Way better than GTA! An honest review by an honest gamer!
Story:
So, you start off at some prison in which you get to create your own character, I loved the graphics, better than GTA IV in my opinion and it was really cool seeing a realistic man/woman being created before your very eyes. So this guy called Carlos (Johnny Gat's brother) helps you bust out and that's it, playing the first mission itself proves how fast-paced and awesome the game is. Almost immediately your thrown into a world of violence. The thing I realised was the city (Stillwater) looked more attractive and the streets have changed. You see gangs roaming the streets during the night whilst old people try crossing the roads. Joggers walking about will be carrying pepper spray for their safety and the cops will be on the lookout almost all the time. The gangs consist of the Saints, Triads and some other weirdos who think they own the city. Time to prove them wrong. The most wonderful thing is that the game is in fact very short but THQ have added this cool system to make up for that time and extend it. How? Well, you need to gain respect to undertake a mission. This involves you taking parts in races, doing stunts, playing mini-games, work in the strip clubs or just killing other gangs. This will earn you respect, the more you earn the better. You need a reasonable amount of respect to do certain missions so even though the game is pretty short with less than 30 missions or so to complete, trying to increase your respect statistics is way more than enough to extend the time. Plus it gives you a chance to explore the city, almost forces you but you feel happy after doing it since the respect you earn unlocks new stuff and the more, the better you get at the game. It truly feels rewarding. At points of the game though, it gets very annoying that you have to constantly increase your stats but I only came across a situation like that 2-3 times during my whole 20 hour experience.
Graphics:
Cell-shaded, very cool looking and fits the game's atmosphere perfectly. Stillwater looks very attractive, like a mixture of Vegas and New York put together. The lighting is used well and I think it makes the game look more vibrant.
Artificial Intelligence (AI):
I have to say, they have improved the AI a lot since the previous game. The Havok engine (which used to be the worst physics engine ever in my opinion) now is my most favourite since itself has improved by mass loads. Enemies do try hard to get rid of you and the pedestrians do fight back hard or simply coward away. There's a lot of life in the city and it makes the game feel more lively. However, the police have terrible AI, it's like at times your pointing a gun at a lady or perhaps got a hostage with a gun by his/her skull but they just simply walk passed or just dont try that hard to prevent you from harming the innocent. This has to be improved since it made the game feel damn easy. To be honest, I dont remember even being busted by the cops since they never really attempted to try and do so. Sure, there were great chases and so but the cops just didnt try too hard, the easy driving mechanics had also made an impact on the lack of AI the cops and some of the public had.
Controls:
They feel great but they sucked on the xbox360 control during customisation since on the D pad, it sometimes went right/left instead of up/down and using the RS didnt help much either.
Presentation:
Lovely. Need I say more?
Weapons and violence:
Many weapons to choose from and brutal counterkills followed by aggressive taunts...yep, it certainly does live up to that big fat M rating on the cover.
Extras:
There are hundreds of extras to do and they can occupy you for about 6-8 hours. You can work for the local strip club by being the driver, go picking up clients and listen them having sex in the car whilst the papparazzi are trying to record footage for the news in which case you have to avoid them. Then there's the many stunts to perform, several races (each one takes place in unique places with different routes), then the kiling sprees, plus the ability to play this 3D zombie-shooter on your console found in your apartment in-game. Gun training is cool and then driving to fast-food joints to top up your health can be insanely fun. There are also casinos to visit and also a huge number of vehicles to choose from (boats and choppers included) and then there's also the magnificent co-op mode. That's a lot and don't forget, did I mention you being able to mug people on the streets or take over businesses, or the ability to rob banks? Whoa, this game kicks ass.
Overall, it's a great package and is worth buying. It's worth every penny you pay for. I hate to admit it, but it also beats being better than GTA San Andreas (my favourite game and favourite GTA too). I cannot give this a 10 however since there are an amount of various glitches and the game is too easy and only gets a tiny bit challenging after half-way through the game.
So either buy it or rent it, but I'd definitely recommend no matter what, you MUST play this awesome game before you die.