Saints Row 2

"It's great to be back in the Row."

Load your guns, wear some purple and get ready for a great time. The sequel to Saints Row has arrived and I'm happy to announce that the gameplay has greatly improved from the original, and if you're afraid it'll be extremely different, you'd be mistaken. This is what the fans wanted and we got it. And I'm going to make a very bold statement and say that I actually prefer this game over Grand Theft Auto 4. Yes, the clone has surpassed the original in fun if you ask me. But let me go over why.

The game picks up with your character in prison, after being in a big 2 or 3 year long coma. Anyone who beat the original game will know that you were caught in an explosion at the end and even though it looked like you died, this game begs to differ. As soon as you wake up you escape from prison and return to Stilwater to rebuild the 3rd Street Saints and take over the city of Stilwater as you originally intended. The difference this time is that now you're the one in charge of everything. The story has you meeting a lot of familiar faces from the last game, and if you dug the first game's plot, you'll feel right at home in this game as well. The cutscenes are very well shot this time around, featuring some epic action scenes that had me drop my own jaw in excitement at times.

Like the first Saints Row, this game is basically a Grand Theft Auto clone. I'm not gonna deny it. Every single element of this game, to the carjacking, to the missions, to the radio conversations and the weapons, everything screams GTA. It's a sandbox game where you shoot up people, ride in vehicles, spend money on weapons and clothing and try to claim the entire city for the 3rd Street Saints. If you get offended by copycat gameplay, well then look elsewhere I guess. Me, I could care less. If it's fun, it's fun. When the game begins you have the ability to totally customize your appearance, whether you're fat or skinny, white or black, pretty much everything you could want to change. Just like the first game. This time around the ladies get to create a character, so now your main character can be a female. And yes, you can increase breast size. Oy.

You can also customize the character's walking stance, fighting style, and overall personality as well. This brings up an interesting element of the game. Now that you run the gang, you get to call the shots and make things the way you want them to be. My favourite feature is the ability to totally choose the appearance of your gang members. You get a select amount of costume styles and you can decide what everyone wears. So when you go on the street, they're wearing suits. So when you watch that cutscene, they're wearing ninja outfits. For real, there's an option to have your gang wearing ninja outfits. It's like being in control of the Foot Soldiers from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! But I digress. You can even choose 3 different cars that the Saints will be driving around town. So if you think your gang should be driving nothing but sports cars, you can do it! There's a certain satisfaction to giving your gang a personality and I thought it was a cool idea.

The game's structure hasn't really changed from last game. You still do missions so that you can take over territories and eliminate one of the 3 opposing gangs that you need to kill. In order to do missions, you need respect points. Respect points are earned though stunts and activities. The activities are kooky and fun missions that have various levels of difficulty and reward, and beating them all earns you some great weapon and stat upgrades. There's far too many to mention but I will point out an old favourite activity, Insurance Fraud. This is an activity where you put yourself in huge accidents on purpose in order to earn money. It's a rag doll physics playhouse and I love it. You earn money from missions and activities and you can spend them on clothing shops, gun stores, and you can use the money to buy new cribs, which you can also customize the appearance of.

So what has changed some readers may be asking? Well for one, the combat has slightly improved. Not only are there more than one fighting style to use in the game, but after you hit a 3 move combo your character does a flashy knock down move. That's it really. It's still the same as before, only with flashy combat. You can also take two pistols and submachine guns this time, as opposed to last game and having only one. Dual wielding makes me happy. Of course there are new activities that weren't in the original game. In one activity you take control of a septic truck and spray real estate with......well, brown liquid. Yes, it's gross. There's another mission where you pretend to be a cop and for a hit reality show called Fuzz, you have to kill criminals for a camera man in different and violent ways so you can earn big ratings. My new favourite is the Helicopter Attack activity where you get into a helicopter, fly around and protect your allies by blowing the living hell out of anything that goes near them. Another change is that now you can do Taxi fares, ambulance rescues, fire and police missions as well. Another unnecessary GTA rip-off, but oh well, it's there.

And back to the helicopter, you now have new vehicles to play with. You were restricted to cars in the first game, but now you got motorcycles, boats, planes, and helicopters as well. There's nothing you can't pilot and I love that. The best thing is that the controls are so tight and responsive. I can drive at super speeds down a highway and dodge traffic with ease. The controls are great and I just love the big fun factor this game offers. As for game length, I'd say it's about the same as the first game. Long, but if you tried you could beat it in a weekend. And if you thought the first game was too hard, you can now change the difficulty to a much more forgiving mode. So newcomers who suck at games are cut some slack. As for bad points, I will say that Stilwater hasn't had that huge a change since the last game. Yes it does have a different layout, but I really felt deja vu. Every place you remember is still in the same area and some slight road changes don't fix that. Of course, Saints Row (the district) looks completely different, but everything else shares the same look.

Audio wise, the game offers the same radio stations as before and I love the wide variety of music selection. You can be a classical guy who listens to opera, you can listen to heavy metal, rap, punk music and even some great 80s hits as well. Take On Me anyone? Familiar characters from the first game are all voiced by their respective voice actors, and there's quite a few celebrities in there. Eliza Dushku, Neil Patrick Harris, Jaime Pressly and some others you may or may not have heard about. Solid voice acting adds to the already great cutscenes and dialogue. Seriously though, I loved watching the cutscenes in this game. There's something about the attitude of the main character (who now speaks this time) as he smashes bottles on people's faces, makes cold yet awesome plans, and goes around shooting folks.

Graphically the game looks the same except for one big detail. The character models. Now some people have been saying the characters look better, but if you ask me, their faces look absolutely terrible. Compared to the first game, when I see familiar faces like Johnny Gat, I can't even recognize them. The characters have gotten this square shaped look to them now and it's really distracting. It's not terrible, but after playing the first game I was confused as to why they went this way with the faces. But still, Stilwater has never looked better. Even when you're flying around in a helicopter it looks pretty damn good. Giant skyscrapers, clean water, and some very pretty explosions to be had.

Oh and before I forget, the multiplayer has returned as well. Unfortunately I lack the Xbox Live power to test it out, but I feel I still have to acknowledge that you can get into big deathmatches with some strangers online. This game is everything Saints Row fans have been waiting for. I do think the story should've focused on other characters more than some, but it's still a great game regardless. Just be warned that there is a litttle deja vu, as despite adding some personality and new vehicles and activities, the core gameplay and controls are exactly the same as last time.

IN THE END...
Saints Row 2 delivers and succeeds upon delivery. Adding new vehicles, activities and customization options, it's a rich experience and an addicting one at that. Just keep in mind that not too much has changed, and it totally rips off Grand Theft Auto. But like I mentioned earlier, I prefer this over GTA4. Great game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/27/08

Game Release: Saints Row 2 (US, 10/14/08)