Customisation

When you first load up Saints Row 2 you may as well make a cup of tea or coffee as it will take around 6 minutes to install the game onto your PS3. But once the home screen comes up you can leave this stationary for a while and get to see some video outtakes, which seem to give a bit of background into the goings on in the Saints Row universe.

Upon starting the game properly you are led to a cut scene which unveils that your lead character is stuck in a jail hospital and is about to wake up from a coma - having survived his near death experience from the last game.

But before you wake up you get the change to customise the way your character will look and its here that the fun begins.

For a start you can choose what sex your character should be and the game developers have not lost their sense of humour even at this early stage, as you can even create a transvestite if you want to.

We have to admit to playing around with the different settings for ages - having a good laugh in the process - as you can pick how fat or thin your character looks, what voice he/she will use, plus the way the character walks, talks, dresses etc.

You will also be able to continue to custom elements of you character throughout the game as you can earn money to pimp your style, adjust your cars or even give your gang members the makeover treatment. Whilst it’s not essential to do so, we liked the personal touch that the customisation element brings to the table.

Opening Gambit

Your first mission is to break out of jail with the help of one of your co-conspirators and its here you are given the option to enable a training mode which runs in the background, so you are essentially told what button does what during the game.

However the control system is quite intuitive and you will soon get used to the way your character interacts within the Saints Row universe and of course how the combat works, which you need to deploy right from the start (more on the combat latter).

Freedom or Mission structure

When you finally escape from prison (we won't tell you how, but it was pretty cool) you are landed back in Stillwater which like its influence - GTA IV - will grant you total freedom to walk/run/drive around the map.

The main story behind Saints Row 2 revolves around you recruiting old/new Saint gang members and with them taking back your turf (eliminating other gangs in the process).

Of course there is a mission structure in place to a certain degree and whilst these start off fairly basic, such as buying new clothes or breaking your ex gang member (Johnny Gat) out of a county court, they get meatier later on, but for the most part you can wander around at your leisure and create your own fun.

The big missions are mainly driven (amongst other things) by gaining respect and you will find some are not accessible until your respect bar is full.

Thankfully there are several activities you can do to gain this respect and its here that you can start to experience the warp sense of humour that the developers have injected within the game.

Throwing people seems to be one method, as well being used for combat you can simply throw people a certain distance to gain respect points or when you are driving around the map you get points for how close you get to oncoming cars.  Taking down opposite gang members also earns you respect and then you can even spray tag your logos around the map.

If this sounds mundane it can be to start with, but when you start to get into the game there are lots of additional activties that you can participate in that enhances the fun factor.

So for example if you hijack an ambulance you can go around resuscitating victims and to do this you have to wiggle your left and right sticks up and down until they have recovered.

Take a taxi cab and you can become a taxi driver or meet up with a news reporter (in one of the diversion activities) and simply create as much mayhem as possible! This last part is over the top and insane, but really good fun.

Getting around the city

With such a big city to explore the game developers have made it easy to move around by including a minimap with a GPS system at the base of the screen. The latter highlights objects (missions, clothes stores, food shops) on the map and you can also add your own waypoints, enabling you to mark areas that you want to return to latter.

It seems that any vehicle in the game can be utilised (as long as you get the drivers to stop), so you can take limos, fork lift trucks, Swat vans, helicopters, motor bikes, you name it.

Combat

With a quick press and hold of your O button you can scroll through your arsenal of weapons, which can included night sticks, shotguns, machine guns, double pistols, pepper spray or you can pick up everyday objects lying about and use these as weapons.

We found selecting your weapons a bit awkward to do when you are in the thick of the action, but it does get easier with practice.

You usualy fire or hit others in a 3rd person view, but pushing down on the right thumb stick will allow you to zoom in slightly to improve your aim.

Driving and shooting is another difficult area to master though, but thankfully the developers have added a cruise control option to your vehicles, which allows you to keep your speed constant whilst firing at the same time.

Graphics/Sounds

Graphics and sound effects are possibly not as good as GTV IV (from our brief go at the game) but your character and other main NPC all have their own personalitie trates which are well captured, plus explosions do look impressive and the city environments/buildings are all nicely drawn.

We did come accross a few graphical glitches where some of the NPC characters can get stuck in vehicles and the AI is not entirely polished, with some of your so called buddies being a bit useless in a fight. People also seem to aimlessly wonder around the streets and are not quick enough to get out of the way of your vehicles, but with all this said and done it never detracts from the fun.

Getting into vehicles will also kick in music (you can even collect CD's dotted around the map to unlock additional tracks) and weapons sound realistic enough when fired.

All the main characters in the game have had the celeb voice over treatment, which is why the acting is pretty good and atmospheric.

So you have Daniel Dae Kim (we have seen the bloke in Angel and Lost) who plays Johnny Gat, then you have Michael Dorn - Worf from Star Trek - playing Maero, Jamie Pressly - My Name is Earl - who plays Jessica, the list goes on.

We must add there is a fair amount of swearing in the game and not to mention the references to kinky goings on. One sub mission sees you taking a job as an escort, dodging the paparazzi whilst your clients have their wicked way in the back of the car and then you can participate in a bit of virtual pleasuring, which does not show any graphical references - as its all done in a cheesy sort of way - but if you are easily offended then you may want to avoid the game.

Mutliplayer

As well as single player missions you can utilise a few multiplayer options, the first being the co-op mode which allows you and a friend to complete the single player missions together (Sadly there is no split screen option here.).

You also have a Strong Arm mode, which involves various teams competing in random game types within specific areas of the map. So you and your buddies can take on Insurance Fraud game types, creating mayhem, or racing.

We never got chance to experience the above modes in action as our review was based on the Single player experience, but for us the Co-op mode would offer the best re-play value, especially as we have been told you can do anything in the co-op that you could do in the single player, only this time we a mate.