Saints Row (360)

Saints Row is a great game. Nice fast cars. Brilliant graphics. Lots of clothes to make your guy wear. Fun to play. Brilliant online. But there is a lot of bugs in there. Like disappearing cars which is annoying. And the game is really chavvy. Which i don't like.
-AMAZING graphics
-Good gameplay
-Amazing online
-GANGS (online)
-Nice cars -A bit too many bugs
-Chavvy game Saints row is really chavvy. With chav music all over it! but the gameplay, graphics and cars really do put you off it!

Under threat from rival gangs and corrupt officials, the 3rd Street Saints must conquer the city or face destruction. But this is no ordinary city. Gateway to the Rust Belt, Southern Cross is a living-breathing environment where enemies may strike back at any time and send you reeling for support.
An evolution in open world gaming, Saint's Row provides an unprecedented amount of freedom to experience the game as the player sees fit. The game, based in the fictional urban surroundings of Still Water, is action adventure with its core as a third-person shooter. -Has a Cool on-line
-Great soundtrack
-Graphics are crisp and nice
-Loads to do
-Loads of different clothes to buy
-Story is ok -Dissappering cars!
-Overly ''Gansta''
-Ending is obvious from a mile away Good if you like 3rd person shooters a-la-GTA, and dont mind ''Gansta'' stuff. its worth a play.

Theres been a number of games competing for the GTA series crown of best gangster games but none have yet managed to succeed. There was the True Crime games, Driv3r, Driver:Parallel lines and the Getaway among others but none of them had the success of any of the GTA games. As gamers salivated at the Idea of GTA4 on the next generation console, Volition released Saints Row. Saints Row quite clearly took a lot of inspiration from the GTA series, however it is not a carbon copy, with Volition implementing things of their own.

As you start the game, your character is caught in the crossfire of one of Stilwater city's gangs, in which he is rescued from by The Saints. You progress by joining the gang and performing the missions of the leader, Julius. The story unfolds nicely as you progress through the game and through the missions.However, one thing that differs from GTA is that you cannot simply play through the missions straight away. Firstly you must complete activities such as stealing prostitutes from rival gangs pimps, once you have enough respect you can then progress onto one of the main story's missions. This is a nice way of opening you eyes to the many activities which can be played in Saints Row.

The main story missions aren't your typical affair however, there are 3 gangs apart from The Saints that are vying for territory in Stilwater including the Vice Kings, Los Carnales and the Westside Rollerz. As you progress through the game and your respect builds, the player will have the chance to take a portion of the rival gangs territory by offing a number of their gang members. Not forgetting the missions which focus on the rival gangs themselves, these missions often include chasing down enemy cars and destroying them, killing a certain gang member or a group of gang members or getting to a destination within a certain time limit. Although the missions are pretty fun to play, theres is a major lack of variety and some players may get a little tiresome of doing the same thing.

Last but not least in the missions department is the activities, which include assassinating certain people within Stilwater, protecting a drugs pusher while he makes his deals or trying to outrun news vans while transporting prostitutes and their clients in the car, these are just a few examples. These can be quite enjoyable and rack up your characters respect to progress in the main story missions while also earning you hard cash to splash on whatever you want.

Leaving the missions now, in the single player there is a lot of
customization available for your character. The different shops in the game let you purchase clothes,jewelery,tattoos and new hair styles. Buying from these shops doesn't have much effect on the game apart from increasing the players respect slightly if you buy the more fashionable (and more expensive) items. There are also other shops in the game ready for the player to investigate. In terms of weapons, I was satisfied with the number available to the player. There are a number of handguns, SMG's, Rifles and other assortments of killing devices.

Now how this game plays is overall pretty good. The aiming relies on the player to use the right analog stick to move the reticule while the left moves the player around, after a minute or so of playing this feels comfortable and I preferred it to the GTA's lock-on method of shooting. The driving of cars is well done as well, using similar controls and button functions to the GTA series.

After playing the single player game, you also have the option to take the fight online for multiplayer action. There are a number of different modes to play, theres of course the bog standard death match, another is where you have to collect the most gold chains and return them to a particular spot on the map to gain points, blinged out ride where both teams must gain enough money (through killing of opponents and collecting chains) to be the first to upgrade their car up to a certain level and lastly, protect tha' pimp. This game mode has one team having to defend their pimp while the other team are the hitmen having to kill the pimp, if the hitmen have all been killed or the pimp makes it to the end of the level the hitmen lose. This can end up being quite a good experience as teams take up strategic points on the map often taking each other out until one has won. Often quite tense but really fun to play.

The graphics on the game are not too shabby, but are no where near the high quality of some of the 360 games available. One thing worth mentioning is the physics engine in the game, most of the scenery is destructible and very realistic when getting strewn about as you go tearing up the streets in your car,or watching pedestrians you just bounced off your bonnet land back on the tarmac like a rag doll.

There are some slight technical problems here and there which I have experienced, for instance sometimes when driving the car your in it sometimes totally disappeared leaving your character floating in midair. Annoying but not enough to ruin the game at all.

-Interesting story that will keep gamers playing on through the game
-Very enjoyable online modes like protect tha' pimp and blinged out ride
-Enjoyable game play and comfortable controls
-Activities like assassinations etc to add that bit more length to the game -Missions may feel to repetitive for some players who were used to GTA's highly diverse ones.
-Graphics aren't the best but still worthy to be called next generation.
-Minor glitches in single player Overall, a good game for players who liked the GTA series but wont be expecting anything really original from Saints Row. The multiplayer option is quite
good and worth checking out, even if only by renting the game instead of purchasing.

This game is rated 18.

I just read a review for this game, and i can agree with some (if most not of what the brit had to say). The truth- this is a complete rip of gta- there's no denying that. I don't think the developers are denying that.is it a good game? Hell yeah!!! Are the graphics good? Could have been better, next gen and all, but good enough- you'll see it in the smaller details. Multi player
Story (only in a videogame!!)
Replayablitiy- you'll be playing this when the 720 comes out.( i know there's not going to be a 720 stupid- i'm just saying)
And fun- causing mayhem is fun right?
Aisha's music- i think she'd go platinum if she were real It does freeze up. So you should save often.
I don't like the map much- thats just me, and it doesn't really take away from the game If you like gta, then i can't see how you won't like this title- thumbs up from me. If yo don't got it get, you can't lose.

With the GTA series reaching new heights of popularity with hardcore and casual gamers alike, it was only a matter of time until other developers took the same direction trying to tap into this lucrative market. Saints Row is the first next generation game of this type, being released a full year before we’ll see GTA4.

The similarities between Saints Row and the GTA series are startling and too many to list without boring you, however there are some instances of Volition trying to distance themselves from creating a complete next generation clone of Rockstar’s title.

In the GTA series the player is free to career through the main story missions and concentrate on side missions later in the game, but in Saints Row the player must build up a certain amount of respect before they are able to try any of the main story missions. This seems like a good idea in theory – the developer obviously wants the player to sample every section of the game instead of just completing the main story – but in my opinion having to spend time between parts of the story completing side missions or taking hostages to earn respect makes me feel increasingly detached from the main storyline. It also takes away some of the free roaming nature that this title is supposed to bring.

The story isn’t lacking though, even if it is just typical gangland fare. The main missions branch off into your battles with three gangs in the city – The Vice Kings, Los Carnales and Westside Rollerz. Even though the gangs are different the missions themselves tend to be quite samey, for example kill “X” gang members or stop a rival member from escaping in a vehicle. Therefore originality with the main missions is not something to write home about, but as the gameplay is distinctly GTA-esque you’ll still have an exceedingly fun time running and shooting through them.

Side missions are where this game comes into it’s own, not least because of the wealth of options you have. You can commit insurance fraud by throwing yourself in front of cars, recruit prostitutes from rival gangs by gunning down their pimps, become a contracted hitman and scour the city for your target, and that really is just the tip of the iceberg. For the most part these are very well designed and do contribute to increasing the necessary skills to complete the main strands of the game. It is also extremely easy to rack up the hours just working your way through the side missions and forgetting that you have enough respect to continue with the story.

One of the main additions to Saints Row that hasn’t really been seen before in this genre (read – hasn’t been officially included in GTA yet) is the inclusion of a stand alone multiplayer mode. Apart from straight up deathmatch mode there are a number of original and downright silly games on offer. The best of the bunch has to be “Protect Tha Pimp” which is an escort type game where one group of players has to protect the “Pimp” while it is the opposing team’s job to eliminate him. It is not only a humorous take on a mode that has been seen before, but it also adds something you wouldn’t expect from a game of this type – strategy. I’m not talking Ghost Recon style tactics here, but it adds a lot more depth to a multiplayer mode which has obviously not been an after thought.

Unfortunately, the graphics in the game fail to impress. On the whole it doesn’t look significantly better than any GTA game even on the PS2 (tested on SDTV, not HDTV). It is also highly disappointing to find real problems with graphical tearing within the game, especially within the menu and map screens.

There are also significant indications that this game wasn’t fully tested and even after it’s long development it was rushed onto the shelves. This is most evident by the number of times the game crashed during gameplay. While playing through the game, it must have crashed a good 10 times. Highly frustrating for a high production game which costs upwards of £40. - Side missions
- Depth
- Multiplayer
- Graphics
- Almost totally unoriginal
- Stilted story. Saints Row fails to give itself any real distance from the GTA series it is inspired by, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all it is taking inspiration from one of the best loved game series of recent times, and manages to hold onto many of the characteristics we love about this type of game. I just wish the story missions were a bit more involving and weren’t forcefully split up, and that the game felt a bit more next generation than it is.

Naturally, like GTA, this game is also for adults only.