I have put in enough hours into Saint’s Row to finally write a few things about it. First of all, Saint’s Row is the only Xbox 360 game that I have bought new when it first came out. I paid $55, because I had a $5 off coupon at Best Buy. In my estimation, this is the only 360 title truly worth spending full price on. The game is essentially a next-gen high-definition clone of the Grand Theft Auto series, but it is a very well done clone, and it does offer some new things to the genre.
Make no mistake, this is a M rated game, for adults only. Please don’t let you kids play this game, it is extremely violent, has strong sexual themes, has lots of foul language, and the whole game is filled with criminal activities. You don’t want your kids imitating this. At all. As always, what age is responsible enough to play this game is dependent on the kids and the parents. I think anyone younger than 15 is probably too young but YMMV. The ESRB rates it for 18 and older only.
The basic goal of Saint’s Row is to increase the standing of your neighborhood gang, the 3rd Street Saints. The Saints are called that because their base of operations is an old abandoned church that is on 3rd street in the section of town called “the row”. The Saints are a mixed race gang, which is good, because with the very excellent character creation system for the game, you can make a character that is pretty much any color, any style, nearly anything you could want.
Saint’s Row has one of those facial morphing things that lets you change all kinds of things like how far the eyes are appart, the color of everything on your body (eyes, hair, skin, etc), a bajillion different hair styles, etc. If you want to make a character that looks like you, it’s probably doable with this face maker. During the game you have a lot of customization over wardrobe but you have to earn the cash to buy your hreads and some of them are excessively priced so for the really sweet looking styles you’re going to have to work your way up to them.
There is a story of a sort to this game, which you learn more about by completing missions. Most missions are blocked to you until you earn enough reputation points to unlock them. A lot of the missions and activities in Saint’s Row have a black humor to them. It’s funny, but in a sort of crude way. The radio stations also have a black satirical humor feel to them, much like they do in the GTA series. In addition to a fantastic soundtrack offered by the built in radio stations, Saint’s Row also lets you play playlists from music you have stored on the 360 hard drive.
Many missions will result in the Saints taking over more neighborhoods in the city. Controlling more neighborhoods will increase the amount of money going into the gang’s coffers. Sometimes rival gangs will try to re-take the neighborhoods you’ve already won, so you will have to go back to those neighborhoods and defeat the gangs that are invading it.
The controls for driving in Saint’s Row are extremely intuitive and work very well. It only took me five or ten minutes to get the hang of driving with the Xbox 360 controller. This is unlike GTA for PS2 which I never could get used to. The way you shoot out of vehicles works a lot better than GTA does, you can actually aim and shoot pretty much like normal, you don’t have to swith to some goofy side view mode and only be able to shoot out the sides. All in all the driving just feels right in this game. The streets also seem more realistic, especially the freeways which really did feel like driving on a freeway.
Saint’s Row has a lot of little touches that make an overall big impression. The water effects look amazing, with realistic reflections and wave patterns. Neon glow of the street light reflecting in the puddles of rain water, the rain effects feel realistic as well. Every building in the game looks unique. The city just feels alive, like a real city. The attention to detail of the artists and coders is amazing.
Sound effects and voice work in Saint’s Row are all exceptional. The game has a killer soundtrack which you hear by listening to the radios in your cars, much like GTA series. The cars all have a realistic sound to them. Weapons fire sounds good, and has that satisfactory feel to them. Wrecking and explosions all sound right. The rumble in the controller is put to good use here also.
While you’re out driving pedestrians will try to jump out of the way, cursing you as they do if you get too close to them. There are a finite number of character models used for the random pedestrians, but it’s a pretty big number because unlike in GTA games, you never see two identical pedestrians walking around in the same area. Even the cops that come when you start being bad will be unique. The AI is pretty good, also. Opponents will take cover if available, and will try to flank you so they can get you in a crossfire.
The gameplay revolves around story-focused missions, pick-up-anytime “activities”, and just freeform gameplay. Activities are kind of neat because you can do them over and over if you want and get more money if you need it. One of the early activities has you rounding up hos for a pimp that is sympathetic to the Saints’ cause. You drive around shooting rival “bad” pimps and getting their hos to go back with you to the ”good” pimp’s crib. If you need health you can eat food that you buy at the fast food joint “Freckle Bitches”. You get the food to go, but you can only carry four meals at a time with you. If you need ammo, head to “Friendly Fire” gun and ammo shop. Guns cost way more in Saint’s Row than they do in real life, but that is more of a game balance thing to prevent you from equipping extremely potent weaponry too early in the game. Your ride got all smashed up or you want to pimp it out? Visit the mechanics shops for repairs or lots of customization options.
A lot of activities and missions have you blowing up, stealing from, or otherwise killing rival gang members. While doing missions or in freeform mode when you kill a gang member your hostility meter with that gang goes up. The higher it gets, the more they come gunning for you when you’re in their turf. Same goes for the cops, which are essentially just another “gang” in this game except they also protect “neutrals”. You kill cops and that makes more cops come after you. Your hostility meters go down slowly over time if you stop killing rival gangs or cops. If you’re in a hurry to get them to zero, drive up to the nearest “Forgive and Forget” and for a donation they will put you back to zero on all hostility meters.
Several new-to-the-genre features in Saint’s Row eliminate much of the frustrating aspects of the Grand Theft Auto series. First of all, being killed, which is called getting “smoked” in Saint’s Row as opposed to “wasted” in GTA, puts you back at the nearest hospital and fails your mission. But you only lose some cash, your weapons are not taken away from you. Same thing with getting busted by the cops. You end up at the police station with some fines taken out of your cash, but you still get to keep your weaponry. This is pretty important because weapons cost money in SR instead of being power-ups like many of them are in GTA.Â
Another great feature is that if you fail a mission, it will ask you if you want to restart or just quit. If you say restart, it takes away any weapons or reputation points you earned, and puts you back to the point where the mission started automatically. But if you say quit you keep the weapons you found and any respect you earned, but you have to drive back yourself to the mission start point and restart it. This gives the players a choice so if they want to restart a failed mission more quickly, they just pay a little price for it and don’t have to spend a lot of time driving back to the starting point.
Another great new feature of Saint’s Row is the crib and the garage. You have cribs all around the map (but you start with just one). Your crib lets you change out your wardrobe. Your crib also has a garage, where you can store a bunch of cars. I’m not sure yet what the limit is but the starting crib will let you store at least 8 cars or so (which is about how many I have in mine now). You walk up to the hot spot next to the garage and it brings up a menu asking you which car you want to drive, then you select it and the garage door opens and that vehicle is waiting for you to take for a spin. Another really nice feature is that if you blow up or somehow lose your car, you can still get it back by going back to your garage. Blowed up cars cost some money to replace but you don’t have to go find a new one and re-customize it.
Saint’s Row also lets you save anywhere, anytime. No more having to run back to a hideout to save the game. You can save and quit and be on your merry way. When you load the game, however, you won’t be in exactly the position you were when you saved. For one thing, you will appear back on the map at the closest “save point” from where you were on the map when you saved. Additionaly, if you were driving a vehicle you won’t be in it anymore, you’ll be on foot. This is a minor inconvenience, and if you want to just stick with driving back to the crib to save you can do that, it’s got a save point there too.
In sum, Saint’s Row is a superb game, well worth your time if you enjoy “urban crime themed” games like the Grand Theft Auto series. The game has a different feel to GTA but it still feels and plays similar enough that fans of that series will feel right at home here. The difficulty level of SR is lower than the GTA series, so casual gamers will like this game better than they liked GTA. Keep this one away from the kiddies, however, it’s definitely too racy and too violent for the little ones. Saint’s Row is simply the best game for the 360 so far, go buy it, now!
Final Grade: A+, a must buy!
Update: Sony had this to say about the new 360 video downloads (