Saints Row 2
by THQ
|
List Price: Our Price: $18.29 You Save: $1.70 (9%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $12.23 (click here) Category: Video Games See more product details |
|---|
Video Game Reviews of Saints Row 2
Customer Review: Would give it 5 stars, but just can't do it because of the bugs.
Summary: 4 Stars
OK, this is one of the best games around, so I'm sure that the makers (Volition, THQ, Havoc) will be laughing all the way to the bank while I bash the bugs in the game. After all, I bought/play the game anyway, and I recommend the game to others.
But, I guess it's just the frustrating reality that they don't HAVE to finish debugging a game nowadays in order to make money on it. This game definitely falls into the "good enough to sell" category, even though there are TONS of code problems.
First of all, good stuff:
- Regenerating life meter.
- Great story line in the game play.
- Tons of fun to play.
- Totally customizable (if you spend enough time tweaking the appearance, you can make the main character look like anyone on earth, and you can even be a female... even though I'm sure the players are 98% male).
- Brought back the same 'hood as SR1, with some cool additional areas and stuff.
- Got rid of stupid activities from SR1, kept fun ones and made the difficulty more reasonable.
- Helicopters, airplanes, etc., you can fly 'em all!!!
- Physics engine is not TOO realistic (like in GTA4, frankly I thought driving the cars wasn't fun enough... I want to be able to pull unrealistic 11 g turns in my car if I want to... but in SR2, they definitely got the unrealistic-but-fun formula correct).
- I could go on and on and on, but you get the point.
Yes, you should buy this game (if you are of legal age)!!!
Now, bad stuff:
(This is where the manufacturers laugh... they can listen to me complain all day long, but in the mean time, I still bought it and tell others to buy it too... so WHY should they fix these problems?? Well, maybe just because it would be nice to actually FINISH a game, and to keep fans happy?? Sigh, somehow something tells me that's not a good enough reason for them.)
Anyway, bad stuff:
- Bugs.
- Idiot homies (they can't seem to jump 6 inches over something to get where they need to be).
- More bugs.
- Tons of bugs.
- Idiot homies (they often STAND THERE and do NOTHING when they're supposed to follow you).
- Game freezes galore.
- More bugs.
- Did I mention there are bugs in code?
- Idiot homies (they blow themselves up with rocket launchers).
- More game freezes.
- More bugs.
- Ooops, did you stop a mayhem activity before finishing all levels?.?.?. Good luck finding it. It's gone until you figure out the magic trick to go back to the original place it was, then it'll appear at its new place. (bug)
- Are you driving fast? Oh, nope, not any more, you stop DEAD in your tracks while the game loads the new area (even from HARD DRIVE!!!).
- Bugs.
- Oh, finally, you finished that tough level... oh, no, wait, WHAT???!!!!?? Now the game says "mission failed"!!!??? (another bug)
- Oh, you made $802,000 in damages in mayhem level 6 (minimum required damage = $800,000)... oh, no, wait, WHAT??!!! It still said "mission failed"??!!! (another bug)
- Oh, go and kill that gang in "fuzz" missions... oh, no, wait, WHAT!??!??! The gang members are somehow 5 feet lower on the "y" axis than they should be, and are buried in the pavement, and you can't kill them???!!!?? (oops, another bug, I guess you're starting that mission over again.)
- Hmm, did your game freeze again now?
- And, well, aside from game bugs, I will say that I can live without the stupid diversions... looking for secret areas, trying to find hidden jumps, etc. I think the game shouldn't have as much "hidden" stuff and should do a better job of leading you through all of the goodies.
- The helicopter "point the stick in the direction you want to go" controls leave something to be desired... should have stuck with normal controls.
Anyway, I play this game from my XBOX hard drive, so it's not merely the occasional bad optical drive that causes issues. The game is plainly unfinished. Another "rush the code out the door for the release date" winner of a game. Argh. I wonder when video games will start being subject to the same level of quality controls as the rest of the products we purchase in life. If you buy a pair of shoes and the sole falls off, you can return it. If you buy a new car and 12 things don't work, they fix it. If you buy a parachute and it has 57 holes in it and tears to pieces when you open it, well... ok, maybe YOU won't be getting your money back, but they will go out of business in a hurry. Even video games of the 80s and 90s had pretty good quality control. A bug here or there, sure, but largely bug free and much more rare to have a game freeze. But, nowadays things are different. Video games aren't held to a very high standard. And, spare me the nonsense about the code being that much more complicated now. As true as it might be to some extent, the truth is that these bugs are plainly evident if these manufacturers would just test the game a little more before selling it.
But, as usual, nope, they're modifying the code all the way up to the release date, and they just didn't leave themselves enough time to finish debugging. It seems that they NEVER do nowadays.
But, anyway, hypocritical rant over, because here I am loving this game and telling you to buy it too!!! Totally a 5-star game except for the nasty bugs.
Customer Review: Try not to listen to the people that say this is better than GTA4
Summary: 3 Stars
I traded in gta4 for this game because I was really disappointed with the way it ended. It was wayy too short as far as the story, and it was way to short on the extra stuff outside of the missions. But it was still a very good games minus those negatives I just said, GTA4 was a rock solid wall as far as gameplay, it was just awesome. So i got this based on all the reviews saying that Saints Row 2 was the better sandbox. I was hesitant at first because the first SR sucked completely. It too suffered from terribly short gameplay and a horrible ending. I get about 20 min into SR2 and I realize just how bad it is. Not on par with GTA4 by a hair. The driving sucks, handling, everything. You can;t even get a behind the wheel view, you can only get the arcade style 3rd person view outside of the car. The gameplay is completely sloppy, no real finesse like gta4. You cant even change the view that follows your character, its stuck pretty much right behind him, which is annoying because you cant get a wide view of what going on.
I felt like I was playing an unfinished game, oh did I mention THAT ITS THE SAME EXACT MAP FROM SAINTS ROW ONE? NOTHING NEW BUT THE ACTIVITES AND MISSIONS, THIS COULD HAVE EASILY JUST BEEN DOWNLOAD CONTENT TO UPGRADE SAINTS ROW ONE. The graphics are good. Dont buy this game, rent it first. GTA4 was way better and it has Download content, there will be another add-on coming in october besides the Motorcycle one they have out now. It really comes down to this: There's more to do in Saint Row 2, but it suffers from bad gameplay, which makes the experience not worth experience. I expected way better, Why do these companies keep cheating us out of our money with these extremely short games that dont meet expectations or live up to the hype? Because we dont do anything about it. This game makes me want to throw my 360 out.
Customer Review: Carjacks GTA and runs it over.
Summary: 5 Stars
Sweet Baby Jesus this game is awesome,I played the first Saints row and found it a bit "meh," the sequel takes all the complaints I had and fixes them and then breaks them for my amusment. For all of you who compares this to GTA4, you are wrong, this game is a better game in almost every way, let's list the reasons why shall we?
Storyline: Ok I'll admit GTA4 has a much deeper and more serious storyline then Saints Row 2 or any other GTA game. Do you see the problem? I'm all for open world games like this having a deep thought provoking story, but not in a GTA game. When I first heard the words "GTA" and "deep, serious storyline" I sat there for ten minutes waiting for a punchline. But I'll still give this to GTA because it's really a great story, even if it is out of place in the GTA series.
Graphics: Saints Row 2 is so much more colorful then most 360 games I thought the mushrooms in the salad I had just eaten had gone bad. The Graphics are colorful and slightly cartoonish, I had almost forgotten what those colors looked like in video games. The explosions are nice and firey, and the people give the most delightful red spray when you get a headshot. GTA looks good don't get me wrong, but it's just to dull.
Gameplay: It's sort of a tie here, cause they both nail it. The controls work brilighntly for what each game is trying to do, GTA4 feels hard and realistic, Saints 2 is flashy and over the top. It feels like a real fight when you have to survive the cops for 3 minutes in GTA, and it is a blast to run down the streets in Saints Row 2 armed with a missile launcher.
Overall though both games are great buy them both, I just think this one is better.
Customer Review: A True GTA Killer!
Summary: 4 Stars
Playing Saints Row 2 makes playing GTA 4 seem like writing a term paper. If you like the GTA-style games, this is a MUST HAVE. The game is loaded to the gills with fun,fun,fun. It has tons of awesome and ridiculous activities to do, a decent-length campaign, and a fun world to roam around in.
Let's compare the side missions of GTA 4 vs SR 2
GTA 4 side missions:
deliver drugs... which means basically driving from A to B to C
find specific cars
kill pigeons? (UGH!)
street race
(I'm sure I'm forgetting some)
Saint's row 2 side missions:
septic avenger: ride in the back of a sewage truck spraying the city down with turd-sludge! This is by far my favorite side mission.
trail blazing: drive a quad runner while wearing a fire suit. There's a countdown- you add seconds by running into pedestrians and vehicles (which makes them EXPLODE!). This is fun but hard.
Jumping out of helicopters! You are supposed to land on a randomly chosen vehicle.
racing
find specific cars
protect a drug dealer (same as saints row 1)
racing
find hidden items
DEMOLITION DERBY
fight club (beat up dudes for prizes)
(I'm sure I'm forgetting some)
Other goodies in SR 2:
customize most vehicles
own boats, helicopters and planes
own monster trucks and semis!
character and posse customization
zombie shooting mini-game
easter eggs
easter eggs
easter eggs
Things that GTA 4 did better:
less glitches
bigger (but more boring) map
bored me
things that are not so awesome about SR 2:
the game freezes once in a while. Not a lot, but when I played, it liked freezing at cutscenes that happened at the end of missions... meaning you had to play it over again (ARGH!). Be sure to save, save, save.
the map isn't all that big. At least it isn't miles of gray, dull, similar buildings.
In summary- SR 2 is a really awesome game. If you like sandbox games, I'd say that this is a MUST HAVE. This game only loses points for the annoying freezing glitch.
Customer Review: Practically unplayable
Summary: 1 Stars
The game itself is a lot of fun, but it suffers from a primary flaw. I lost about 8 hours of progress because someone connected to my single player game who had cheats enabled. Even though I kicked this person as soon as it said that, it stopped saving my game. I didn't know it was doing this so I lost all of that progress.
Apart from that, the game crashed twice. The second time it crashed was when I found out it hadn't saved my progress when I restarted it. Saints Row 2 has too many problems, and GTA 4 isn't very fun. I'm still looking forward to a decent sandbox title that is actually made by gamers for gamers.
Also you only get a choice between Australian, black, and mexican for voice choices. I'm a white guy. That's incredibly racist that they would leave that out of the game.