Saints Row (Xbox 360)

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The missions mix driving with shooting

Outside of the missions, activities and territory takeovers, Saints Row does its best to be a really easy game to play. To start with, your health will replenish itself if you stay out of the action for a while, and you can recruit members of the Saints to join your little gang. These guys put up a surprisingly good fight, and can be conveniently revived by pouring beer on them - not a medically approved method, but it seems to work. You can also buy and carry up to four health packs (in the form of junk food), but other than a few dastardly missions and overcrowded gang wars, you won't die too often. Dying isn't all that bad either, as missions can simply be retried, although some checkpoints within the longer missions would have been a nice touch.

The most impressive inclusion, and something that GTA doesn't feature, is the map. Ok, so GTA has a map, but not like the map in Saints Row. By setting a waypoint on the map you not only get a general direction of where to go, but a dynamically changing route. This is shown on the mini-map in the corner of the screen and makes high-speed chases far more manageable than in other games. It might be a little odd that the cops, S.W.A.T, police helicopters and more seemingly forget about your sins when you cross into a blue target circle, but finding it is never an issue. You can easily find shops, activity locations, and save points, too, not that you need to find a save point as the game lets you save your progress wherever you are.

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What game would be complete these days without a fully featured character creation tool, and Saints Row's lets you tweak all manner of different facial and body features. You can also buy new clothes - which actually have an impact on the game - and your cars can be 'pimped' out to look 'sweet' and perform better too. Your garage also doubles as a handy store for your better cars, and your crib holds stashes of cash and weapons. Rounding off a rather complete and lengthy 20 hours + single-player campaign are an awful lot of achievements that really make you work for the points, and like many Xbox 360 games, dish out a fair number through the online portion of the game.

Volition have included support for up to twelve players over Xbox Live or System Link, and while it feels a little tacked on, the multiplayer component can be a lot of fun. Unsurprisingly, all the game modes are distinctly gang themed, so you get modes that ask you to escort a pimp, take other players' chains, and upgrade cars as quickly as possible, all while under fire from the enemy. Of course, there's also a standard deathmatch and team deathmatch mode. Sadly, these online games are played in enclosed areas, and don't make use of the same free-roaming city seen in the single-player game. An unexpected bonus, though, comes in the form of co-op missions. Two players can get together to fend off rival gang members, and these point towards what a true online gang warfare game could deliver.

If there's one thing Saints Row does brilliantly, though, it's explosions. Cars literally get blown apart and come crashing back down with debris flying all over the place.

Multiplayer matches aren't without their problems, particularly in the larger games. Lag made a number of games almost unplayable, and you'll find yourself dying without much warning. Your character doesn't react in a way to suggest he's taking fire, so unless you're keeping an eye on your health bar you can find yourself running into battle when you should be holding back. If you want to get together with some mates you can form gangs and compete against other gangs, but it's hard to shake the feeling that Saints Row could have offered a better online experience. The downloadable content option on the game's menu no doubt means that new content will arrive at some point, and this may well bolster its online offering, but at the moment the multiplayer mode simply acts as an occasionally fun diversion.

Played in HD Saints Row is often a stunning looking game. The use of shadows, and lighting in general, gives the whole game a real next-gen look, and the detailed vehicle models also look great. What isn't so great is the frame rate, which bogs down an awful lot. While fans of GTA on consoles will probably feel right at home with a fluctuating frame rate, it's a little jarring on a next-gen system, especially when combined with a fairly short draw-in distance for vehicles and more than a few graphical glitches - disappearing road anyone? The character models, too, are a mixed bag. The male characters get away with a pretty blocky appearance, but the women in the game appear a little worse for wear. If there's one thing Saints Row does brilliantly, though, it's explosions. Cars literally get blown apart and come crashing back down with debris flying all over the place. One mini-game activity basically asks you to blow as much stuff up as possible, and you'll do it with a smile on your face simply because it looks great over and over again.

Exploding cars never become dull and look great

Based on the opening few minutes with the game you won't expect the quality of voice acting and the script to be as good as they are. The cast of voice actors do a great job, and while your character does little other than nod, the likes of Michael Clarke Duncan, David Carradine, and Keith David put in stellar performances. Audio is the expected mix of urban tunes, but you'll get several radio stations to choose from, complete with humours ads - another trademark GTA feature. If you can't find anything to your taste you can always use a custom soundtrack, but whatever you listen to, it won't drown out the booming explosions, shuddering car crashes and plenty of foul mouthed profanity. One particularly nice touch is the muffled sound of the radio from outside a car, which becomes crystal clear when you get inside.

Compared directly to the Grand Theft Auto series, and in particular to the scope of San Andreas, Saints Row comes off as second best, but it's far from a second rate product. In fact, it's one of the few next-gen games that truly warrants a next-gen price tag, with a lengthy single-player campaign and a fun online component to extend the experience. Originality is great, but with that illusive new idea becoming harder and harder to find, well made imitators (especially in a genre that rarely gets it right) can't be sniffed at. Saints Row even manages to show GTA a thing or two, and deserves a place in the collection of anyone old enough to play it.

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