Saints Row 2 is the follow up to the original Saints Row where you follow a gang known as the 3rd Street Saints playing in a free roaming third party shooter and driving game, most often compared to Grand Theft Auto.

Straight off the bat, let me just say that this game is not GTA. Sure, you could call it a copy of GTA based on its genre and the fact that GTA defined it, but the similarities end there… with the exception of killing strippers, and cops, and pedestrians, and rival gangs… OK, well, it's pretty similar to GTA, but the game does a lot of things that GTA doesn't, and it does it pretty well!

If you haven't played the original, that might be because you're reading a review of the PlayStation 3 version, and you may also have noted that Saints Row was never released on the PS3. Therefore, THQ are heavily relying on their PS3 adopters either buying this game blind, not for the storyline, or having a Xbox 360 with Saints Row, or a friend with Saints Row and an Xbox 360.

A quick summary for you would be that there were several gangs, one of which was the 3rd Street Saints and the others were knocked down a peg because of your character, people got shot, people got killed, people betrayed people, and some people got blown up. That's pretty much where the game left off and Saints Row 2 begins.

5 years in the future your character wakes up from a coma in a prison medical ward. At this stage you actually design and pick the sex of your character and then leave it at that. After an embarrassingly easy prison escape, you take a boat ride back to the city of Stillwater, which, according to Google, is apparently in Minnesota (it even has a 3rd street, how ironic)
Your character soon realises that things aren't how they used to be and that a lot has changed in 5 years, and they certainly have!

Let's get down to it. The graphics are terrible, but I will admit that they are a significant improvement on the original game, but still not up to the standard we would usually expect.
Example: Remember those crappy 80's movies where a character is put in front of a blue screen and then an explosion happens and the lighting on the character doesn't change at all even though it should? Well, Saints Row is kind of like that. The lighting contrast on the objects just doesn't suit the environment which makes everything that moves stick out like a sore thumb, although there are exceptions depending on environmental conditions.
I will say that the scenery is by far the most appealing part of the graphics, and I was quite shocked when I noticed the lips of some guy I was mugging were actually moving as he spoke, so I will give the developers some credit for the detail they have put into the game. The map has been vastly expanded and the streets are full of detail, all round I'd say it's quite pleasant.

The game play is where the majority of the improvements lie. The game has been reworked to such a degree it's difficult to know where to begin, so let's start from the beginning.

Character customization has been vastly improved since Saints Row adding new traits to your character to really personalise what the character. On top of its heavy attributes to adjust a body completely, it's easier to say the only thing you can't change about your character is the height. The smallest detail about the lips, the eyes and the mouth can be altered to such a precise degree it really puts The Sims to shame. You can adjust your weight, age, and even give your dude a pair of breasts if you really wish to. And the traits don't end there; you can also change your characters facial expression, fighting style and the way in which your character walks. Taunts allow you to teabag your victims with no style whatsoever or just beat your chest like an ape or yell. You also get the option of selecting one of six voices (3 male, 3 female) for your character.

I made Sloth from "The Goonies".

The game gives you a simple tutorial during the prison escape that teaches you how to fight, equip weapons, open doors, fire weapons, jump, and eventually steal cars.
One beef I have is that the game has a memory of a goldfish. It remembers everything that you interacted with within the vicinity of your character, but everything else is forgotten. For example, you notice a nice red sports car drive past and you decide to steal it. It drives straight out of your sight and you turn around to find it has miraculously disappeared. Chasing ghosts on the mini-map is all too common when you notice a red marker right behind you that you turn around to find it just disappears.

This game isn't without its bugs too. Just like in the original, Saints Row 2 is packed full of bugs straight from the get-go, including game crashes before, during, and after any cut scene, vehicles come to a complete standstill from 90mph with no collision, cops have an amazing ability to pull you out of your car whilst you travel at 60mph down a road with them sliding on the spot along side you.
In terms of environmental damage, you can pretty much destroy anything, well, with exceptions. You can't bulldoze a house and you can't bring down any thick trunked trees or wooden poles, instead you simply come to a complete stop with no damage to the building, tree or pole. I guess it would have been a bit too much to destroy a building by crashing into it as this would require detailing the interior too. Perhaps the next generation of GTA / Saints Row games will have that sort of detail.

The combat system has been much improved, and now allows you to select a custom fighting style and dual wield weapons. The ability to use environmental items such as a bar stool as a melee weapon makes fighting more impulsive and realistic and you can even take hostages. A dislike I have about the combat system is the fact that you have no choice but to stand still to select a weapon as movement is prohibited making you effectively a sitting duck to anyone shooting or attacking you. The best course of action is to run. Fast. Sprinting is nice but it feels almost super human as you run almost as fast as most cars drive. On foot you have the ability to jump fences to evade your pursuers, but with even the fattest of characters having the same ability, you soon realise you won't get too far without a set of wheels.

Driving has been slightly improved. Controls are more responsive and the choice of cars has been expanded. I would have loved for them to move the accelerator to the R2 trigger or even the right analogue stick to help control speed as with most driving games and at first I found myself whacking the R2 trigger to get away from pursuers to find myself making zero progress and consequently getting dragged from my vehicle. I guess I should have checked to see if there was an alternative configuration before moaning about it, but it's the kind of configuration that you expect to get straight out of the box. A new feature for cruise control has been added which is particularly useful when performing drive-bys and shooting out pursuing vehicles. This is a toggled feature which can be turned on or off by tapping L1.

The missions may not be the best part of the game, but there sure are a lot of them. To do a mission you need to earn respect. The best way to earn respect is to piss off gangs, drive on the wrong side of the road and perform driving stunts.

The voice acting is superb. I half expected a bland voice for each character, but they have been nicely done and thought out. Even characters on the street have a varied array of styles and voices, but it becomes all too apparent that they skimped on the variety of animation for the citizens of Stillwater, which ultimately is a bit of a let down. The music on the radio stations are good choices with a few bad ones thrown in for good measure. In typical fashion the bad ones are always on when you first get into a car, but you also have the ability to buy music from a music store to play on your merry way.

Given the game wasn't out at the time, I left it until the last minute to give multiplayer a try and I was utterly disappointed. The waiting time to get into a "quick match" stretches the definition of quick match unless by quick match they actually mean the short amount of time that you're physically playing with people. Overall, it was quite disappointing. The only people you can invite into a custom party game are friends so you're left with no choice but to select quick match. At the end of the match you are shown the game statistics with the option of pressing Continue or Quit. You would think continue would take you back to quick match, but it doesn't; it places you straight back at the title screen meaning you have to navigate your way back to multiplayer to get back on the quick match queue.

I had higher hopes for multiplayer. I thought if anything would be a GTA killer, it would be the multiplayer aspect of the game. More often than not, I found myself getting spawn-killed as I stood still selecting my weapon each time I respawned.

Lack of friends with Saints Row 2 on PS3 left me unable to test the co-op feature of the game that, if anything, is going to be the GTA killer… or at least, until the next GTA game comes out.

So what's the verdict?
A good game all around, some nice improvements have been thrown in and the game on a whole is fun.

The biggest disappointment for me has to be the multiplayer aspect of the game. With so many improvements it just seems that more effort should have been put to the multiplayer aspect of the game.

The game is buggy and does feel slightly unfinished. I did have lower expectations given this was a sequel, but let me put your mind to rest by saying that this isn't just an old game with a new sticker slapped on it. The game has been tweaked and tuned to such a degree that you would mistake it for a game built from scratch. However, it does feel that this game engine should have been what Saints Row should have been the first time around with even bigger improvements this time.

Far from perfect, but if you loved the original, you will certainly love this.

If you're reading this and deciding whether to buy the PS3 or Xbox 360 version, I'll give you a small indication of my preference. Having played both versions of the game now side by side, there is absolutely no difference in terms of graphics, game play, number of times the console locked up and crashed, etc. The only real difference was that I found the 360 controller much more comfortable to use than the PS3 controller. Coupled with Xbox Live, I would certainly say the Xbox 360 version is probably the wiser choice out of the two.

Storyline 7/10
A nicely delivered storyline (so far… I have yet to finish the game) and it does well to subtly explain what happened in Saints Row, but unfortunately not well enough. If you haven't played the original, plot holes will occur and you will wonder who some of the characters are and what their role is.

Game play 8/10
A nice improvement, if not a bit buggy. A bit more TLC would have scored this game higher. The bugs ultimately make the game feel rushed but I will admit that the game play is definitely there. Fine tuning would have given this game a 9 for game play. I can't think of anything they didn't add. Even the crib has a kitchen sink.

Graphics 7/10
Whilst they are a big improvement since Saints Row, it just doesn't cut it in terms of the quality we expect these days for PS3 and 360 titles. If realistic wasn't a possibility due to system requirements maybe they should have taken another avenue for graphics to show that Saints Row is certainly a different game to GTA all round.

Audio 8/10
Pleasantly surprised. The voice acting was actually good in comparison to most other games and the background characters don't sound repetitive. The radio stations have a nice selection of music and the ambient sounds in the game are subtle and don't overpower the realism of the game.

Multiplayer 4/10
Disappointing, and not just because I lost all of the matches I was in. The only custom matches you can play are with friends or people you invite; otherwise it's purely random what you get. Co-op was not included in this rating. 

Lifespan 5/10
While the game is good, I'm already beginning to get bored with it. I had hopes that multiplayer would improve the lifespan of this game, but with the missions being plentiful and having to gain respect for them, I'd just rather switch off.

I guess this game would have scored higher without multiplayer to consider.  Although I enjoyed the game, I honestly did get bored with it pretty quickly, but that's just me. Don't let this score discourage you; I haven't completed GTA IV either and have no plans to any time soon.