Playing A Game Saints Row 2 PC

It's impossible to evaluate Saints Row 2 (or its predecessor) without deferring heavily to GTA: San Andreas. Although I can't give a fully qualified opinion of Volition's first attempt to ape Grand Theft Auto, the second makes it evident that they really, really enjoyed Rockstar's games; but due to their own preferences, as well as those of Rockstar Games themselves, they've ended up going in a pretty different direction than GTA4 did.

The timing is crucial: in 2004, San Andreas expanded the GTA franchise in both its storytelling and in its range of optional activities; but it would be four years until the world saw the next major step in Rockstar's franchise, during which time it was only natural for Volition to develop Saints Row to emphasize gangland politics and wanton violence. So when GTA4 hit in early 2008, I can only assume that some of the SR2 staff became very nervous, because while their sequel (which would come later that same year) pushed the silliness and violence envelopes even further, Rockstar made their sandbox into something that could be taken seriously, with believable characters, more realistic world behavior, and impactful storytelling.

It's almost certainly not what anyone (least of all Volition) was expecting, and as a result, their mechanically-inferior engine and lackluster narrative make a really poor case for Saints Row 2. But it was ultimately to their benefit that they took a distinct approach, because they ended up with a lot of the more-minor features from San Andreas that Rockstar chose to cull: territory ownership, a bevy of optional side activities, spontaneous "diversions" that give more flavor toward the normal gameplay, and a generally laissez-faire attitude toward random homicide. And it's nice to have so many fun options to choose from, although some are less fun than others, and there are some high-level design flaws like-

  • the broken game economy, which asks you to gather an enormous amount of money for new cribs (which are themselves where you collect money earned from territory ownership), not that it matters since the cash you earn from late-game missions is so substantial;
  • the disadvantages of randomness in some activity locations and attributes, since some random choices are not as fun, or possible, as others;
  • the unimpressive shooting controls, since higher-level activities often throw tons of enemies at you, and you can barely kill them as quickly as more spawn;
  • the overall janky controls, which make anything that requires any sort of precision (like base-jumping onto a target) intensely difficult.

From the top level, it feels like much of the game's content is inconsequential. You can build up your income to obscene levels, but aside from buying more property, there isn't much purpose to the amount of money you'll get. You can buy or earn more weapons, but they don't generally get much more effective than the early ones. You can buy clothes, tattoos, and crib decor to increase your Style rank, which in turn increases the amount of Respect you get from doing Activities (to unlock missions), but the increase isn't very meaningful -- and although there are a bunch of Activities to choose from, you really only need to find two or three you really enjoy, to earn enough Respect for all the missions in the game.

But the success of SR2's less-meaningful, more-immediate formula is that this frivolity doesn't really matter. You're supposed to move quickly from one diversion to the next, alternately dicking around with Activities, executing random violence on the populace, customizing your character, and taking financial ownership of the city. It's about the journey rather than the destination, and even though each part of the journey is mechanically underwhelming, the variety and malleability help the game impart a great sense of freedom.

Similarly, the story isn't really any good, and in fact if you pay attention to it there are really only two major characters: Johnny Gat, a recurring Saint honcho who is an incredibly violent sociopath, and you, the player, who eventually becomes a real villain. While San Andreas and the GTA4/EFLC stories are about reformed or reluctant criminals, who try to only hurt people who deserve it, the story of the Third Street Saints is overtly and unapologetically about taking over a city. That their enemies are typically other villains, seems like a coincidence; these are bad people.

And yet, as with the game's mechanics, this fact is almost completely irrelevant to enjoying the game. For the most part, the storytelling serves the missions' gameplay, rather than the other way around; and toward the end, when the narrative does become (slightly) more prevalent, it's still totally forgettable. While SR2 may be "about" a gang's rise to power by eliminating its competition, it's really about screwing around in a free-roaming city and causing ridiculous trouble everywhere.

Finally, I've got to mention bugs. Although I was generally able to ignore, or at least quickly forget about, bugs during my Saints Row 2 experience, they cannot be discounted entirely -- especially those unique to the PC port, which are not great.

In particular, after some friends watched me play and observed that the game seemed pretty fast, I bothered clocking it and discovered that my game was running at 118% because the game speed isn't locked, and assumes that your PC has the same clock rate as the Xbox 360 (there is a simple fan-made fix for this). Granted it seems to use some legacy faculty in Windows XP to overcome this, it's still a dumbfounding issue to have in a released software product. Not to mention the many progress-blocking bugs that a PC player is likely, or even guaranteed, to encounter in normal play.

Even beside the issues of the shoddy PC port, though, the core game itself is more technically flawed than the already-unsteady RenderWare-powered GTAs that inspired it. AI and pathfinding are easy targets, as the GPS routing is very occasionally unhelpful, your teammates frequently get stuck in the environment, and if you're standing between a friend and an enemy, it can go pretty poorly.

But thanks to its emphases on instant gratification and simple fun, rather than deeper meaning and gravitas, Saints Row 2 prevents its technical hangups from devastating the experience. Just as you get irritated with something that just won't work right, you can move on to something else and conveniently forget all about it.

SR2 is a mixed bag, with some very fun activities tempered by a shallow story and mediocre mechanics. But as a preview of SR3, it's served me well; while I don't expect the storytelling to improve at all, the engine must, based on what Volition was able to do in the newer Red Faction games. And if I can couple this game's violent playground activities with some sensible physics, I would be very, very pleased with it.

Better than: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, if you ignore the story completely
Not as good as: Grand Theft Auto IV, in any sense
Not necessarily a must-play for GTA fanatics: but bodes well for Saints Row: The Third, which might be

Progress: 77%, finished all 56 missions

Rating: Good