Over the past few years games in this sort of Genre ( free roaming meyhem style games ) Rockstar has owned the market with its Grand Theft Auto Series, 3, Vice City and San Andreas. These games created such a feeling of free roaming and a style of game play unavable anywhere else. So when a game comes along that has been described as good if not better than Grand Theft Auto I have to admit I was excited about playing it.

One of the first things that sets Saints Row apart from the Grand Theft Auto ( GTA ) series is its online play system. Now for years people have talked or even dreamed about an online GTA with vast amounts of people running around a city causing chaos. Saints Row brings this dream to life and rather well. But more about that later.

Saints Row was talked about along time ago, it was penned in as a Xbox360 launch title but was pushed back because for various reasons, these included

- The fact that the looks wernt upto par with the GTA series even for a next gen title they looked rubbish,
- The gameplay engine was poor and the game didnt run too well
- Overall it was rubbish and the early versions got panned at the review stage



So now we have a new more polished version which I must say is pretty impressive. When I first played it I thought, as most people did that it was just a complete GTA rip off, and too a point it is. But games in the Genre have to copy GTA because it wrote the book on the style of game. Its like saying that most racing games copy Gran Turismo. GT wrote the book on driving Simulators so any game that comes along has to have the same ideas included.

The game takes place in a made up town called Stillwater, you follow four gangs who are in the middle of a turf war. The city is split up into 36 areas which you have to the ntry and take control of. You start as a nobody who has to rise to power and take over the streets ( yes, I can hear you shouting " GTA Anyone " ). The four gangs are noticable by there colour of clothing, they are -

- The Saints
- Los Carneles
- Vice Kings
- Westside Rollerz

The map system provides a breakdown of each gangs areas so you know where abouts to find them. Each gang has a set of missions you need to complete but you can do them in any order. Say you complete one Vice Kings Mission then decide to do one Westside mission ect ect. This can sometimes get confusing though so I thought the best idea was to try and complete all the missions for one gang first, just to make things easier.

The gameplay is like GTA but better in my opinion, you can walk, run, swim and shoot. Shooting is better than on most games. There is no auto-aim which makes it better to shoot. You can point and aim where you like. The control system is as follows -

- Left thumbstick ? movement
- Right thumbstick ? change the view
- D-pad ? change radio station/recruit followers
- Left trigger ? alternate attack/handbrake
- Right trigger ? fire weapon/attack
- A button ? select option/accelerate
- B button ? change weapon
- X button ? jump/brake
- Y button ? action/skip cinematic
- Right Bumper ? sprint/look right
- Left Bumper ? block/look left

You can choose which mission to do and the game has more of an aspect of freedom than GTA. Sometimes in GTA you couldnt progress until you had done a certain mission which made the game feel a bit systematic. One thing thats noticably is the amount of swearing throught the game, in the cut-scenes and on the radio.

As you play through the game completing missions and killing people you earn respect. This can be used to unlock more missions and prgress through the game. The missions vary from picking up and deliverying items to killing the heads of gangs. There is a wide varity of mission which makes the game interesting and keep you wanting to play on through the game. Side missions also play a big part in the game, these are not like the GTA missions, ie Put out 40 fires in a specific time. You can do a range of activities from becoming a Hitman to Drug Tracfficking.

If you like not performing missions and just going for a wander around the city there is plenty of things to see. The city just gets on with itself 24 hours a day. The weather system is very impressive and you will see most weather types apart from snow, which I havnt seen but it may exist.

You can travel around shops buying whatever you want cars, songs, guns and new clothes to change the game. Everything you do has an effect on the game and the future outcome which is a very impressive feature.

Online PlayNow like I said before, playing online opened the game up 100% for me. Before this I could have only dreamed of this type of game online.

The multi-player is split up into four areas -

- Gangsta Brawl - Just a big deathmatch
- Big-Ass Chains - You have to collect chains from dead pponents and take them to your base for points.
- Protect tha Pimp - Team based mission where you have to attack or defend certain things
- Blinged Out Ride - You have to upgrade your car and race to a point before anyone else

Now I think the online play opened up the game and adds a new dimension to the game. I only played for few hours due to some server issues ( I think my wireless Broadband was playing up ) but what I played realy impressed me.

Overall

Graphics - Very impressive, sometimes you can see a few " joins " in the background but overall it is an impressive looking game.

Gameplay - Yes its very much like GTA but slightly better, its a fun game to play but too many people will be screaming " copy "

Sounds - The music is impressive and backed up by many big name voices adding to overall sound making it a very good game.

Longevity - The one player game will last a longtime but then once you go online, you could be playing this game for 6 months+

Overall - 9/10

Yes its like GTA but better and will keep you playing for months and months.

mcfaddenben - console central