Preview: Saints Row 2

Title: Saints Row 2

Players: 1 - 2 (Online)

Platform: PS3, Xbox 360

Developer: Volition

Publisher: THQ

Price: $59.99

Release Date: Oct. 14th, 2008

Website:www.SaintsRow.com

What would probably best be described as the tawdry cousin of Grand Theft Auto IV, Saints Row 2 boasts to have more customization, more vehicles, more strippers, a larger open-world city, and a new cooperative feature that pushes the ‘M’ rating to its very limits. What more could a gamer possibly ask for?

The story in Saints Row 2 picks up where the last game left off. Players have been betrayed by the Saints and now their created character is out to get a little revenge and make an even bigger impact on the city. The good part about Saints Row 2's story is that it has a much darker overtone than the first game, and includes more gangs and more immersion than the original game.

One of the most obvious additions to the game is the newly playable female character. Gamers can now create females using all different kinds of clothing, taunts and accessories. Both genders, however, will have a number of new physical slider features (i.e., more than ten sliders for the face alone) and three different voices for each gender. Added to this, the voices will vary in the cinematic dialogue, giving gamers a different exhibition of personality depending on the voice chosen for the character. I smell something...I think, it’s called replay value. Volition seems to be cooking it by the pound.

Customization doesn’t just end with the player’s character. While, yes, players can go to different clothing and attire stores to personalize and create their own style, there’s also the player’s gang and house that can also be fully customized (viz., imagine a more interactive, creative version of Coney Island in Rockstar’s The Warriors.) Not only can you add all sorts of accouterments to make your gang-pad look spiffy and rad, but you can also toss in stripper poles (complete with strippers), and better attire for your right-hand men.

Of course, players can leave all the accessorial modifications to likes of those who are decoratively-inclined, and instead focus on things like underground fight clubs, monster truck rallies, street races or car surfing. SR2 has so much to offer, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game with so many side-activities since...well...Grand Theft Auto IV. But that’s beside the point. The point is, that like GTA IV, Saints Row 2 offers up tons of different things to do other than follow through with the story missions. So long as these side-missions prove to elongate the fun-factors, rather than rack up pointless hours of gameplay time, then Saints Row 2 could prove to be one of the best games to ever hit consoles.

Other than customizing stuff and partaking in off-beat activities, SR2 features a very interesting fighting mechanic that’s as dynamic as any other fighting game out there. The real highlight of the fighting system, though, is that there are three different kinds of fighting styles for players to master and use. While it might seem similar to previous GTA games, this feature appears to be a lot more fleshed out for SR2. There’s also the addition of motorcycles, a number of new flying vehicles and lots of new areas to explore and interact with in the fictional city of StilWater. And to compliment all of the fore-mentioned features is a cooperative feature that allows drop-in (drop-out) play for the story missions. Hands down, this game, on paper, reeks of game of the year. A lot of it, however, still comes down to cohesion...and how well all these elements come together in the final product.

Saints Row 2 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is scheduled to hit store shelves on October 14th. Be sure to stay tuned in with Blend Games for more info, previews and news on all your favorite games.