Saints Row 2 Review | Better Than GTA IV?
190Let’s talk about Saints Row 2.
I have a riddle for you. What do you get when you take Grand Theft Auto IV and turn it into a fun game? Well, the answer to this before 2013 would be Saints Row 2 as Grand Theft Auto 5 hadn’t come out by the time this bad boy was front and center on the shelves at GameStop. By the way, for all of you watching in the distant future of two weeks from now, GameStop was an actual store you had to physically go to in order to buy video games. I know, barbaric.
Saints Row 2 is a crime sandbox that was designed in the same vein as the legendary Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, which was released four years prior to Saints Row 2 and two years before the first Saints Row game. Both San Andreas and Saints Row 2 are known for balancing a serious, dark storyline with over-the-top humor, and having vibrant open worlds with lots of areas to explore, engaging side content to complete, and a dizzying level of customizability. However, while San Andreas remained more grounded, Saints Row 2, which will hereafter be referred to as The Row because I’m tired of saying Saints Row 2, took everything that made that game great to a whole new level.
If you were to first boot up The Row prior to October of 2019, the first thing you’d notice if you were on PC is the abysmal PC port. This port has luckily been fixed by Volition, but before the aforementioned update, the average PC gamer such as myself had to bear witness to the unholy handiwork of Polish company CD Projekt, who ported The Row to PC. This company is not to be confused with CD Projekt Red, developer of The Witcher series.
However, if you were to boot up a playable version of Saints Row 2 for the first time, whether that be on console or on PC in CURRENT YEAR, the first thing you’ll notice is the sheer array of features that you can customize on your character. Want to play as a buff white dude with the voice of a Hispanic lady? How about an Asian lady with the voice of Charles Shaughnessy, known for voicing Mr. Sheffield from the hit 90s sitcom The Nanny starring Fran Drescher? Well, you can do that. And you can change everything about your character in the plastic surgery stations sprinkled throughout the game, from gender to race to voice box. The sky’s the limit.
The graphics and animations in The Row, which will now be referred to as Row 2, to spice things up and keep you on your toes, aren’t that great. They’re fairly standard, but the voice acting is fantastic. The vocal performances of the star-studded cast really lend themselves to the deranged crime drama feel to the game, with over-the-top characters who will bury a rival gang leader alive in one scene and engage in a zany katana duel in another. The way the dialogue is written and delivered makes it seem like nothing they do is out of character. That brings me to the next point, the characterization and the story.
In The Row, everyone is evil but it’s easy to be sympathetic to your lovable cast of characters who align themselves with the protagonist, known as the Boss. The fact that every character, including the Boss, is part of some violent gang that is vying for control of the city of Stilwater allows the boss to pull off some fairly depraved acts that make the most graphic scenes in the Grand Theft Auto series look like clips from The Wiggles, while not running contrary to the over the top and crazy atmosphere of the rest of the game. There is no dissonance between the motives and actions of the characters like there is in Grand Theft Auto IV because everyone is a bad guy. You’re just the bad guy who happens to win, which I think is refreshing. Even though you have no selfless motives, however, the story still feels impactful because the characters are vibrant and have personality - you get attached to them and feel the full weight of certain characters’ deaths caused by the immense violence present in Stilwater’s gang wars. There were moments in this game where I was genuinely moved or horrified by the actions of the Boss, the boss’s underlings, and rival gang members.
The gameplay is definitely no slouch either. The guns feel weighty, and there are lots of destructive and creative weapons you can employ against rival gang members, cops, or civilians. You haven’t lived until you’ve run through the streets completely naked chainsawing furries in half. You also haven’t lived until you’ve done that in this game either. The shooting is great as the enemies are not bullet sponges but still provide enough challenge for you to feel like a force of nature once you get the big boy guns in your arsenal. It’s also a lot of fun mowing down guys with your car, which brings me to the next topic: the driving.
Other Videos By CreamyClaws
Other Statistics
Saints Row 2 Statistics For CreamyClaws
Currently, CreamyClaws has 5,677 views for Saints Row 2 across 1 video. Less than an hour worth of Saints Row 2 videos were uploaded to his channel, roughly 1.60% of the content that CreamyClaws has uploaded to YouTube.