Saints Row 2 – PC Review

Saints Row 2 inevitably gets compared with Grand Theft Auto IV and, up to a point, that is not the right thing to do: indeed, Saints Row 2 is a sandbox game which “borrows” many concepts from Rockstar’s franchise, but it has a completely different approach to the genre. If GTA IV “keeps it real” and tries to eliminate the arcade element as much as possible, Saints Row 2 goes the other way around, getting as far away from reality as possible, opting for puerile humor, colorful visuals and crazy stunts in a true gangsta’s paradise.

Saints Row 2 picks up where the original game left off: your character wakes up from a coma and some intense plastic surgery (aka “now you choose how your character looks like”) to find out that the Saints have completely lost the control of Stilwater and three gangs took over: the Sons of Samedi, the Ronin, and the Brotherhood (there’s always a Brotherhood in games nowadays!). Your quest will be, of course, to reunite the original Saints and once more become the rulers of Stilwater. And you’ll need a lot of exciting play time to get there!

The first and probably most time consuming thing during your first hour with the game will be the actual character creation (which will probably last 50 minutes). You have literally endless customization options and the results can vary from your regular muscular thug to a slim sexy lady with obscene gestures and an impressive male voice. And you would completely ruin the experience if you would go for anything but the strangest combination possible – my character was, for example, a really overweight guy with purple makeup and a sensual female voice, wearing a Roman helmet only. The best part? Nobody in Stilwater seemed to care about that and I totally loved it!

And the entire game follows the same direction of puerile humor, crazy stunts and incredible stuff that simply happens: from being able to celebrate your victory over a rival by defecating on their face to an entire minigame dedicated to this process (I’m talking about the Septic Avenger in which you have to spray buildings… uhm… with a pale brown color), Saints Row 2 pushes the limit one level higher and enjoys doing it, as you will if you’re fond of such things.

Actually, the game’s story itself is nothing but an excuse for the “do whatever you what” theme offered by the game, and you’ll probably go for a new chapter only when you finally feel the need for some more background development, or a new reason for causing even more mischief. And in order to get to your next mission, you’ll have to build respect up: an activity which thankfully does not risk to become too boring, since you have a wide array of things you can do, from your regular “smash the head of as many enemy gang members as possible” to protecting celebrities and much more in between.

For example, you have the Trail Blazer in which you simply set your character on fire, jump on an ATV and blow up as many things as possible. Or maybe you prefer the classic fraud (by throwing yourselves in front of cars), or the aforementioned Septic Avenger? You can do anything you wish in Saints Row 2, just for the fun of it.

So if you’re expecting a simulation, a dark, gritty world, a deep story and some life-like behavior in a game, it would be safer if you looked elsewhere. On the other hand, if you have a sick sense of humor and find it funny to enter the virtual Stilwater and kill old ladies with your naked character followed by a gang of purple-dressed ninjas, than Saints Row 2 is the game for you!

However, you should make sure your PC is upgraded and can handle the horsepower requested by Volition’s title: some pretty high specs, let me tell you that! And, even if you meet the requirements, you’ll still have frame rate-related problems, making it very difficult for you to get through some of the more crowded areas of the game. Actually, that’s the biggest problem I found in Saints Row 2: framerate issues even on lower settings.

Another problem is related to the fighting sequences themselves: as they follow the game’s general arcade nature, shooting, aiming and fighting in general are not the easiest things to do: you’ll need a bit of training until you get used with the aiming and the overall combat but, thank God, there’s a lot of it you will get, so eventually this will no longer be a problem. Especially since the AI ain’t the brightest you’ve seen in a computer game, either!

Visually, Saints Row 2 is quite impressive. But, as I said, that comes at a cost and if you don’t have a powerful system to handle them, you’ll most likely not be able to fully enjoy the nice graphics. However, you will anyway notice that they’re really colorful, full of life and entertaining, adding well to the general atmosphere in the game. The soundtrack is also very solid and varied, with numerous radio stations providing you with the background music. Voice acting is not necessarily top notch, but the voice actors won’t be shooting any needles into your ears, either. All in all, both the visuals and the sound fit well with Saints Row 2′s theme.

Conclusion
If you’re into lifelike visuals, solid simulations and dislike a high dose of random, puerile humor, Saints Row 2 will probably not be your type of game, even though you might find it entertaining if you give it a try. However, if you did consider funny most of the situations described in this review and you’re backed up by a solid rig, Saints Row 2 will certainly provide you with many hours of entertainment. Don’t expect to get Grand Theft Auto IV for your money – expect an arcade sandbox game, expect shiny graphics and zany characters doing all sorts of strange, sick (but funny) things. Expect a solid title, after all!

Final rating:

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Or find out what other experts said:
TestFreaks (8.2/10)
Metacritic (71/100)
IGN (6.3/10)