Saint’s Row – 360 – Review

It is hard to
ignore the influence Grand Theft Auto III had left on the gaming world
and it is even harder to ignore the games that blatantly rip off the open-world,
do-anything-and-go-anywhere universe Rockstar North’s series has created. You
feel its presence in games like True Crime, see its obvious influence on
The Godfather: The Game and roll your eyes at games that have failed to
go beyond what the GTA series has introduced and evolved with its
sequels. THQ’s Saint’s Row is but the first GTA-inspired game on
the Xbox 360 and while it makes no excuses for “borrowing” elements from
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the game manages to be one highly
entertaining, malt liquored-flavor romp in a playground worth your time and
money.

Your new
stomping grounds this time is a city called Stilwater where rival gangs fight to
take control of the city and where crime reigns supreme. You start the game by
creating your avatar, a young blood that can be Caucasian, Latino, Asian or
African-American (the game uses a slimmed down version of Tiger Woods PGA
Tour’s Game Face) who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a gang
shootout. Just when you’re about to receive a bullet to the head, you are saved
by Julius Little, the leader of the 3^rd Street Saints. Soon you are
invited to join the gang and it is here where you, a nobody, rises up in rank to
become the feared gangster rival gangs will come to know. Oh and there’s much
more to the story than just being a top member of your new gang, the story
progresses through a variety of missions and things get a bit more interesting
later.

The city of
Stilwater is open to you from the very beginning and the game doesn’t really
push you into starting a story-related mission. In fact, once the opening
cinematic if finished, you’re free to jack a car and drive anywhere on the
massive map without experiencing a single load time. There are several sections
of the city that range from Chinatown to the Red Light District where pimps walk
the streets and sirens can be heard in the distance. You’ll find that Stilwater
possesses a number of shops from a secondhand clothing store, liquor stores, a
music shop (to buy tunes you can play in your car), a gun store as well as a
burger joint. Yet if you want to progress or open new areas, you have to
complete missions and there are plenty of those in this game.

As far as the
missions are concerned, the game handles them much like the Grand Theft Auto
series. You not only complete tasks for Julius Little but also other
high-ranking members of the 3^rd Street Saints as well. The missions
have you destroying a rival gang’s drug labs to reclaiming a neighborhood taken
over by Stilwater’s main gangs like the Vice Kings, Los Carnales and the West
Side Rollerz. Successfully completing a mission means your gang now controls
that specific area and that means you will have to defend it from gang attack
often. Hey, that sounds mighty familiar, doesn’t it? There are more familiar
things in the game as well such as street races, a demolition derby you can
participate in and there are also missions that have you transporting
prostitutes to their destination. You can even go to a mod shop and modify your
car or go into a store to buy new clothes. Complete missions and you’ll earn
respect points that will allow you to recruit homies both male and female
(you’ll know them by their purple shirts) to use on missions or rampages.

What little
elements of originality Saint’s Row does possess are actually excellent.
For instance, you can collect a big payoff by completing the insurance fraud
missions that have you diving in front of a car. The better the car or, better
yet, if you jump in front of a police car with witnesses watching, you’ll make
tons of dough. There are escort missions that play to specific locations as well
as unique hitman missions. The most entertaining of the side missions happens to
be Mayhem, a mode that has you attempting to cause as much damage to property
and people before the time runs out and that includes running over mailboxes,
ramming into other cars and kicking people on the sidewalk. You can also walk
into a store, point your gun at the proprietor and have him or her take you to
their vault. If a stickup isn’t your kind of thing, you can always jack an
expensive car with a passenger and drive around until the “hostage” forks over
all his or her money.

Driving is
actually handled fairly well in the game and while there are times when you will
have to wrestle with the camera, the joy of head-on collisions is just
priceless. Borrowing from True Crime: New York City, you can collide with
a car head-on and watch as the passenger of the other car is ejected through the
windshield only to land on the hood of your vehicle like a rag doll. Your
recruited homies can take shotgun, firing from the window and even you can fire
your gun at enemies. Each vehicle drives different whether you’re behind the
wheel of a classic muscle car or a slow SUV. Much like the GTA series,
your vehicle can catch on fire but with the only difference is that when it does
explode, the chunks that rain down can actually hurt or kill you. Sorry but
there are no motorcycles in the game so bike fans are out of luck here.

On foot, your
character is actually a pretty tough fighter that can hold his own without
weapons. When you are armed, aiming is handled beautifully so you will be glad
for the healthy arsenal list that includes sub machine guns, shotguns, knives
and different pistols. You won’t learn new moves but completing certain tasks
will eventually lead to great extras such as the respawning of favorite weapons
in your crib. Jacking cars is also easy so you can always make quick getaways
when you need to get out of a location in a hurry. Thankfully, your homies
aren’t dumb and can really hold their own in a fight without mindlessly being
stuck behind a wall and you can easily revive them if they go down by pouring a
40 on them. Thanks to a GPS-like tracking system, it’s also impossible to get
lost since the dots that point the way to your destination can rectify itself if
you happen to make a wrong turn.

Ultimately,
copying the best aspects of San Andreas as well as a few other GTA
imitators pay off well for Saint’s Row. With all the story missions and
variety of side missions, there is a lot going for the game despite the fact
that Stilwater lacks some fun little distractions like the ability to enter a
store to play a video game or walk into a bar for a game of pool. There is no
jumping off a skyscraper with a parachute or taking a girl out on a date. Still,
even with the lack of these little minor details, Saint’s Row is such a
blast to play that you will be ignoring its few weak spots.

What will have
you deeply enthralled as well is the fact that up to 12 players can play seven
different multiplayer games through Xbox Live or by using a System Link
connection. Imagine joining up with a group in a number of multiplayer maps for
a game like Gangsta Brawl, Mob Rule, Turbulence or Big Ass Chains. The wealth of
creativity that goes in making your own customized multiplayer co-op game makes
multiplayer such a joy while, for the most part, Blinged Out Ride is the created
game most gamers will be playing. Here you can lead a gang or join a gang into
modifying a cool ride and taking it from one point to the next before your
opponent does. Here is the catch: Your opponent can try to wreck your ride by
shooting at it and thus you are forced to go back to make repairs. Thankfully,
you can do the same to your opponent. If it sounds fun that’s because it is and
much props should go to the team for even making the lobby screen fun as well.

On the visual
front, Saint’s Row is a mighty good-looking game that’s not quite
next-generation but not bad at all either. Just the lighting effects alone are a
nice touch and the way cars explode in a fiery mess with car parts raining down
on the street puts DRIV3R to shame. The Havok effects are put to good use
in this game and the way a fallen enemy goes limp just doesn’t fail to put a
smile on my face. The character models look good both in the cutscenes and
during the action and the vehicles look even better. The city of Stilwater is a
seedy place and that looks alive. Overall, this game is easy on the eyes but it
could have done without the annoying pop-ins (cars and people appearing out of
nowhere is so PS2). 

The game’s
tongue-in-cheek dialogue isn’t bad considering the fact that it’s being spoken
by some good actors like Michael Clarke Duncan (of “The Green Mile“) as well as
a supporting cast that includes Tia Carrere, Mila Kunis (of “That 70s Show“),
Freddy Rodriguez and Clancy Brown. Much like the GTA games there are
radio stations aplenty (everything from classical to hip-hop and alternative
rock) with commercials as well as a talk show as well but somehow they miss the
mark in the comedy department. What we hear is funny but not witty and the
overuse of bad language is like a preppy kid trying desperately to fit in with
the “street” kids. The sound effects are actually Ok and certain sounds actually
drive home the feeling that you’re in a bad part of the neighborhood (ambulance
and police sirens sounds as well as distant firearms fire) or an industrial part
(tapping of hammers and the sounds of drills). You’ll know the A-Train is coming
because you’ll actually hear the operator announcing the next destination.

The result is a
game that is not very original at all but at least what is here is good and thus
making this a fun game to play. Saint’s Row just doesn’t borrow a few
GTA elements here and there, it actually steals them and makes it their own
but luckily we end up benefiting from this. A few problems aside, the fun
missions, cool massive city and a great multiplayer mode just make this a
worthwhile game you will want to buy for your Xbox 360.

Gameplay: 8.5
As far as
Grand Theft Auto imitators are concerned, Saint’s Row does a good job
of making both on-foot activities and driving action as smooth and as fun as
possible. It’s actually an enjoyable experience giving somebody a beating or
getting into a gunfight and the first time you collide with another car in your
“borrowed” ride and watching the passenger fly out the windshield is pure gaming
gold. The variety of missions varies from great to funny to tedious.

Graphics: 8.2
There is a lot
here that does not scream next-generation and there are things that made good
use of the Xbox 360 graphical capabilities. The car models look amazing as do
most of the character models that crumple like rag dolls when they’re killed or
injured. Fire and explosions will not fail to impress but the pop-in and the
occasional framerate stutter just have no place here.

Sound: 8.5
The decent
voice acting from the likes of Hollywood talents like Michael Rapaport, David
Carradine and Michael Clarke Duncan is a highlight as is the collection of tunes
from recognizable music talents like Fall Out Boy as well as some
head-scratching tunes from bands like Ratt (yeah, the heavy metal band). The
rest of the sound is composed of so-so radio talk shows, sometimes-funny
commercials, and pedestrian dialogue. The sound effects aren’t bad either.

Difficulty:
Medium
Many of the
missions have multiple objectives to complete and some you’ll wish had
checkpoints but there is nothing here that will have you yanking out hair from
your head. The various side missions start easy enough and get harder the higher
the level you reach.

Concept: 8.5

There is
nothing original about Saint’s Row except for the fact that you can
create your own character and there’s a solid online multiplayer mode. The game
literally steals many elements from San Andreas including turf wars,
hidden packages (that come in the form of CDs) and upgrading your stolen rides.
You can even recruit homies and go on wild rampages. The original stuff, like
the insurance fraud missions, will make you wish there were more like them
scattered throughout the game.

Multiplayer:
8.9
The game’s
multiplayer is the reason you will still be hanging out in the city of Stilwater.
Up to 12 players can hit the streets in a variety of multiplayer modes you can
play on Xbox Live or through a System Link setup. The modes, like Blinged Out
Ride and Protect Tha Pimp are not amazing but they are original and fun enough
to have you playing them often.

Overall: 8.7
Aping all of
the things we love about the Grand Theft Auto series, Saint’s Row
is an Xbox 360 game that is definitely not very original but is still one hell
of a fun ride. While you can point out a number of elements taken from San
Andreas, the game does try to bring its own sense of style plus a robust
online multiplayer to make this a Grade A gangsta-themed imitator with a lot
going for it. If you can only buy one 360 action title this summer, make it
Saint’s Row.