The first saints row was the first sandbox game to be released on the Xbox360, and despite some childood missteps, it was definitely a good game. Direction was good, acting, while over the lines, was definitely fun. The sequel had decided to drop any idea of being realistic and moved definitely over the realm of crazyness and grotesque. But while this is somehow a bit of a letdown for some (me included) it's definitely the least problem of this game by far. Everybody seemed to enjoy a lot SR2 on Xbox360, and judging from the direction and the dialogues I've seen, the material seem to be at least on par with the previous episode. But when I ran the game the first time onto my notebook (a pretty updated and decent piece of machinery that runs most games with all the settings maxed out) I was shocked to be presented with graphics way below the average game nowadays and even iferior to the visuals of Mafia I, a game four years old. But it's when I thought of a mistake and tried to customize the graphic settings a bit that I really couldn't believe my eyes. Whenever I tried to get something decent or simply visually not revolting, I couldn't get past the 12fps mark. All this onto a machine that runs GTAIV completely maxed out well over the 24fps. But I was sadly just scratching the surface. Whoever decided to port the graphic engine from the xbox360 to the PC without any kind of tweaking, did just the same with the controls. There's no other explaination for the left and right browse commands in the interface to be mapped to two keys that are one on top of the other on any PC keyboard. Driving is no fancy story either, pressing any driving key to result in a 100% pressure of the 360 stick. It's like going onto a rollercoaster ride made of bursts of acceleration and 90 degrees turns. It's bad beyond recognition. Controlling the character is a little better, but don't think of anything great. It resembles much more Secondlife than any modern third person shooter. Sadly the environment looks bland and sparse as well, the textures repeated and unimaginative, the cars seldom and simple. The story? giventhe fact that this game is almost unplayable, it's really diffficult to figure that out, or even care, for that matter. And it's a real shame, since in a few glimpse here and there, from time to time in a cutscene or in the dialog, you'll see that the direction is good, the characters are fun, and that you would really like to enjoy this game experience in full. Sadly you can't. Summarizing: an incredibly lame port of an otherwise good game. Buy GTAIV instead, or buy Mafia, or buy GTASA, but believe me, avoid this thing at all costs.
Being a Saints Row 1 fan I was extremely excited for the second part of the game, but this year when they announced a part 2 for PC as well I decided to skip the consoles version and get the superior PC version. Huge mis... Read Full Review
Saints Row 2 is, simply put, an outrageously brilliant game. It's the best use of an open world I've ever experienced, that lets you do what you feel like doing. It's developed by Volition, who made Descent and Red Fa... Read Full Review
