Reviewed by: DNM
Developer: Volition
Publisher: THQ

The Xbox 360 needs 'Grand Theft Auto', oh yes, yes it does, and it is coming, oh yes, oh yes it is. In the meantime it would appear that this particular gaming gap in the 'next gen' market is very much up for grabs with the subject of this review 'Saints Row' having the jump on the grand master GTA. Ahh yes, but is it any good? The simple answer is yes, the more complicated answer follows:

Let's get one thing straight, this is pretty much GTA with a different name, and a whole lot more swearing. It is virtually impossible to get away from this, there are too many similarities to mention; fact is, I found there were times where I really couldn't tell the difference in the slightest! Initial reaction to this was one of raised eyebrow, a lot of sighing and a desire never to allow it to grace my X360 again. Had this not been kindly donated by THQ for review I would probably have gone on what I saw in the demo alone and never seen the game in full swing - which in hindsight would have been a travesty.

'Saints Row' takes place in the city of Stilwater, a place rife with gang culture, and certainly not a place to take your mum! You are recruited by the 3rd Street Saints gang after a rather fortuitous escape from death during a gang fight. It is from within this gang that you need to build up your reputation, gain respect and assist the Saints to become the rulers of Stilwater. As you can guess you need to do a lot of killing, swindling, thieving and acts of outright thuggery to get there.

On starting the game you get to customise your character to quite an impressive degree, the benefit being that your character features in all his customised glory in the cut-scenes. No female option though. Once selected you are taken to the first cut-scene of the game, and the first annoyance rears its head - the swearing! Okay, I'm not a prude, and anyone that knows me would probably raise an eyebrow, but in 'Saints Row' the swearing is quite frankly excessive. Fair enough the game has an 18 certificate, but I feel there should still be an option to turn it down or off as after a while it gets very boring. My second niggle concerns the cut-scenes in that the frame-rate on most of them is quite poor at times. Strange when the main game itself rarely suffers from slowdown, which I suppose is the most important thing.

The idea of the game is simple, carry out missions for the Saints in their bid to take down the three other gangs. Getting around Stilwater is simply a case of stopping any car, lorry or even an ambulance in its tracks, pulling the occupant out and driving off, but care should be taken not to be seen by the police! As you'd expect, the missions range from simply popping caps in the asses of key gang members through to protecting Saints vehicles. The missions are nicely varied, and the three mission sets for the gangs can be carried out in any order you see fit. However, to get missions you need to build up respect, measured by a purple gauge underneath your currently held weapon. To get an idea of what you can expect; one mission had me visiting a garage area full of swanky cars that belonged to a rival gang, the objective being to blow all of them up, only they’re being heavily defended. In a moment of stupidity I ran into one of the garages only to realise there was no way out, with about eight gang members already standing outside weapons at the ready. Oooh, okay, I’ll lob a grenade out, that’ll show ‘em, so I throw a pineapple only to hear a clunk as it hits the garage frame and bounces back to my feet! BOOM!

Gaining respect is where the real fun of the game begins! Dotted throughout the game world are 'activities' which can be drug trafficking, racing cars around the streets or even stealing prostitutes!! Probably the most hilarious activity is the 'insurance fraud' where the aim is to get to a certain zone on the map and proceed to be run over by vehicles deliberately to raise a pre-determined amount of cash! Most likely the most sick is the 'mayhem' activity where the idea is to amass as much damage as possible, mowing down people being a rather rewarding way to achieve this! All these activities will give you money, and more importantly respect to continue on with the main missions in the game. My only gripe with the missions is that when you hit a difficult one that is in two or three stages, and you fail on the second part, you have to start all the way back at the beginning again! This annoyed on a good few occasions!

On the whole Saints Row is extremely pleasing on the eye, with the Stilwater world nicely realised with very little slowdown even in the most built up of areas. Character animation in the main is very good, but your character really does walk like he has something stuck where it shouldn’t be! As mentioned previously the cut-scenes often suffer from slowdown, but this doesn’t spoil the overall enjoyment of the game. The game uses in an in-game radio (another GTAism) for a nice variety of music to accompany the carnage, and the stations can be change at any time. There are some rockin’ tunes on there too! Atmospheric sounds are pretty good too, with people having conversations, or gunfire audible in the background, all creating a city that sounds alive, even if it is anarchy! People’s disgruntled speech when you nearly hit them in your car, or bump into them soon becomes repetitive though, and could’ve done with being a little more varied.

The choice of weaponry in the game is good, but the method chosen to select which weapon you want is really fiddly, even more so when trying to select something to eat to restore your health. Also annoying is not being able to see at a glance whether a weapon you don’t currently hold has any ammunition. This becomes infuriating when asked to swap X weapon for Y as you never know which has the greater ammo than the other. They are immensely satisfying to use though, in particular the shotgun which really has you gunning down all and sundry with quite worrying glee! I am also very impressed at how easy it is to aim the more accurate weapons such as the sniper rifle; this is something I found the original GTA to be truly awful for.

To sum up, I am glad I gave this more than a roll of the eyes! Saints Row has a lot of gaming hours under the hood, and keeps the interest going with a nice blend of varied missions and fun side games. The swearing is completely over-the-top and not necessary in my opinion, but the game keeps you entertained so as not to make this an issue. Word of warning though, it is perhaps the most violent game I’ve played, and as such I really hope the 18 certificate is taken seriously by vendors and parents alike. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a whole lot of havoc to be making.

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Available for	Reviewed on
Xbox 360	Xbox 360