Saints Row 2

Pros:

-Fun open world sandbox game play

-Tons of customization

-Packed full of content and side missions

-Lots of variety

-Online co-op is a blast

-Just crazy fun as hell game play

Cons:

-Weak storyline

-Stupid AI

-Animations are a bit stiff and not the best

-A bit too easy

-Controls feel a little awkward and take a while to get used to

-Outside of co-op, online is a bit lackluster

Saints Row 2 is at it's core a clone of Grand Theft Auto and many of the other open world sandbox games that are on the market. However that is not necessarily a bad thing, and in fact many games do this all the time and often bring there own unique ideas to expand a genre. And that's exactly what Saints Row 2 does!

To start things off you make your own character, and the customization options are plentiful. Everything from body shape to voice type to taunts and walk style are all available to make a character how you want. Once your done the fun really begins and your ready to start having a blast!

You begin in a prison hospital and you and your buddy make an escape, though it's not a subtle one. However none of this really matters as the storyline is a weak one and forgettable, but you don't play this game for the storyline, you play it for it's fun and crazy game play and that's exactly what Saints Row 2 delivers. As you blast your way out of the prison you will notice how much variety there is right from the beginning, all the different weapons and ways to take down enemies is only a small taste of what's to come.

Though you will notice right away how dumb the AI is, they don't have much strategy to them, they just rush you and basically feel like target practice for you to mow down. The AI will not react when you aim guns at them in cars or anywhere else, they will only freak out and run when you shoot. The Police are easy to avoid as well, and easy to take down even as your wanted level goes up. Overall the AI is lacking and doesn't provide much of a challenge, and that leads into another issue with the game. The difficulty.

Now to be fair, there are other difficulty settings you can choose for the game. And I only played the Normal setting, however I get the feeling that even on higher settings the game wouldn't provide much more of a challenge, just cheap and frustrating. But on Normal the game feels too easy, you will rarely die unless you are doing something stupid ( you will plenty of fun being dumb in this game), in fact you often feel like your Superman, like your nearly invincible. You can run extreamaly fast, shoot with almost super natural accuracy with just about any gun, and throw people several feet clear across the street. None of this is a bad thing mind you, as Saints Row isn't trying to be realistic, which is fine. But it would be nice if your enemies could stand at least some kind of a chance against you.

Also the controls can feel a bit awkward at first, the driving controls are different from GTA and other games, but you can switch it to a more standard style. Still the camera angle is odd and takes time to adjust too, and many of the other aspects feel a little outdated. Like they could have done made them a bit smoother. The Character animations are also a bit stiff.

But these are all relatively minor complaints in the grand scheme of things. Saints Row 2 still is one of the best open sandbox games I have ever played. Sure it may be a GTA clone but who cares? As long as your having fun that's all that matters, and Saints Row 2 provides that in full. Many of it's aspects expand the open world genre, and in my opinion (which is what all reviews are, opinions) does several things better than the games it's taken direct influence from. The customization for one is much better, so is the overall variety of things to do and mission types available. You won't really run out of things to do anytime soon. And no other game out there really captures the atmosphere of just plain chaotic fun like Saints Row 2.

Outside of the main missions, you also have a ton of side ones as well which provide a great reason to keep playing. You also have mini type games like a Zombie survival you can access from your in game video game console (sounds like a Paradox I know). The game also has some online stuff to it as well, but only the co-op mode is the really fun one. The other stuff feels like a missed opportunity and could have been better.

Final Verdict:

Overall Saints Row 2 is a great game, while it may not be the most polished experience out there, it still has some excellent game play and smart design choices that warrant it's place among the top open world games on the market. If you enjoy sandbox games with plain, crazy fun game play, then you owe it to yourself to pick this game up!

Saints Row 2 get's a 4/5