Car damage is pretty subtle in Saints Row 2 and nothing as overly distinct as Grand Theft Auto IV. You’ll see small dents here and there no matter how hard you crash though and at certain times headlights can be destroyed. It’s almost on the opposite spectrum of Grand Theft Auto IV where in that game I was driving around half the time with no hood because slight hits would knock it off. In Saints Row 2, your car can take a lot of punishment and still look pretty good. You’ll still get the missing doors or flipping hood once you take a few hits so you’ll see some physical damage but I don’t think it’s as extent as Grand Theft Auto IV. In reality that’s not a bad thing though and I didn’t mind that the vehicle’s look didn’t become overly distorted.
I saw a lot of the rain effects during my playing time and it was cool to see the dark clouds appear above you. Some of the nicer AI features were shown off where some folks pulled out umbrellas while others held a magazine over their heads and ran off. When driving, the rear tires kicking up water from the street were very impressive and looked very realistic. Of course, rain affected the way the car handled as well and doing some quick turns resulted in a more slippery result.
While the city and cars looked great in my opinion, the character models range from very well done to average. Your character always looks top notch though and it’s great to see the model actually in the cut scenes and various videos. The detail on the others can sometimes be a little bland but there are some characters that have a really nice look to them.
For the few hours I spent in the single player mode, I have to say I had a lot of fun and to be quite honest the game felt more like Crackdown than Grand Theft Auto IV. That’s not bad as I loved Crackdown and you can see some of the same things in Saints Row 2. One example is there are ramps in certain parts of the city with an icon stating that it’s a jump location. It’s very similar to the jump rings in Crackdown. But playing the game for a few hours on single player mode, my feelings of a Grand Theft Auto IV clone were dashed away leaving a fun experience that felt more so like Realtime World’s great game.
As with Grand Theft Auto IV, you’ll sometimes run afoul of the law and the police will be after you for the crimes you commit. There are various threat levels and their response to will differ depending on the threat level. What’s different though about Saint’s Row 2 is that there is no circle where you have to get out of for the notoriety level to go away. For example, I had a one star offense and a cop kept tailing me across the bridge. After a little while, his siren shut off and he drove on by. Sure enough my threat level was gone. It’s a different way of handling notoriety and while it might be as “realistic” as Grand Theft Auto IV, it can lead to a less frustrating experience in trying to evade the law as all you have to do is just drive around long enough even if other cops see you.
One feature that I liked was the ability to use people as human shields. I had fun picking up people and walking around with their bodies protecting mine. You do move slower though and the enemies can quickly get to your side if you are close to them. When you’re done you can either throw them or execute them. In fact, one mission had me destroying some shanties by grabbing bums and throwing them into the structures. It was quite fun and seeing them fly into the shanties as they crumbled to the ground was good for a few laughs.
The missions are structured in a nice variety and some had multiple checkpoints. There were only one or two where I got really frustrated but for the most part all the missions for the main story that I experienced were fun and different. One really great thing about Saint’s Row is that if you do fail a mission at a certain point you can restart at a checkpoint rather than all the way from the beginning. I can’t tell you how much less frustrating this is compared to the likes of Grand Theft Auto IV where I would spend a good ten to fifteen minutes on a mission only to die and have to restart from the beginning. With Saint’s Row 2 just pick up from the last checkpoint in the mission and you’re good to go.
Like Grand Theft Auto IV, there are some side missions as well and in Saint’s Row 2 you can do some in order to get enough respect to access one of the main story’s missions. You don’t have to but they will be activities that can get you to the respect level to continue the story faster. I had a chance to partake in a few and some are quite fun like plastering the city with raw sewage, riding an ATV in a flame suit causing explosions wherever you go, throwing myself around in traffic to cause as much damage as possible in order to fake an injury for insurance fraud, and upholding the law for a reality TV show as a cop.
Since Saint’s Row 2 is about gangs, you’ll be able to call upon some gang members to help back you up during some missions. I did find them to be quite stupid though in certain situations and they seem to be caught as human shields a lot but it’s always nice to have some backup even if they aren’t the most intelligent folks around. What I liked was I was able to find some of the gang members just wandering the city and I was able to recruit them into my gang without having to go to a specific location to do it.
You’ll need money to purchase cribs, change your appearance, pick up new weapons, and other miscellaneous spending options. Running a gang isn’t cheap so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to grab some cash either by finishing missions or performing activities. With the time I played, I wasn’t too frugal and was able to always have a good amount of cash in hand. It’s a little slow to build up though but as I said earlier, there are plenty of opportunities all around Stilwater to earn money. Speaking of changing appearances, the clothes that are sold come in both female and male varieties and either sex can wear the opposite’s clothing. If you want to create a male running around in women’s lingerie it’s possible with Saint’s Row 2.
After the few hours playing single player, I was treated to a demonstration of the co-op mode as well as get my hands on going through the game with a friend. First off, it’s dynamic drop in and drop out similar to Crackdown. You can filter out certain people for those that join your game and you’ll always be asked for verification on allowing a playing in. Second, the game scales the difficulty up for co-op over single player games. Since two human players should be pretty effective, the AI changes a bit and more enemies appear to help balance it out.
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