Played on:
Xbox 360
Ever since the Grand Theft Auto series was released many years ago, gamers have fallen in love with the “sandbox” type games. Sure, there were always missions available along with some interesting story elements. However, a lot of people simply enjoyed the openness of the world – the variety of cars you could steal increased each game and then there were other buildings you could raise money to buy among other things. Overall, the series has had a wide appeal and brought a whole new crowd into the world of gaming.
Oddly enough, though, there haven’t been many other games that have tried to copy the formula. Sure, some try to go with the driving portions of the game while others might try to copy the openness on foot. But rarely do you see a game that feels like it was inspired by GTA.
Saint’s Row is the first real game that both copies the GTA formula while also adding to it and improving the idea of the series. While Saint’s Row maintains the basic ideas of the Grand Theft Auto series, it takes and adds a lot to it to make it its own – namely, the Multiplayer portions. This gives Saint’s Row enough to possibly get the GTA fans to come over and try Saint’s Row while also providing enough for gamers new to this style of game a chance to enjoy themselves.
The first thing you’ll notice in Saint’s Row is the customizability. While the GTA series did offer some customizability in the areas of clothing and (in San Andreas) the ability to change your character’s outward appearance to a degree, Saint’s Row takes this a step further. When you start the game up, you’ll create your gangster. Skinny or fat, muscle-bound or stick-like, or even bald or sporting an afro, there are a lot of options to make your character look different, even rivaling the options presented in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.
After you make your guy, you’ll see a cutscene to introduce you to the game world. You’ll be exposed to three of the prominent gangs before you are shot and then found by the fourth gang, the Saints. You’ll then go on and get “beat in” to the gang, quickly becoming a full member. This is the point when the world opens wide up for you and lets you go off on a car-stealing, civilian-killing rampage if you so desire. Alternatively, you can go and start on a mission.
Each gang has a set of missions to develop the story as you attempt to take them out. The neat part of the story here is that each lieutenant in charge of the operations against the gang you’re currently going after uses vastly different tactics. Gat, for example, heavily favors going in with the biggest guns you can find and blowing the “bad guys” away. The characters are actually pretty believable overall and would reflect the multiple different personalities I’d assume would be a part of a gang.
The controls will also be very familiar to anyone that has played GTA. For example, you’ll steal a car with the Y button which happens to be in the same place as the triangle button on the PS2 controller. The ease of learning the controls on this game makes it easy for those fans of the GTA series to pick up without having to learn a totally new set of controls.
Driving in the game feels pretty tight, too. While the cars really have a hard time turning if you don’t slow down (which, in reality, is pretty realistic), they handle really well if you slow down into a turn. You can see the damage on them much easier, too – while there was visible damage in the GTA series, the damage here has many more visible “steps”. Doors will fling off their hinges, hoods will crumple then fly off and mirrors will break off and skid across the road. If you blow up a car, it’ll fly up and then the pieces will rain down, too, all while the tires slowly roll away. I’d attribute a lot of this to the 360’s increased processing power, but the engine works pretty well overall (save for some slowdown if there is a whole lot going on at once).
There are a few minor bugs that I’ve run into, though. Firstly, pushback missions can be somewhat annoying. Rival gang members will be on the border of the territory you’re trying to take back but if you’re at all out of the territory for too long, you’ll fail the mission. Putting them a bit farther in would have been helpful. Also, they will occasionally be in an area that is virtually impossible to reach, making it take forever to take that last gang member out. Escort missions can also be irritating, particularly if a car gets stuck behind the vehicle you are escorting – the vehicle won’t try to go forward to get back on track but will keep trying to reverse. These are just minor irritants, though.
The multiplayer is another story, though. There are quite a few options available – you can go for a vanilla deathmatch or try to “bling out” your ride among other types of multiplayer. There is room for as many as 12 players in a game. There are a few problems with the multiplayer, though. Firstly, the whole matchmaking system is pretty annoying. While you may start a game and have 4 players join, the matchmaking service may bump it up to 8 people, drop it down to six, bump it back up and then drop it yet again. It ends up being quite annoying when you’re just trying to get a game going (and there is no way to set a cap on the amount of people in the game). Also, the game gets to be quite laggy at points with only a few players. Hopefully, a patch is released soon to fix up these issues.
Overall, though, Saint’s Row is quite a fulfilling experience. An interesting story, good graphics and fun gameplay make for a worthy 360 purchase. Sure, there are a few bugs that can be attributed to a rushed game, but they don’t ruin the experience. Without them, though, Saint’s Row could easily be a classic. As it is, it’ll definitely give Grand Theft auto 4 a run for its money when it does release.
