Saints Row 2 Reviews
- Difficulty:
- Hard
- Time Spent:
- 20 to 40 Hours
- The Bottom Line:
- "Just plain fun"
This is not a game that enters a packed gangster genre by claiming to be a game with masterpiece graphics, a heart-wrenching story or by trying to be radical. This is a game that simply concentrates on being fun for the player and by combining most things well, it does just that.
Saints Row 2 generally gets the basics right, summed up by the graphics which may not be award winning but provide a enjoyable city and population to watch. When it rains, did seem too gray for fighting but overall, it was good but not great, doing it's job well without a wow factor. The story links things together as it should, contains gruesome and potentially upsetting scenes yet generally leans towards amusing and is worth watching. Not sure if lack of emotional punch at what could be sad scenes is intentional or not, may well be deliberate to prevent it getting too sad at any point. The characters you meet serve their purposes, being interesting enough and in the case of the main cast, have their movements ensure the wish to ensure they don't get killed. The sound track is also solid but the radio music is excellent, a wide range of choices including classical and the ability to create your own playlist of the songs, cheaply, so you don't have to listen to any song you don't want to.
The gameplay is most enjoyable, the driving and shooting are simple to get to grips with and remains fun throughout. Within the context of the type of game it is (aka driving and shooting things), the missions are varied and avoid being repetitive, each one having it's own little story, location and task that differs from all the others, the checkpoints generally are well placed. AI can be hit or miss, the enemy AI is generally poor and your allies can get stuck behind things. On the other hand, get into a car with too little space for all your allies, they will nick a car and race to help, if your in a fight or a car chase in your gangs lands then they will help while one boss fight saw an ally take down half the enemy boss's health.
If you just stick to the main story and the strongholds, you will miss out on a lot of activities like streaking, fist fights, races, spraying sewage over buildings among many other things. Some activities simply are one off, others give a cutscene when you first try it and go up to level 6, each level means more cash with bonus on doing level 3 and level 6. Each gives a bonus to repute, each gives cash, each can be done (though no further repute once past level 6) again at any time. Repute and cash are easily gotten and there is enough side missions that if you don't like some of the side mission's types, it won't be a problem.
Money becomes increasingly plentiful the further you go, from your tasks plus a regular income from land and shops you own and there is a lot you can spend it on, including further customization of your character. One of the pleasures of the game is that the main character is a person you create near the start (and can fix with plastic surgery.) There is something really really good about the person you made, in a custom car, cruising along to your one fixed up houses. Full credit to the makers for their being a lot of worthwhile options for your car, houses and your character, many a game could learn from Saints Row 2's example on how to make a custom character work.
Two glaring problems that may ruin the game's enjoyment, one of which is the difficulty curve. Initially it is too easy on normal, balances out to the correct balance between challenge and fun midway through then right near the end jumps into very hard (again, when on normal mode), fortunately you can alter difficulty during the game. The second is some of the games are very buggy and glitchy, people getting trapped in walls, failing to load, game crashing once or twice, having to restart a mission as I died and when loaded from checkpoint the walls didn't load so was trapped inside an invisible building. It doesn't affect the game so that it is unplayable or muck up anything important but can be annoying.
Overall though, this is a game that doesn't take itself seriously, will prove a few laughs and most of all: It just lets you have a very good time
Saints Row 2 generally gets the basics right, summed up by the graphics which may not be award winning but provide a enjoyable city and population to watch. When it rains, did seem too gray for fighting but overall, it was good but not great, doing it's job well without a wow factor. The story links things together as it should, contains gruesome and potentially upsetting scenes yet generally leans towards amusing and is worth watching. Not sure if lack of emotional punch at what could be sad scenes is intentional or not, may well be deliberate to prevent it getting too sad at any point. The characters you meet serve their purposes, being interesting enough and in the case of the main cast, have their movements ensure the wish to ensure they don't get killed. The sound track is also solid but the radio music is excellent, a wide range of choices including classical and the ability to create your own playlist of the songs, cheaply, so you don't have to listen to any song you don't want to.
The gameplay is most enjoyable, the driving and shooting are simple to get to grips with and remains fun throughout. Within the context of the type of game it is (aka driving and shooting things), the missions are varied and avoid being repetitive, each one having it's own little story, location and task that differs from all the others, the checkpoints generally are well placed. AI can be hit or miss, the enemy AI is generally poor and your allies can get stuck behind things. On the other hand, get into a car with too little space for all your allies, they will nick a car and race to help, if your in a fight or a car chase in your gangs lands then they will help while one boss fight saw an ally take down half the enemy boss's health.
If you just stick to the main story and the strongholds, you will miss out on a lot of activities like streaking, fist fights, races, spraying sewage over buildings among many other things. Some activities simply are one off, others give a cutscene when you first try it and go up to level 6, each level means more cash with bonus on doing level 3 and level 6. Each gives a bonus to repute, each gives cash, each can be done (though no further repute once past level 6) again at any time. Repute and cash are easily gotten and there is enough side missions that if you don't like some of the side mission's types, it won't be a problem.
Money becomes increasingly plentiful the further you go, from your tasks plus a regular income from land and shops you own and there is a lot you can spend it on, including further customization of your character. One of the pleasures of the game is that the main character is a person you create near the start (and can fix with plastic surgery.) There is something really really good about the person you made, in a custom car, cruising along to your one fixed up houses. Full credit to the makers for their being a lot of worthwhile options for your car, houses and your character, many a game could learn from Saints Row 2's example on how to make a custom character work.
Two glaring problems that may ruin the game's enjoyment, one of which is the difficulty curve. Initially it is too easy on normal, balances out to the correct balance between challenge and fun midway through then right near the end jumps into very hard (again, when on normal mode), fortunately you can alter difficulty during the game. The second is some of the games are very buggy and glitchy, people getting trapped in walls, failing to load, game crashing once or twice, having to restart a mission as I died and when loaded from checkpoint the walls didn't load so was trapped inside an invisible building. It doesn't affect the game so that it is unplayable or muck up anything important but can be annoying.
Overall though, this is a game that doesn't take itself seriously, will prove a few laughs and most of all: It just lets you have a very good time
More Player Reviews
-
- MagicHat1's Score
- 8.5
- great
-
- MagicHat1's Score
- 9.0
- superb
Possibly the best free roam game and features many details to make it so much fun! continue »
- Posted Oct 10, 2009 8:41 am GMT
-
- MagicHat1's Score
- 8.5
- great
Though can be easy - and fustrating - its just a big fun box at core. continue »
- Posted Sep 16, 2009 9:26 pm GMT
-
- MagicHat1's Score
- 8.0
- great
-
- MagicHat1's Score
- 6.5
- fair
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Critic Scores
- PSX Extreme 7.7 / 10
- IGN 8.2 / 10
- Worth Playing 8.5 / 10
- Extreme Gamer 8.7 / 10
- Game Chronicles 9 / 10
- 1UP B
- Eurogamer 9 / 10
- GameZone 9 / 10
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User Videos
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Saint's row meets Dr. Quinn
it seems dr. quinn and her family has a darker side...
- Posted Jun 10, 2009
by frederikfrey | 1'52" | 0 Views
- Posted Jun 10, 2009
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