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"Saints Row Does What GTA Don't."

A Review by Shodan2020
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 Volition, the same developers who brought you the most excellent Descent: Freespace, and Red Faction games (ok, not so much, RF2). Have given us Saints Row, a gang-oriented sandbox game in the fictional city of Stilwater. You play the role of a poor schlub in the city's Mission Beach district who almost becomes a casualty of gang-related violence, when Julius, the leader of the 3rd Street Saints saves you and enlists you in his gang to run the other three gangs of Stilwater out of town. These other three are: Los Carnales, the Vice Kings, and the Westside Rollerz. Each gang has it's own style and feel, the Carnales are big drug runners from Colombia, the Vice Kings are hard-hitting urbanites with big political connections, and the Rollerz are wealthy preppy suburbs kids with hard ons for fast cars. The main plot is obviously taking over Stilwater and uniting it under the banner of the 3rd Street Saints.

The voice work is impressive featuring the talents of Keith David, Tia Carrere, Mila Kunis,  Michael Clark Duncan, etc. Their talents aren't enough to make the plot unique or engrossing, but there are some really well done cutscenes.

Graphically, it's a huge step up from what Rockstar offered with GTA: San Andreas, which is to be expected, as GTA: SA was released on the PS2 (also greatly improved and ported to the Xbox, along with the other GTA3 games) and SR was on the 360. You gain money and respect by doing activities alongside story mode missions. Respect is the currency you use to do a story or stronghold mission. You get bonus respect for dressing in 3rd Street Saint colors of purple and yellow/gold. You start off with one crib, which is where you collect the money you earn from taking over parts of the city. You store the vehicles you jack in your garage and you can retrieve any vehicle you store at anytime, even if it gets destroyed, it's saved in your garage.

Did you love GTA? Did you like it so much that you wish you could actually be running around Liberty City? Well, Saints Row allows you to create the main character in detail. It's so deep that you can create an astonishingly similar likeness to yourself, provided you are male. (They fix that in SR2.)

Probably the most notable thing about Saints Row is the insane level of customization available. Any vehicle you jack you can take to Rim Jobs and customize to your content. Want to put spinners on that ambulance or tint the windows of that hatchback? You can do it. There are also different clothing stores around Stilwater that sell all sorts of different clothes, from straight laced business suits and fedoras to stained wifebeaters and do rags. You can also visit the barbershop or tattoo parlor and get tattoos or change your hairstyle. There's also a plastic surgeon who will help you change the way your character looks and a jewelery store that sells rings, necklaces and piercings. 

The activities are also an excellent source of humor and fun. Insurance Fraud is my all time favorite activity and it involves you tossing yourself infront of oncoming traffic to ragdoll off of car fenders and collecting the insurance money from the accident. You get more if it's a civil servant vehicle (cop car, ambulance, trash truck), or if other pedestrians  see your flight through the air. There are also hitman, chop shop, and mayhem missions. Another of my favorites are the escort and snatch missions. Escort involves you driving a prostitute around and picking up johns while avoiding news vans and jealous ex's. Snatch missions have you killing abusive pimps and stealing their hos. The drug trafficking activity in the Suburbs has you riding shotgun for a drug dealing soccer mom in her mini-van and her comments as you shoot RPGs at persuing police and FBI cars is an absolute hoot.

 

However, not everything in SR is all rosy. I do have a few complaints. For one, not being able to be female is sort of a drag, but as mentioned before, they fix that in Saints Row 2. Saints Row is also a bit buggy, you'll clip in some areas and have some lockups. Fortunately, you can save your game anywhere and most missions allow you to retry them if you fail. Unlike in GTA you don't have to drive to the mission start and then drive to where the action is, SR drops you back in right where you need to be. Some of the missions are agonizingly tough.. like the boss battles for the Carnales and the Rollerz.

All in all though,  Saints Row is an excellent sandbox game for anyone who needs a gangsta fix. In many ways, it greatly improves the sandbox formula that GTA has laid down. It's now available as a 360 platinum hit so you should be able to pick up a copy for $20-30. If you liked GTA you'll definitely enjoy a trip to tha Row.

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