Saints Row 2

We've all met those girls (or guys), a common term goes "Butterface", if you haven't heard it before it goes "Everything was good, but her face". That's kinda like how i want to describe Saints Row 2.

Lets get the main problem out of the way first, Saints Row 2, is no graphical powerhouse. In fact it looks like a first generation Xbox 360 game, which was what the first Saints Row was. The game is rife with jagged lines, blurry textures, poor special effects, the occasional dissapointing sound effect omission, and overall other characters "slide" along the ground rather than walk on it.
Its not very pretty at all. Only small steps up from the first game are noticeable, such as character polycount and shaders.

On the plus side of this spectrum, the underlying GAME is, in a phrase "incredibly fun". And in the end, that's all that really matters in a video game. If its fun to play, and the game comes back at your with satisfying results, you got yourself A-Class material.


The common misconception is abundantly clear however, its got a giant rubber stamp imprint that says (almost on the box even) "GTA CLONE". This however, can no longer be true.
Open world sandbox, is a sub genre all its own now. GTA may have sparked the idea, but its kind of like calling The Darkness a "Doom Clone". Doesn't really hold any merit on its own.
So where the comparisons come in, both let you attend missions scattered around the city at your own pace, both let you jack cars, both let your kill pedestrians in whatever matter you see fit. With the exception of the cars, i almost just described every other open sandbox game out there.

Where SR2 shines though, is its emphasis on "what makes this level fun!". It doesn't fall for any traps of modern game design, it sticks to making sure the player has a smile on his face the whole time, while offering a challenge. For instance, in the beginning of the game, Price (one of your Lieutenants) has set up an elaborate plan of sneaking into a mansion, ala Tom Clancy RS or SC style. But Johnny Gat (my favorite character by the way) promptly halts his plan, and explains "Why don't we just start at the entrance, and kill every motherf****ker in there?" with which your character responds "Yeah, and it'd be a lot more fun!".
Which actually got me to thinking, how boring it was planning things out in the early Rainbow Six games. Didn't click until that very instant.


4 paragraphs in and all Ive done is jammer.

The way the game works, your gang needs to know your serious about taking the Row to the next step. So you need to gather respect. And one area that's definitely improved here, is gaining respect. Everything from underground Fight Clubs and Streaking through the neighborhood, all the way down to simply killing off another gang member or driving on the wrong side of the road. It all gains respect. Some missions include enough of these (what are called Diversions) that you can gain another few full respect meters to continue playing the missions.
I did my entire first playthrough, with only completing 1 and a half Insurance Fraude Activity, and 2 full Septic Avenger Activities. That's it.
The game isn't terribly short by any means, but i gained so much extra "respect" in the middle of the missions i didn't have to worry about going back to fill up my meter again. The fun could just continue!

Once your done a story arc, your character has killed off the General of that gang, you get access to their gang specific stuff (in this case, cars, gang actions, and fighting styles) and move one step closer to destroying the other gangs so much, its just the Saints left.

Other ways of gaining respect is to improve your "style" points. Anything you customize, garners style points. From putting a stripper pole in your new 18 story Flat, to making the tires on a hearse thinner. Anything customized gains style. once you reach certain levels of style, you gain a certain new percentage. Such as "25% more respect whenever respect is given".

I am going to mention, there's a point in time where money is no object. In the early stages of the game, trying to manage your cash intake was pretty hard, and felt limiting. But everytime you do a mission or stronghold, you gain that property, on on that property is probably a place for sale.
Purchasing real-estate is essential for the later part of the game. To the point where money becomes non-issue. The beauty part is it doesn't feel cheap. The system feels like it was in place because it felt weird just giving shit away for free. But when you get that ability to restock your ammo on every weapon and still have so much left over to own every property twice over in Stilwater, you do feel like you deserved it. For every property you own, garners anywhere from $200/day to $1000/day.

My highest payout before Suckering myself to take it, was $329,000, effectively doubling what i had at that point.


Its interesting, for such a simple premise "i survived the boat explosion, the gangs dead, lets rebuild and retake Stilwater", the game is delivered so well, with incredible voice acting performances, well acted mo-cap cinematics, SUPER crazy in-depth customization system, spot on shooting mechanics and gameplay, easy to use intuitive controls for all vehicles, and finally allowing me to hijack a true Airplane (not just some biplane) allowing me to skydive into contested areas for a heroic gang pushback, the game just oozes the idea of "anyway you wanna do it, is cool with us".
Also for the first time ever, 100% fully voice acted sequences by YOUR character, despite the fact you can choose from 6 different voice banks! That's incredible!


And damnit, that's how we like it.


In summary, the game isn't without its blemishes (or BUGS, and holy crap BUGS ), and the gang AI is incredibly terrible (often getting stuck in world geometry, wandering in the opposite direction, or getting stuck in a chair or other physics object, and otherwise not trying to overcome the terrible elevation of a Curb on the sidewalk), but really, its hard to describe.
The game just keeps a smile on your face the whole ride through. And that's all that really matters isn't it?


Like sandbox and don't care about "next gen graphics" all the time? This games for you.