GC 2008: Stilwater TV

I've seen quite a lot of Saints Row 2 during the past six months, so it wasn't a huge surprise when my demo at the Games Convention today showed very little that was new. I saw the character customization again, the end result was a freakish looking thug of questionable gender again, and I saw the opening level in which you'll escape from prison with an accomplice (which I've already played through and written about twice), again.

Fortunately, before the demo proper got underway, we noticed that there was an attract mode of sorts playing. That wouldn't normally be noteworthy, but the spoof TV channels that were playing were pretty funny. One show titled Anne, which appeared to be a spoof of Ellen or something like that, was holding a discussion about "the problem with poor people" with a special guest from the Ultor Corporation responsible for rebuilding Stilwater. A warning flashed up on the screen at one point, warning parents that upcoming footage might not be suitable children because it features minorities.

A couple of humorous ads later we got to see a special report on News 13 about gang violence in the city and, as the gang members made their escape after committing a crime, they appeared to drive right into the cameraman. The last segment that we saw was a special report on "lower dust", which you may recall is a drug that's come into Stilwater courtesy of the Sons of Samedi gang. The broadcast was coming live from the university campus, but when the reporter found someone to interview about the popularity of drugs there she didn't find a student or even a drug-user. The guy had a very different reason for visiting the campus, which I'll leave to your imagination for the moment.

How or even if Stilwater's TV stations will be incorporated into the finished version of Saints Row 2 remains to be seen. I'm hoping that it'll be different to GTA IV's TV though--maybe the news team will even manage to capture footage of players or something like that. Expect some more concrete information on Saints Row 2 just as soon as we can get it.