Saint's Row 2 is not a great game, but it is a game with a hell of a lot of style.
It's
been a few years, but you have woken up from a comma with a new
attitude, a new voice, and the need to regain control of Stilwater with
your old friend Johnny Gat. Three new gangs have taken control of Stilwater, and you tackle each with one of your three lieutenants.
Saint's
Row 2 isn't experimenting with anything drastically new, but introduces
some solid improvements to the core experience. Stilwater remains the
same as Stilwater has ever been. You and the Saint's take control of
areas of the city one block at a time, either through story missions or
by shooting your way through a stronghold. Land held by the Saint's may
be contested, forcing you to roll in with some boys and ruff up the
rival lieutenants. In addition to this, Saint's Row 2 adds the ability
to invest in stores within your controlled territory, and earn respect
in a much expanded array of side missions, and newly added diversion
missions.
It's in its side and diversion missions that Saint's Row 2 makes best use of the traditional GTA formula. While Rockstar moved GTA in a new direction from it's predecessors, Volition has retained the core idea of what GTA3,
Vice City, & San Andreas had been and expands on it in their own
way. Side missions include Drug Running, Insurance Fraud, Escort, Hitman,
Demolition Derby, Chop Shop and Mayhem of the previous Saint's Row. New
side missions include protecting celebrities from crazed fans in Crowd
Control, beating poor fools to a pulp in the Fight Club, creating great
ratings in Fuzz, causing destruction in Helicopter Assault, starting
fires in Trail Blazer, lowering property value with Septic Avenger, and
murdering pimps in Snatch. Diversion missions are smaller and include
things like pleasing women at the strip joint and drive by shootings.
Completing, and half completing, side and distraction mission gives
general bonuses to your character. These could be increased accuracy,
increased strength, or simply having your gang notoriety going down
faster. All these side mission also provide you with gang respect that
you'll need you to play out story and stronghold missions.
Despite
this all, Saint's Row 2 isn't an especially great game. It's a good
game, solid on all fronts, but there isn't anything that particularly
stands out. The best thing about Saint's Row 2 is that it's more GTA, and the worse thing about Saint's Row 2 is that it's only more GTA. At the core of Saint's Row is the GTA formula -- expanded, but nothing really new. Saint's Row 2 doesn't hold up very well in direct comparison. Rockstar excels at creating the systems-based gameplay that made GTA great, Volition doesn't.
Controls
remains mostly unchanged from the first Saint's Row. There is a pretty
big dead zone in the middle of the analog and doesn't provide the
subtlety of aim found in some other games. A cruise control option has
also been added for driving, making an effective way to drive and shoot.
I
love Volition games. I love their attitude. I love their style. I love
the fact that they create games that feed directly into the part of the
human condition that gorges on destruction and mayhem. Saint's Row 2 is
an entirely average game that's exceptionally fun to play.
