Feckoff.net

There’ve been far too many politics-related posts here in the last few weeks, so here’s something more fun: Saints Row 2, currently available on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and coming “soon” for PC.

I bought the Xbox 360 version on Friday evening and have become quite addicted to it over the weekend. It is quite obvious to compare this game to Grand Theft Auto 4, so that’s what I’ll do. I loved GTA4 and played the hell out of it. A lot of people moaned about GTA4 after the hype died down, but I still like it. Saints Row 2 is in some ways very similar, and in other ways completely different. Both games give you a large city to drive around and cause mayhem in with a variety of weapons, but Saints Row does a lot of what GTA does best and leaves out the crappier elements, such as irritating tail-the-car type missions.

Saints Row 2 is definitely more forgiving, allowing you to resume from a checkpoint when you fail a mission, and not taking all of your weapons and other goodies away from you when you end up in hospital (i.e. get killed outside of a mission). It also has a Halo-style regenerating health system - if you’re getting your arse kicked, run away and hide for a few seconds while your health bar refills.

SR2 is not as technically accomplished as GTA, but it is just as much fun in my opinion. Volition have concentrated on making the game fun more than making it beautiful. The graphics aren’t great and the radio stations leave a lot to be desired compared to GTA, but I’ve had so much fun just playing the game that I don’t care.

For instance, today I played a mission where one of my gang members has been impaled with a Samurai sword (yes, indeed) and needs to get to hospital. Another gang member is driving the car, and I’m put in the passenger seat with a rocket launcher and infinite ammo. Hordes of enemies attack in cars and on motorbikes and I get to blow the shit out of them with my rocket launcher all the way to the hospital

Another example is one of the “activities” the game gives you to do to boost your reputation and unlock further missions, called Septic Avenger. This involves driving a tanker truck full of shite and spraying it at various targets (people, police cars, buildings, trailer parks, etc) in order to bring down property prices!

One thing worth a mention is the level of character customisation available in this game. As soon as the game starts you are prompted to customise your character, and you really can customise the hell out of him (or her!). This includes making your male character wear female clothes six sizes too small for him if you like. My character is a big fat guy with a beard in a pinstripe suit and a top hat!

There’s tons more stuff to do in this game - I think I’ve barely scratched the surface, but I would highly recommend it. It is certainly much better than the first Saints Row game, which I was not a fan of. Eurogamer gave this game 9/10 and I agree with that score.