Saints Row 2
When reviewing a game like Saints Row 2, it’s hard not to immediately start making comparisons with Grand Theft Auto IV. Both are open-world games where you run around hijacking cars whilst completing missions for less-than-stellar members of the community, both make use of the same mixture of popular music and quirky radio announcers, and each are in their own way, very much story-driven. With that said however, the atmosphere that each of these games offer are different enough that even in light of their mechanical similarities, these two games manage to stand apart.
Saints Row 2 picks up five years after the events of the first Saints Row. If you’re familiar with the events of the first game, you know that when the game ended, your character was left for dead in a boat explosion; it turns out this wasn’t the case. When the game starts, you find yourself in a high security prison hospital where you’ve just awoken from a comma. Your bandages haven’t even been removed yet, and you’ve already managed to cause a ruckus.
The first thing you do when starting a new game is create your character, and since you were recently blown-up, it’s only logical that you would require some plastic surgery. Didn’t like the way your character looked in the first game? Not a problem. You can re-create yourself to better reflect your newfound persona. I thought this was a clever way to re-introduce the concept of the character creator, not to mention that since plastic surgery was a part of the last game, this fell in nicely with the self-referential humour this game tries to portray. One of the things I remember from the original Saints Row was how robust the character creator was. I was able to re-create a digital version of myself pretty effectively. In Saints Row 2, they’ve essentially kept the same format for character creation but have added in a section for personality. In this section you can determine things such as your character’s general posture, the way that they walk, and the sound of their voice (yes, in Saints Row 2 you’re character actually talks; you’re no longer the silent protagonist). You can also specify what expressions your character uses when he’s angry or pleased.
Once you’ve regained your whereabouts, it doesn’t take you long to plan out your escape route and find yourself back on the streets where you meet up with some familiar faces. One of the things I immediately noticed when I began to run around was how the controls felt. When the first Saints Row came out, I remember thinking how nice the battle controls were in comparison to the Grand Theft Auto games. Aiming was much more natural, and the left-trigger/right-trigger fist allocation was a nice touch, but after having played GTAIV, these controls now seemed outdated and clunky. I should also point out that one of the things I really enjoyed in GTAIV was the implementation of the cover system, and so playing a similarly-styled game without it now seems lacking. There’s also a significant difference in the way the vehicles are controlled. In this game, driving seems much more arcade-like; vehicles seem to be much faster, tend to carry less weight, and drift much more easily. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does detract from the realism slightly. In fact, you could argue that this is in actuality a good thing, since the game generally tends to feel much more arcade-like all around.
Once again, the story revolves around turf wars and the constant struggle of being that one gang that controls it all. This time around there are five factions: the 3 Street Saints, the Ronin, the Sons of Samedi, the Brotherhood, and the Ultor Corporation. Still Waters (the city this takes place in) is divided into several districts, each of which is controlled by one of the five factions. As previously stated, it’s your ambition to control all of these districts, and you do so by completing story missions and taking over strongholds. Strongholds are essentially enemy bases that you need to bust into and take over. Once in a while, opposing factions will try and take back the districts you took from them. In order to prevent them from being reacquired, you’ll need to head on over to that district and deal with the enemy generals which are running amok. This may seem like a daunting task, but as the game progresses you’ll unlock various artillery to aid you in your conquest, not to mention you’ll gain more respect, which will allow you to recruit homies that will be able to accompany you on your missions and provide support fire.
Speaking of support fire, the best new feature this game now boasts is an online co-operative mode. If there’s one thing I would have loved to have seen in GTAIV, it’s a co-op mode; yes, there were the few co-op missions you could play as part of the multiplayer modes, but what I’m talking about here is a full-story, drop-in/drop-out system that essentially allows you to play the entire game with a friend. Mercenaries 2 did it, Fable 2 will do it (interestingly enough, I just so happen to have a copy of Fable 2 sitting on my desk, eyeing me as I’m writing this) and I wished that more games would find a way to implement this feature. I can’t stress enough how enjoyable it is to be able to play a game alongside one of your friends. I understand that not all games lend themselves well to this kind of gameplay, sometimes some games are best enjoyed by oneself, but it sure is nice to know that, if you’d like to, the option to play with someone else is there. To add to this, the co-op in Saints Row 2 is done rather well. You can hop into a friend’s game and basically run around town either side-by-side, or miles away from each other. In Mercenaries 2, you were limited to a certain distance, which at first seemed ample, but as soon as one you began chasing an enemy in a high-speed chase, and one of the players got caught up in a crash or was left behind on foot, the distance restrictions between your characters became quickly apparent. The other nice thing about the co-op mode is that the game actually takes into consideration the fact that you have another human player with you; for instance, when I would play an escort mission by myself, I would drive around the escort as per usual, but when a friend of mine hopped into my game with his female character, his character would actually play the role of the escort.
All in all, Saints Row 2 is not as polished as GTAIV; the graphics don’t even come close to the level of quality that GTAIV had and the gameplay is much more arcade-like. The story isn’t as serious as that of GTAIV either, but I like the fact that they poke fun at themselves and they don’t take themselves too seriously, even though the story does take a few darker connotations here and there. I had a lot of fun with Saints Row 2, and I’d recommend not skipping this one over if you’re a fan of this style of gameplay, but if GTAIV left you feeling uninspired, this might not be any better, because in the end, it’s still a lot of the same.
