complete mentalness.

At the start of the second game, your player character, the head of the 3rd Street Saints, has been in a coma (and prison) for 5 years since the boat explosion at the end of the first Saint’s Row. After escaping, its up to you and various other ex-members of the Saints to reform the gang.

Saints Row 2 uses the same open world system we are used to after generations of games, with a main plotline as well as literally thousands of distractions. From collecting prostitutes to dousing buildings in crap to committing insurance fraud there are plenty of reasons not to even go anywhere near the main storyline. These mini-games are all ridiculous but they all provide cash and rep which are required to gain more missions in order to proceed in order to gain more rep and so on and so forth. The system is a little contrived and it can be annoying when you own half the city to have to be running around doing odd jobs for to gain more rep. However, since most of the missions can be just hilarious you kind of stop thinking about how you’ve done the same thing 100 times. To provide the sheer number of opportunities, the city of Stillwater is nothing like the impressively detailed Liberty City, but it’s functional enough to make it an interesting battleground filled with opportunities.

The rest of the basic gameplay is the usual with other GTA style games. One major difference is the wanted level system – its a bar that is filled up when you commit crimes. Every time its filled up, it adds a star until it reaches a max of 5 as you’d expect. However at the same time, annoying the local gangs also has a bar off its own, so you can end up with both cops and all three gangs gunning for you which can prove interesting. Another thing the games does well is the customisation. Everything from your gangs colours to your own pad can be tweaked to your own wishes. On top of that the character creator allows you to create some ridiculous characters with several comedy voices. Also many of the options for each gender are unlocked for each so if you want to be thin Asian girl with a male cockney voice, knock yourself. It also proves that Volition are in fact crazy. Similarly, in what other game can you listen to “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” while throwing pimps into the sea. Or use a massive foam hand to slap people round the face.

Just one warning – if you think GTA 4 is quite morally horrible, then Saint’s Row 2 takes your morals, rips them up and laughs at your pathetic attempt to be without shame while you kill and main innocent people for points. Its a game that you don’t want your mother or the Daily Mail stumbling in on you playing. Your character is a simple criminal through and through unlike Niko and co who have a little bit of a good side to them.

Unfortunately, just like GTA 4, Saint’s Row 2 has a major case of the gremlins on the PC. Its very resource heavy and for the amount it uses, produces not very good graphics. On top of that, my copy crashed quite frequently during reviewing and the auto save is so intermittent that it makes GTA 4’s look spectacular. On top of that the character graphics are down right horrible, with the game in serious need of anti-aliasing. However, play enough of it to the point where explosions cloud the screen and it doesn’t really matter. The driving physics are also way off, making moving around the city almost unbearable. In fact all the physics in the game are mental, but if this was a design choice we will never know.

Its hard to write a review of a Saint’s Row game without referencing GTA because for all intents and purposes it is a straight clone. However, Saint’s Row 2 does just enough to make it a valid alternative to GTA 4. At first, it can feel crap compared to Rockstar’s epic of a game, but if you want something closer to the older games (and isn’t filled with fucking Cousin Roman asking about motherfucking bowling) then look no further than Saint’s Row 2. Hell, Tom Francis of PC Gamer and Ben “Yahtzee” Crosshaw both endorse it so it must be good. Just don’t think about anything your doing or you might be becoming Catholic just to wash off the guilt.