Now then, let's continue Saints Row month with one of the most impressive sequels I've seen since Mass Effect 2. It's time to dive back into Stillwater with Saints Row 2!
Saints Row 2 Review
release date: 14/10/2008
Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC
Price I Paid: $9.99
After two years, Volition released a sequel to Saints Row, that managed to improve in nearly every aspect. Set five years after the WTF ending of Saints Row 1, Saint’s Row 2
opens with a greatly improved character customizer that allows your
mind to go wild creating a zany, fully voiced character. The game then
proceeds to launch you straight into a prison break, a police chase, and
a courthouse to bail out your psychotic companion from the last game.
It is a thrill ride that cuts the crap and begins the quest to rebuild
the once great Saints. However, three new and colorful gangs appeared
from the relatively bland trio of the first game. You have the tattooed
monster truck riding Brotherhood, who want to work with the Saints,
only to be monumentally screwed over. The drug selling Sons of Samedi
who sent you on a memorable drug trip and sick their junkies on you.
And the Ronin, a Yakuza-like Japanese gang who have some awesome sword
battles with the leaders of the operation.
In
addition to the half-rainbow of gangs you have Ultor, a new corporate
foe, who claimed your original starting territory and have proceeded to
conquer and expand the City of Stillwater. Such expansions include, a
University, a hotel district, an expanded residential area, and two
small islands off to the west. It maintains the familiarity of the
original while including new and interesting locations to explore.
To
explore Stillwater, your vehicle library has been expanded to now
include planes, which control like rubbish, but are never really used or
needed. Boats, that are stiff when not moving, but a thrill ride when
you know where you’re going. And helicopters, which are wonderful when
you’re not up against other helicopters, who happen to have heat seeking
missiles. As for cars, they handle even better than they did in the
original, but momentum is disrupted by foot tall concrete walls a bit
too often. Gunplay is very similar to Saints Row 1,
excluding the ability to aim, which feels a bit too stiff to be useful.
But this is a bit balanced by a surprisingly well designed melee
system that was good enough to get its own activity devoted towards it.
There
are a few new activities added to the mix, notably Trailblazing, where
you drive a kart that is on fire and hit cars and people to gain time
bonuses. Septic Avenger, where you paint the city brown with it’s own
fecal waste. Helicopter Assault, where you escort a Saint while you
kill opposing gang members with heat seeking missiles in order to
transport drugs, or maybe just pick up some Chips. And Fuzz, where you
dress up like a cop and fight Ninjas and Pirates with chainsaws, enough
said.
They
are all insane activities where that are some of my favorite parts of
the game. However, that doesn’t make the other activities worse, if
anything they’re better, with only two instances and six levels per
activity. It feels like there is a lot, but the game never overwhelms
you with these diversions. In addition to these wonderful activities,
there are diversion, smaller activities that can be unlocked anywhere,
such as taxi driving, streaking, or becoming a firefighting
crossdresser. Despite some difficulty issues, I found these side
missions so entertaining that I managed to obtain infinite Respect a
fourth through the game. Yet I am still a bit bummed out that they
removed the activities where you rammed trucks to steal and protect sex
slaves, and another one where you hosed down homeless people. I
understand not wanting to be offensive, but I must ask why that is not
okay, yet cross-dressers beating up innocent old ladies is.
I
am also very impressed by the audio aspect of the game. The dialog and
voice acting is fabulous. The soundtrack is overall improved, and is
expanded to include more genres of music. But what really made me love
it’s game is how it casually approaches insanity, and balanced it with
reality. Characters are killed and given proper send offs, but you can
still call up their corpse to eat police officers if you bother looking
for the phone number online. And it is canon how you assassinated guys
in hotdog suits back in Saints Row 1.
It acknowledges its weirdness, but never gets lost in it or fully
embraces it as its main aspect. All of this topped off with one of the
most satisfying endings and epilogues that I’ve played in a long time.
If I had to pick large a negative point, it would be that game can be a
bit grey and doesn’t have the best graphics. Yet that doesn’t prevent
the character design from shining through.
In the end, Saints Row 2
is a very well executed and controlled romp of insanity. The narrative
and audio are both spot on. The gameplay has been refined. And the
world has been expanded and includes higher quality content. Only
suffering from less than stellar graphics and some difficulty balancing,
it is a wonderful sandbox.
36/40
Wonderful
The
game manages creates an immersive world, has well designed and
enjoyable gameplay, and may only be lacking a few additions or a bit of
polish.
Now, I would like to talk about the Saints Row 2
DLC packs, namely how crap it is. It is overpriced, costing $7.50 or
$10 for just 3 missions. And the mission quality is average at best for
this game’s standards. All you need to know is that the Saints
basically run Ultor, as implied by the ending of the main game, and Dex,
an ally from Saints Row 1,
was working as Ultor’s head of security. I say, “was”, because he left
Ultor at the end of the second DLC pack. I would recommend the second
pack if $10 seems like a good price for unlimited RPG ammo, but no other
reason. Hell, I spent $8.50, half price, for both of these packs, and I
still feel ripped off. Especially when you consider that the Saints Row Double Pack, which contains the first two games and is what I bought, is a bargain at only $19.99.
