Review: Saint's Row 2

Strange Angel from Feb 11, 2009 wrote:I never played the first Saint's Row, but I stressed my disappointment with GTA 4 to a friend, and they told me to try Saint's Row 2, and showed me a Zero Punctuation review by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. errr suffice to say not only did it get me interested in Saint's Row 2, but it also made me a fan of Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation review's on The Escapist. I then went on youtube and looked at some of the gameplay videos, opening cinematic, and character customization feature, and thought to myself, wow this looks awesome! So between Yahtzee, and I must say, he is hilarious, and I find myself agreeing with his reviews a lot, and some detective work of my own I decided to purchase Saint's Row 2. Obviously I was not disappointed.

I enjoyed the GTA 3 installments. From the original GTA 3, to Vice City, to San Andreas, even The Liberty City Chronicles were fun. They never seemed to take themselves too seriously, which is what I liked about them. Then enter GTA 4, okay much, much better graphics. However it just didn't feel like GTA, it took its self much too seriously, and it lacked the customization I was hoping for way before GTA 4 was ever released. Y'see after playing GTA San Andreas I liked the way they were going with character customization, and thought maybe in GTA 4 it would be like GTA 3 only you get to further customize your homicidal psychotic protagonist. But no I got stuck with Niko, his cousin, and loads of tutorials... Not to mention the game took its self much too seriously. Where as Saint's Row 2 has twisted, hilarious humor all over the place! Some of the missions had me laughing really hard, especially Bad Trip, also the mission in The Ronin quest when Wong shows up, and expresses his hatred for the Ronin's boss because he killed his dog. XD

Saint's Row 2 is very immature and puerile, but you know what? That's what I look for in a sandbox crime game. A good laugh, coupled by total mayhem! A lot of people said the story sucked, honestly I liked it. It wasn't a masterful written work of art, but I don't think it was ever supposed to be. It was written to take a satirical shot at all the crime movies out there that are all serious. It was humor! On that note I appreciated the story, and thoroughly enjoyed it for what it was going for. Also oddly enough, if you let the game suck you in, it will totally immerse you. I found myself growing attached to all the characters, from Johnny Gatt, to Carlos, to Shandi, to Peirce! All of them were presented with great humor and likability. Also when someone wronged one of my crew's Lieutenants like say Johnny in The Ronin quest, or Shandi in The Sons of Samedi quest, and especially Carlos in the Brotherhood quest it gave me all the more satisfaction in utterly obliterating those rival gangs. I took extra joy in Carlos' case during the Brotherhood's quest after ummm gang leaders evil girlfriend trunk of a car, I won't spoil it but you feel really good about that one.

Not only did I grow attached to my crew, I grew insanely attached to my main character thanks to the, "straight-jacket wearing, small animal tormenting insane" character customization! To quote Yahtzee. Yahtzee is dead on right the character customization blows away the character customization of any recent game I can think of, even older games, err all games off the top of my head. I mean yeah okay modded Oblivion might have customization on par, actually maybe not, Saint's Row 2 might have better character customization than even modded Oblivion... Funny thing is I'm talking about a vanilla game. It took a customization concept I was hoping for desperately in GTA 4 and exceeded my expectations by far! You can play, a male, a female, customize your voice, you body, your face, your walking, fighting style, your voice it's just crazy! I love it!

I actually played a male character in this game, grant you he had a female voice, and looked really pretty with a small frame and all. That's because I am a self admitted fan of Yaoi, and I wanted my crime boss to be a whacked out super pretty boy. In Saint's Row 2 you can do it! Actually my character looked strikingly familiar to Count Cain, the character in my avatar, one of my all time favorite pretty boys. Well okay unlike Cain he had a nose piercing, and black hair with purple highlights. So what?! My point is in this game you can make just about any character you think of, pretty girl, handsome masculine guy, pretty boy, butch female, there's no end! You can even put male voices on a female character, and female voices on a male character. I spent maybe 10 hours of gameplay customizing my character, from his look to his clothes, and by god does it ever get you attached to your character. One really awesome aspect is in every cinematic, your character shows up just as you customized them! They even wear whatever clothing you are wearing at the time. The customization in this game is just amazing! You can make virtually any kind of character you want!

The game play is reminiscent of GTA 3 games, but in my opinion easier weapons access. You can also buy shops, and clubs and such, which really pays off. You can even customize your gang, wow what can I say I love this game! It right now, the best 360 title I own. Fable 2 coming in at a close second, but Fable 2 messed up in that the game was too short. I heard there was new downloadable content, but I am iffy? What I really want is a super long expansion for Fable 2. Anyway Saint's Row 2 has something for everyone, so long as you enjoy sandbox crime games. So I totally recommend it! Also Zero Punction's review,

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... ints-Row-2