I know I have a weird definition of tomorrow but I got busy with a lot of work related stuff and that led me to not have much time to write a proper review for Saint's Row 2 for last thursday. I know it's a lame excuse but damn I wish I could win the lottery so I could just focus on writing and school. But since I doubt it's going to happen, I will just have to try harder. Other then SR2, I also played a bit(and a real short bit) of Dead Space. I won't talk much about it since I gave this game very little time, but I can say that they really did a great job in giving it a scary, survival horror atmosphere. You feel alone, the corridors are dark and creepy, you can hear the monsters walking around you and you're not a beefy space marine. I wish I could play more with it but my october playlist is pretty filled(LBP and Fallout 3, which one of you should I buy?) and it seems I'm not the only one thinking that. But anyways, on to my short Saint's Row 2 review. Note that I haven't touched multiplayer and I won't take it into account.
Coming back to Stillwater after 5 long years feels just like it should. A feeling of familiarity but not without the changes of time. This feeling affects almost all aspects of Volition's crazy "gang simulator". But before going into the obligatory exercise of comparing this game to it's predecessor, let's resume the basic storyline. After five years in coma caused by the explosion of the ship your character was on , you wake up in a prison hospital, your appearance and maybe even your sex changed(I guess the explosion was pretty powerful), and you promptly escape with the help of little Carlos. From then on, you discover that the Saint's are no more and it's up to you to rebuild them. You go through 3 highly colorful gangs, killing your way up and disposing of their respective leaders. And once all that is done, there's always the big evil corporation to go after. As you can see, we are not breaking new grounds of storytelling here but that does not mean there's nothing to enjoy in it. Unlike GTA4, there's no pretension of having an immersive story. It's just the story of a violent gang leader, doing violent things to other violent people. It's still better than the story in the first game where you just have to substitute "gang leader" by "gang thug". Your character have at least some dialogues and emotions in this game. There are some particularly touching scenes in this game(not on the level of Lost Odyssey of course) but I won't spoil them.
To get back to that feeling of familiarity, the city of Stillwater changed but retained the same "out of a comic book" taste. the old areas were redesigned and new areas, almost all west of the original city, were created. A couple of new underground and inside areas were also created to expand even more the game playing field. The activities were also changed. They do not follow the formula of "one of every activity per gang territory" the first game used. All of the activities come in different numbers and they are based on location more than gangs. It forces you more to go around the city to find the different kind of activities as some of the more entertaining won't be near where you start the game. Not that getting around Stillwater was ever that hard. Talking of getting around, the game decided to take the GTA4 road and introduced us a new vehicles to use. You now have bikes, boats, copters and planes. It adds variety but beyond the bikes and the copters, you will rarely use boats outside of missions since getting around Stillwater is still faster with a car and much of the action is not on the coast and planes are just a pain to lift off. You can only use them from the only airport in the game and landing them in the city is well, as easy as it would probably be in real life. The activities themselves are rather entertaining and challenging but some are down right sadistic on higher levels. Missions to tend to follow the old "kill them, blow this" formula but they also try to vary the way you do it and I must say it worked pretty well. I never really felt bored of the missions.
But the feeling of familiarity also comes back with the less loved glitchess. I have seen less glitches in this game than in the first but the game did crash on me a few times and some glitches are really taking the fun out of you. The worst is, they are the exact same ones from the first game. Homies tend to get stuck or idle, civilian's car will try to ram you during missions or activities(and not the activities where they are supposed to like insurance fraud) like they hate you or something and targets will sometime spawn in walls making them very hard to kill without an exploding car at your disposal. At least the hilarious "dude, where's my car" glitch that made your car go suddenly invisible has not been seen yet.
So, what is this game worth ? I know october is going to cost a lot to gamers but I must recommend a buy for this one. If you feel bored of GTA4 and watch "big american titties!" with cousin Roman, just sell back the game and get Saint's Row 2. The fun will probably last you until the next sandbox game comes out.
Pros: Very high fun factor and replayability. Nice customization options.
Cons: Glitches tends to take the fun into the woods and shoot it in the head. And it's the kind of game where, sadly, glitches come as you explore more.
To conclude this short, written between reading a book for school and sleeping, review I will say that this game is the proof that just like movies, television and books, not all games needs to be deep and filled with meaningful themes. Sometimes all we need is some low intellectual entertainment with guns, explosions and tits.
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