Only two days ago did I procure the Grand Theft Auto clone Saints Row 2, but I already feel the need to write about it.

Yes Saints Row is a GTA clone, but that does not mean its creators should be ashamed of it. Clone just mean someone took a good idea and build on it. That’s called innovation and if people refrained from cloning and improving good ideas then we would still be driving around in Ford model T’s.

Now, let’s take a look at this game from the perspective of its most likely user: a GTA IV player who’s looking for even more goodies from a sandbox game.

The first and biggest change from GTA is the player customization witch we are presented to after barely a few second of play. The user has the possibility of choosing a basic template with few variables like gender, race and can chose to customized it to a degree comparable to a mix of City of Heroes/Villains and Elder Scrolls Oblivion: from cheekbone size to your underwear color, to an incredible choice of bling to a cool selection of tattoos, you can modify everything you wish and end up with a playable character of your choice (I so far created clones of Chuck Norris and Revy Twohand from Black lagoon). The only potential downside to this is that, since you can end up with pretty much anything, the character has nearly no depth. But since no one I know ever gave a frak about the poor Slavic ex-soldier in GTA, I don’t think were missing anything here. this is not a RPG, this is a sandbox game.

What about the learning curve then? Someone (like me) coming straight from GTA IV has some quick adjustments to make. The driving and combat settings as you begin are quite different from its Liberty City counterpart but you can easily modify the game controls to make it (almost) like GTA IV. I say nearly since the driving settings don’t let you put the handbrake at the same place (you instead end up looking backward, which can cause epic crashes when done smack at the wrong moment) and that the reload button that you are used to changes your weapons instead, witch in turn can hurt your health meter.

Now what about this innovation I was talking about? Aside from the character (extensive) customization there are several improvements compared to its Rockstar master mold. First and foremost, the health meter: you can get hurt quite a bit more than GTA before getting killed and since your HP bar goes back up over time, you don’t spend half your time running after food or bullet-proof vests. Also I found driving a lot easier, the hand break can easily be used to cut corners instead of catapulting you to another planet if you as much as look at it. The diversions are great and the wacky radio stations are also present but much improved. If you ever wanted a game where you drive around a hooker and her customers around at 100 mph while listening to 80s music or spaying around septic wastes on the airs of Bach then this game is a must for you.

Also, as with the character clothes and appearances, you can customize the look of your safe houses (oh wait, they’re called cribs here), gang and cars. This is a lot of fun and even if, after a few minutes, you realize you kinda playing a dress-up game you can get your testosterones back by customizing your car into a classic 70’s pimp-mobile.

Another great improvement that it keeps statistic and rewards you for doing fun things: want to drive on the wrong side of the road? It keeps records of it, same for the near miss. Had fun sniping the groins of your targets in Liberty City? Here it keeps a record of how often you did it and gives you respect rewards for it. Streaking around naked to shock people? Did that! You can bring NPCs (homies) with you around in missions and you can SAVE ANYTIME YOU WANT. No more running back to the damn safe house just to be able to save your progress. Add to this a plethora of very short missions/diversions and you end up with the same thing Blizzard (World of Warcraft) understood over SOE (EverQuest): people like to be able to play ‘just a few minutes’ and still see progress and improvement, I no longer have to leave the game on pause for a few hours because I wanted to play just a bit during my dinner break and could not find a save spot in time before I had to leave for work.

The downsides? Well to be honest I haven’t found many. The lack of a Like in GTA setting for the controller is one. Also police stars are a lot harder to lose, in fact I haven’t figured that out yet.

Conclusion: The game is great, with far less frustration (and cousins) than its Rockstar counterpart and, most importantly, is loaded with so much fun that I’m surprised the DVD is not leaking some of it on the floor. The colors are vivid (a great change from the brownness realistic games seems to enjoy lately. If it keeps delivering like it did so far, it will be a serious contender for my Best Console Game Eva’ award.

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