Back in the year 2001, developer DMA Design (who were later bought out by Rockstar and renamed Rockstar North) and publisher Rockstar created a game called Grand Theft Auto III. It was a wild success, and with two more sequels named Vice City and San Andreas, and two spin offs named Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, and a third upcoming sequel named GTA IV, they had a rock hard grip on the genre of sandbox crime games. No one dared to challenge the colossus until 2006, when developer Volition and publisher THQ released Saints Row, a sandbox game where you played a gang member. And thus, the review begins.
The basic story behind Saints Row is that you play some random guy you customize, who is apparently such a bad ass that a single look from the scrawny nerd I created was enough to send the gang members backing off. You get caught in a cross fire, surviving through sheer badassery, and get recruited into a gang called The Saints, who constantly refer to their territory as The Row. You have gang leader Julius and his cronies... sorry, minions... wait, right hand men...oh, sorry, "lieutenants"... named Troy (blond hair with a scruffy beard), Dex (black bald guy), Johnny (spiky platinum blond hair), and a spy named Lin (sassy Asian chick). Their goal is to take down every gang around, meaning the three major gangs named Los Carnales (because you have to have a Spanish gang, it's mandatory), the Vice Kings, and The Westside Rollerz (yes, that is how it is spelled).
The missions themselves are simple. Go here, shoot this guy. Go here, take over this territory by shooting all the guys in it, rescue this guy by shooting all the guys guarding him. Oh, yeah, steal this car by shooting the guy driving it. Every mission, and most of the side missions, involve guns, and in some cases, rocket launchers. However, they do mix it up by throwing in a sniper mission, a mission where you are blowing up an airplane (private airplane, in case you are worried about the grief-stricken husband who watched his wife and kids die), and a racing mission, which ends in cars going boom. Yes the missions are very varied.
The voice acting in this game is surprisingly good, with stand-outs being David Carradine playing the financier of the Westside Rollerz, Michael Clark Duncan playing the head of the Vice Kings, Mila Kunis aka Meg Griffin playing Tanya Winters, the obligatory "screw her way to the top" character, and Tia Carrere playing Lin. The other, lesser known, voice actors also do an outstanding job in portraying their character. The music is also superb. More shooting games need to have classical music on the soundtrack. Of course, you can always import your own music and shoot people to Iron Maiden or something.
The customization in the game is fairly good. You can change the ethnicity, muscularity, hair color, hair style, clothing style, clothing colors, and of course, bling-bling. The only thing lacking really is the lack of a female model. Which is available in the sequel, from what I've heard. The game itself looks very good. The only loading screen is at the beginning, or when you die. The aiming system is far improved from the GTA series. The only problem is that aiming while driving is wonky at best and bullshit at the worst. However, this minor flaw is easily forgiven for all the stuff they fix from the GTA series. You can recruit up to 3 homies, who can actually shoot and not get in the way of your bullets. You can also call up people on your cell phone to get a ride from people. Driving is very fluid in this game, but some of the cars feel like they are made of wafers. And not the good kind sandwiched with vanilla cream, more like the vanilla wafers that are left in the sun. Overall, rent this game if you can, but if not, dig through the bargain bin or go to a used game store and buy it. Hell, new it's only $30 in the U.S. since it sold buttloads and became a platinum hit.
The basic story behind Saints Row is that you play some random guy you customize, who is apparently such a bad ass that a single look from the scrawny nerd I created was enough to send the gang members backing off. You get caught in a cross fire, surviving through sheer badassery, and get recruited into a gang called The Saints, who constantly refer to their territory as The Row. You have gang leader Julius and his cronies... sorry, minions... wait, right hand men...oh, sorry, "lieutenants"... named Troy (blond hair with a scruffy beard), Dex (black bald guy), Johnny (spiky platinum blond hair), and a spy named Lin (sassy Asian chick). Their goal is to take down every gang around, meaning the three major gangs named Los Carnales (because you have to have a Spanish gang, it's mandatory), the Vice Kings, and The Westside Rollerz (yes, that is how it is spelled).
The missions themselves are simple. Go here, shoot this guy. Go here, take over this territory by shooting all the guys in it, rescue this guy by shooting all the guys guarding him. Oh, yeah, steal this car by shooting the guy driving it. Every mission, and most of the side missions, involve guns, and in some cases, rocket launchers. However, they do mix it up by throwing in a sniper mission, a mission where you are blowing up an airplane (private airplane, in case you are worried about the grief-stricken husband who watched his wife and kids die), and a racing mission, which ends in cars going boom. Yes the missions are very varied.
The voice acting in this game is surprisingly good, with stand-outs being David Carradine playing the financier of the Westside Rollerz, Michael Clark Duncan playing the head of the Vice Kings, Mila Kunis aka Meg Griffin playing Tanya Winters, the obligatory "screw her way to the top" character, and Tia Carrere playing Lin. The other, lesser known, voice actors also do an outstanding job in portraying their character. The music is also superb. More shooting games need to have classical music on the soundtrack. Of course, you can always import your own music and shoot people to Iron Maiden or something.
The customization in the game is fairly good. You can change the ethnicity, muscularity, hair color, hair style, clothing style, clothing colors, and of course, bling-bling. The only thing lacking really is the lack of a female model. Which is available in the sequel, from what I've heard. The game itself looks very good. The only loading screen is at the beginning, or when you die. The aiming system is far improved from the GTA series. The only problem is that aiming while driving is wonky at best and bullshit at the worst. However, this minor flaw is easily forgiven for all the stuff they fix from the GTA series. You can recruit up to 3 homies, who can actually shoot and not get in the way of your bullets. You can also call up people on your cell phone to get a ride from people. Driving is very fluid in this game, but some of the cars feel like they are made of wafers. And not the good kind sandwiched with vanilla cream, more like the vanilla wafers that are left in the sun. Overall, rent this game if you can, but if not, dig through the bargain bin or go to a used game store and buy it. Hell, new it's only $30 in the U.S. since it sold buttloads and became a platinum hit.
