First Impressions: Saint’s Row 2

I’ve had the opportunity to put 20 hours into Saint’s Row 2. Since I haven’t gone all the way through the main story missions, I have to call this a first impression instead of a full blown review. It could easily be a review because the story lacks meaningful character develpment and attachments.

That’s not to say the story doesn’t have its value. I’ve played roughly three quarters of the way through the Brotherhood missions before I decided to start doing activities and diversions. Your unnamed character is a sociopath with far more to say than in Saint’s Row. In the previous game, you were more of a gang lieutenant observing the events of the story from the sidelines. In 2 you are front and center. The leader of the now defunct Saints. From what I’ve drawn about the story is what you already know if you’ve followed the game. Your character “died” at the end of the first game but in actuality, he was severely burned in a boat explosion many in-game years ago. You wake up in prison and go into the character creator mode… implying plastic surgery… and a sex change if you desire.

Volition should consider licensing the character creator program. With enough patience you can make somebody who looks exactly like you. I’ve gone to the in-game plastic surgeon to fine tune my character but I can see myself in him. After the character creator you escape from prison and are unleashed on Stilwater. The entire map is open directly after the prison break and because the main character has been in a coma for so many years, Stilwater has significantly changed. A company called Ultor runs the show and the Saints are now disbanded. In short you have to beat the 3 gangs in charge: the Ronin, the Brotherhood, and the Sons of Samedi. I figure you’ll have to take on Ultor eventually but the story is a small part of what Saint’s Row 2 has to offer.

I liked the first installment and I love this one. The first was fairly simple; limiting the game play to cars and a handful of activities. This version has aircraft, motorcycles, boats/jet skis, activities, diversions, and action scoring. Activities are the same as the first with a few additions. There’s Heli Assault, Fight Club, Septic Avenger, and Trail Blazer. Heli Assault involves flying an assault helicopter while defending a dealer, Fight Club is fist fighting, and Trail Blazer is driving around on a quad lit the hell on fire blowing up everything you touch. The one that really stands out for me is Septic Avenger. I giggled like a little girl the entire time I played it. To me, spraying people and buildings with liquid shit never gets old.

There are roughly 5 more activities but if you played the first, you’ve played each of them with varied levels of difficulty. More notably it seems that Snatch and Hitman are much easier this go round. Diversions are just like activities but there aren’t specific locations or levels to pass. Diversions are discovered. Base jumping is discovered by jumping out of a plane or helicopter, car surfing by jumping on a car with a driver in it, mugging, etc. Something that is a welcome addition to the genre is action scoring.

I’m not sure what the official name is for this game play mechanic but it basically… scores your actions. If you power slide around a corner in the oncoming lane, and hit a gang member you get a bronze star in each category. Shoot a gang member in the head, it’s a head shot bronze star. The longer you maintain the specific action the more stars you get. There are 3 bronze, then 3 silver, and finally 3 gold. Each star gives you respect. As a whole this feature contributes nothing to the overall game but rather lets you know how well you’re playing the game.

In two weeks I will write a full blown review. For the time being suffice it to say Saint’s Row 2 is a lot of fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and is a true improvement. The graphics are still a little cartoony, there’s some frame rate drop when there’s a lot of action on screen, and I ran into some collision detection issues with a helicopter and a building. Whatever problems I’ve encountered pale in comparison to how much fun the game really is. If you get 100% completion expect it to take 100 hours. Until next time.

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