This opening sentence is supposed to be about how Saints Row 2 and every other open world style game is a clone of GTA IV.  I am not going to touch on that at all in this review for a couple of reasons.  First, you have heard it all before, so what’s the point?  Second, I have never actually finished GTA IV so I don’t have the ability to compare and contrast the two games.  Saints Row 2 is new to me and for that reason I get to take it for what it is, I consider this an advantage.

Saints Row 2’s storyline picks up where the first one left off.  Your character has been blown up and in a coma for the last couple of years.  The game begins with your character getting busted out of the hospital while teaching the basic controls and back-story.  When your character gets out, he realizes his gang has been shattered and it will have to be rebuilt to take back the city of Stilwater.

Three rival gangs exist in the city of Stilwater and you have to destroy them to take back what was rightfully yours.  The main story revolves around this premise.  A slew of side activities make up the rest of the game.  I personally got caught up in the main storyline and just dabbled in the side activities later on.  You can open up more of the main storyline by building up your reputation.  The reputation system is fairly simple.  The more you kill, purchase, and take over sections of the city, the more your reputation goes up.  This opens up more of the main storyline.  You can purchase all sorts of things from clothes and cars to cribs and even businesses.  The more businesses you purchase creates more channels of income for greater buying power.  Stilwater is fairly large, so you could spend literally weeks just doing side activities and worrying about achievements so there is quite a bit of replay value.

Saints Row 2 doesn’t take itself too seriously.  The humor is over-the-top on so many levels it becomes childish at times but it seems the developers wanted it this way.  I actually giggled to myself a few times while walking down the street and hearing “I would love to motorboat those”.  The main storyline has quite a bit of humor and depth which was very unexpected.  The side activities can also be extremely ridiculous.  One activity has you spraying poo over buildings for a local realtor to de-value property so it is easier to sell.  I recommend listening to the A.I. dialogue during these activities, you just might get a kick out of it if you are in to poo shooting.  This is just scraping the surface of silly activities that take place throughout the city.  A major downside to the side activities is the amount of times that you must play them just to fully complete.  Each activity has six levels to complete, each one becomes gradually more difficult to accomplish.  I can only take so much of driving an ATV in a fire retardant suit around town for so long.  I am aware this is intended to add longevity, but it gets repetitive.

The controls are solid enough.  Some of the side activities were a bit difficult to control such as the spraying of the poo but nothing to really complain about.  The weapon aiming system is par for the course.  Vehicles handle as you would suspect.  I wasted quite a bit of time just driving head-on into vehicles to watch the passengers fly through the windshields, it’s now a guilty pleasure of mine. I know, I have a problem and I should seek help.

As for the graphics, they were also fairly standard.  Some of the vehicle models looked very good but the damage modeling looked average.  None of the graphical flaws take away from the experience of the game because it’s not the focal point.  I don’t care how great my motorcycle looks, I just want to be able to destroy anything and everything in my path.  It just seems that the attention to detail on some models was left out.

One of my favorite things in the game is the ability to purchase music to play on the vehicle radios.  The standard music is pretty lame but they include some of my favorite metal bands like Trivium, Lamb of God and All That Remains.  You won’t get stuck listening to rap or classics the whole time so creating playlists is a giant plus.

The multi-player system isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel but it’s about the replay value.  You can partake in the story with a friend online.  The game is exactly the same as it would be in single player but the second player takes over where the A.I. would normally be.  For example, if you are the one shooting from a vehicle and the A.I. was driving, now your friend takes over the driving.  It’s simple but effective.  The multi-player games are basically all of the city activities isolated to a single area in the city.  This once again is pretty much the same as the single player game except a bit more mayhem.  There were a few glitches in the multi-player online.  I ended up randomly getting stuck on objects quite often.  I am not sure the reasoning behind any of this but the physics just seemed to be off at times.  It’s hard to fault any developer when including multi-player but it needs a little more polish.  The campaign is where it is at.

I haven’t spent a ton of hours in Stilwater quite yet but I fully intend to.  Saints Row 2 has so much to do even with the minor physics flaws in multi-player and the extremely silly sequences throughout it is well worth your time.  Saints Row 2 doesn’t take itself too seriously and neither should you.  It is all about causing mayhem and having a great time while doing it.  This game is a guilty pleasure for any fan of the open world genre.

Overall: 7.75 out of 10

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