Saints Row Single-Player Hands-On

Currently scheduled for release in North America at the end of August (and just a few days later in Europe), Saints Row is a gang-themed action game that borrows quite heavily from the Grand Theft Auto series while introducing some interesting features of its own. The game's multiplayer content, for example, promises to be what GTA players' dreams are made of, and there's plenty to get excited about when playing solo as well. We recently received a near-finished copy of Saints Row, and after spending several hours progressing through the single-player game, we've finally--and somewhat reluctantly--dropped the controller in favor of a keyboard so that we can share our impressions of it with you.

The first thing you'll need to do when starting a new game of Saints Row is design a character for yourself so you can watch him getting worked over by gang members in an action-packed intro sequence. The customization options for your appearance in the game are impressive, and since many of the physical attributes can be manually tweaked using sliding bars, it shouldn't be too difficult for you to create a character in your own likeness if that's what you're into. You don't get to pick out clothes, tattoos, piercings, and such at the start of the game, but all of these things will become available to you as you progress through the story and locate the relevant stores.

Predictably, the first few missions in Saints Row amount to little more than exercises designed to familiarize you with the game's uncomplicated controls. You'll learn to move your character as you make your way to a meeting with members of the Saints gang, you'll learn melee combat controls when a handful of the aforementioned thugs jump you as part of your initiation, and then you'll learn to shoot just as soon as you've paid a visit to the local Friendly Fire store and purchased a gun. Other abilities you'll learn early in the game include recruiting and fighting alongside homeys from your gang, using your cell phone to call other characters for backup, and visiting drive-through "forgive and forget" confessionals to instantly wipe any notoriety (think GTA's wanted level system) that you've accrued with cops and gangs. Before getting into the game proper, you'll also gain access to a crib, where you can change your clothes, stock up on weapons and ammo, collect money earned from any turf that you control, save your game, and store a seemingly unlimited number of vehicles in a garage designed for two.

To progress through Saints Row's story mode, you have to earn respect, which can be achieved either by completing story missions or by taking part in various (mostly illegal) activities. Respect works in much the same way as experience points do in role-playing games, and every time you level up you'll unlock the next tier of story missions. We're not sure exactly how many different activities there are in the game at this point, but there's certainly no shortage of things to do, and there appears to be plenty of variety. The first activity that we put our skills to the test in was a "snatch" mission, which tasked us with rescuing prostitutes from abusive pimps. The next, and almost certainly our favorite right now, was an "insurance fraud" mission, where we were able to earn a decent amount of money by deliberately throwing our guy under moving vehicles and making sure that there were pedestrians in the area to witness it. Both of these activities (and many others) were initiated when we made our way to areas highlighted with icons on the game's useful map (which comes complete with a GPS route-finder system), both were played against a time limit, and both forced us to explore areas of the city that, at that point, we hadn't visited previously.

The city is divided up into 36 neighborhoods, and although many of them have a similar look and feel, you'll find that a number of them have quite distinct themes, like the downtown, Chinatown, stadium, or industrial areas of a real city. The one thing that all neighborhoods have in common is that they're controlled by one of the handful of gangs that call the city home. The Saints control only one neighborhood at the start of the game, but by completing certain story missions you'll take control of additional areas and receive money from each of them daily. The missions that grant you control of neighborhoods often involve killing a rival gang leader, but they're every bit as varied as the rest of the missions in the game. Missions that we've taken over neighborhoods with to date have included storming an enemy stronghold, rescuing girls who have been kidnapped, and using a car bomb to fake a friend's death.

In a nod to one of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' most underrated features, rival gangs will often attempt to recapture turf that you've taken from them, and you'll be expected to drop whatever you're doing to go and fight them off. When you arrive, you'll invariably find yourself in a large firefight that spans the entire neighborhood into which the enemy regularly sends reinforcements. There's a lot of fun to be had simply taking out wave after wave of enemy gang members at this point, but to successfully defend your turf you need only take out the enemy lieutenants--of which there are generally around 10--scattered throughout the area.

Perhaps the thing that has impressed us most about Saints Row at this point is that our actions have occasionally had some pleasantly surprising results, though that wouldn't necessarily be the case if we had access to an instruction manual. When visiting a store and playfully pointing a gun at the owner, for example, we instigated an armed robbery, and when entering a store that had closed for the night we were encouraged to find and crack its safe (via a rhythm-style minigame) before the alarm attracted too many cops. Stealing a car with passengers in it can also be quite profitable on occasion, since you'll have an opportunity to activate a hostage mission that lets you collect a ransom if you manage to evade the police for a specific amount of time.

How easy it is to evade the police will depend, at least to some extent, on what kind of car you're in, since their performances vary a great deal. All of the cars are easy enough to control that you can comfortably jump into one that you've never seen before in mid-pursuit when necessary, but their top speeds and cornering abilities are varied enough that you'll inevitably have favorites that you keep an eye out for. If you manage to get your hands on a car that you really like, you can pay a mechanic to repair it when it gets badly damaged and even spend money enhancing its appearance and performance. Most of the car types in the game are readily available on the streets provided you don't have a problem with bashing the drivers' heads against their dashboards and throwing them to the ground, but some of the better models that we've found are definitely scarce.

Also scarce are the hidden CDs that, much like the hidden packages in GTA games, are scattered throughout the city just waiting for you to find them. There are 60 CDs in total, and for every 10 you find you'll unlock a new song--presumably adding it to the playlist for one of the city's many radio stations. You can switch stations on your vehicle's stereo anytime you're behind the wheel, and each one plays a different kind of music. Sound familiar? Of course it does. If you've played any of the Grand Theft Auto games released post-2000, you'll find an awful lot that's familiar in Saints Row, but given how great Rockstar's offerings have been, that's really not a bad thing. We look forward to bringing you more information on Volition's next offering as soon as it becomes available.