Saints Row 2 (Xbox 360)

Your player character has also been keyed into these, try leaving them on a dance floor for an extended period of time. Or outside a shop, you’ll find the system will pick a nearby Action Node and you can watch your avatar performing the same action. It’s almost a mini-game in itself as you experiment to see how many ambient actions you can find. There are other animations keyed to objects, stripper poles, bar stools and many more. Then there are the character interactions, the npc’s move around Stillwater and do their own thing. Simply put, the animations might not be Euphoria but they are still proof that traditional animation methods when synched to a designer’s code are not to be sneezed at.

The AI has a few issues now and then with pathing, mostly in terms of getting stuck behind something or being knocked down into an inaccessible area when they are struck by a fast moving vehicle. This again is negligible since it happens in many games, including the current sandbox king GTA IV. Overall, AI will use relatively sneaky tactics, react to hostage situations (Police and gang members) differently and use a variety of moves in combat from gun attacks, sword, knife attacks and taking human shields when they can.

It’s just fun to start a small fight off and watch what the overall reaction is.

There are numerous hand to hand combos that your player can perform, on the left and right triggers, with context sensitive actions tied in. These are also available to the gang member’s npcs and police. It is quite amusing to watch a cop take a ganger hostage and then hurl him at into the path of a speeding car for instance. Or a cop putting the boot into a male ganger’s groin and seeing the guy curl up in pain before the cop puts a beatdown onto him with a nightstick.

The sound design in the game is excellent, with numerous spot effects for road workers, streetwalkers, ambient sounds, nightclubs and more. Then there’s the soundtrack, a vibrant mix of different genres from the in-game radios and other sources, 80’s tracks on The Mix can be enjoyed if you’re a fan of Ah-Ha and Duran Duran, Tears for Fears and many more. The dialogue is performed with style by veteran voice actors, like likes of Michael Dorn (Worf from Star Trek, or I am Weasel) combine with the talent from the original game, Troy is back, Gat is back, and a few other names I won’t go into since it’s a heavy spoiler. There’s also a slew of amusing comments heard on the street and in cars as they whip past, if you stop and listen to Stillwater you can hear a lot.

The city changes too from day and night, growing darker and more forbidding in the night time hours in terms of audio. There’s an eerie emptiness about it that really gets to you if you’re on foot in some of the areas, then there are other areas populated by pimps and ho’s that are very much alive with bawdy dialogue. It is these touches that propel the game into the Editor’s Choice here at games xtreme and it deserves the score purely from these aspects alone.

Then of course there’s the multiplayer, adversarial and team based game-types are available and there are variants of the various activities that take place on the maps. You can get pretty overwhelmed at first with the sheer choice, from stealing ho’s from other gang members, to riding around and just smokin’ rival crews. It builds in a way on GTA IV and the original SR multiplayer and then adds a whole lot more. I could do a massive review on just the mp component of this game. It’s more than I have actually got time allocated for. Suffice it to say that it’s worth hitting up the tutorial in the game and learning about these modes before you jump in.

The sense of humour from the sp game goes into the mp and also more importantly, the sense of fun. There’s no way to describe this apart from the fact that it’s a veritable blast to play from start to end, howling with laughter as a rival ganger unleashes a rocket into your car and catapults you into the air only to die as the wreckage of the vehicle lands on his head. Or running up to someone with the mighty pimp slap and giving them a welcome tickle!

You can’t go far wrong for both sp and mp here.

SR2 is a massive game, its massive fun and more importantly it has reams of staying power. With unlockables galore, collectible cd-tracks for your own music player in game and secrets to find, the game really has no end in terms of replay-ability. I can’t see myself turning my back on this title at all. It just goes to show that sequels can be better than the original and SR2 is no exception. Ignore the moral majority and if you qualify for the age rating, get yourself down to Stillwater for some serious mayhem.