Saint's Row 2

this gonna be like GTAIV but actually fun?

It seems to getting surprisingly good reviews, but I'm still extremely skeptical. Played a couple of hours of the first one, but found it pretty poor, uninteresting, clunky, ugly, unfun and promptly traded it back in.

looks like GTA with an even worse sense of humor

yes

but it also looks actually fun... you can interact with shit and dress up your character like a hot dog, as opposed to gta 4's dumb self-seriousness and complete lack of depth beyond going on dates with whiny gangsters

gta 4's dumb self-seriousness

?????

i dunno, i felt like it sacrificed depth/fun to tell an important immigrant story. also, four clothing stores and two are the same? what's up with that!!

buy a Barbie whydoncha

Jeff OTM

I don't think San Andreas would have been nearly as fun if CJ wasn't a fat guy in a suit with a high top fade.

LOOKIT ALL THAT HELVETICA IT MUST BE GOOD!

except it's not even helvetica huh :(

gushing on the EG forums
http://www.eurogamer.net/forum_thread_posts.php?thread_id=112025&start=330

9/10 from EG, 5/10 from EDGE

sorely tempted to pick this up; it sounds fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun in a way that GTA4 just wasn't

It is fun. The crappy gfx/engine kind of hurt after gta, but it is way more fun to just be in. I just turn it on to fuck around and play side missions for a half-hour, which I NEVER do with GTA4.

this game is a lot of fun and there is LOADS to do and see in it; lots of unlockables and they seem to be spread out really evenly, so you the game has a nice feeling of progression

the game engine looks the same as the one they used in SR1 and it is creaky as all hell; srsly last gen and buggy as all hell, e.g.

http://img.skitch.com/20081022-37f1651fj4nn8afm8fdi59gmb.jpg

http://img.skitch.com/20081022-tw5pf7yfknna1dwbdbxeiekiuu.jpg

the worst thing is the game hard crashes randomly and often - I've had 6 in 20 hours of play, after having my xbox for 2/3 years no game has ever hard crashed on me before now

BUT despite this it is very addictive and very fun and very recommended! it seems like the spiritual successor to the PS2 GTA games: not as beautiful or well crafter as rockstar's latest outing but the city's a lot more entertaining to just piss about in

oh, wrong login

the missions are great too, and quite novel by turns

in as much as games like GTA fell like playing with action figures, I always felt Saints Row felt like playing with crappy action figures that weren't as well painted, detailed or articulated as Gi Joes... Haven't played the sequel yet, but I'm imagining a grindhouse version of GTAIV, containing a lot of the fun exploitation stuff missing from the latest iteration, but also missing its sophistication. Saint's Row 1 actually bummed me out when I played it: it seemed nasty to a depth that GTA rarely dipped. I missed whatever surface morality lingered in the games - like, in Saint's Row, your character seemed like one of the NPCs in a GTA game you were suggested to find faintly reprehensible.

it is quite a nasty and hateful game and it has less charm or beauty than GTAIV but consequently it's also less emo

interactive map

it's also just one big barbie simulator: I've spent most of my time dressing up my little dude and pimping my cars

I find it so hard to recommend this game because it's broken - it shouldn't have been released, it's awful. As well as the crap outlined above, I've had players disappear, cars disappear, people and cars fall out of the sky, you name it. But but but it is such a great little game and I can totally understand why EG gave it its 9/10, while I can equally understand EDGE's 5/10. You shouldn't buy it right now, but you should definitely keep track of whether it's being patched and grab it used.

lol@destructoid review

I had no interest in this game until this thread and especially Ryan Davis's recap of it on the Giant Bombcast. How would you compare the ridiculousness here to, say, No More Heroes?

watch webinar's link there to see one bit of the ridiculousness

It's not quite as mean as I felt the first one was, just because it's SO RETARDEDLY SILLY. Like when you're busting your friend out of the trial and have to kill all the security guards, and then the judge rushes out with a pump-action shotgun. Or those cop missions which are like "these factory workers are protesting unsafe working conditions! take this chainsaw and go kill them!"

"Like when you're busting your friend out of the trial and have to kill all the security guards, and then the judge rushes out with a pump-action shotgun."

lol, brian nichols: the game

Edge seemed to basically hate this entirely on moral grounds, interestingly

It's really weird to hear people complaining about this game's morality. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've murdered some poor random stranger in GTA in the most heartless, evil way. What makes it any worse?

^^^^ This is actually why I don't play GTA and why I'll never play this.

I find that to a very sensible way of thinking, just not one I share.

I find video game violence hard to take unless it's cartoonish, and GTA has not benefited from its increasing move toward realism.

-to

I played this for a bit. I made an obese latina protagonist, dressed her in granny panties and an ill-fitting bra, and turned on a lot of cheats. I made it so that it rained people, and turned on the cheat that made bodies ascend to heaven once they died. So constantly people would splat to the ground and then immediately rise back up into the sky. This game is bizarre, very cheaply made, and hilarious.

is it still as broken as reviews said?

I find video game violence hard to take unless it's cartoonish, and GTA has not benefited from its increasing move toward realism.

but now it's a hellishly more difficult to get away with murdering random strangers in GTA, which runs parallel with it's move toward realism. Also if you've played it you'll notice in IV that you almost never kill someone, they will appear to have died by giving up their money and weapon but if you watch closely they get up and hobble off.

Of course I'm not saying the game isn't still violent, but definitely that Rockstar have shown at least some compassion in the latest game.

The violence is not the attraction for me in GTA games, it's the open ended explorathon that does it, the stunning graphics and attention to detail.

80% of my (400 hours) time has been spent searching for pigeons. The rest has been the storyline and enjoying crashing vehicles around, but watching things explode is always cool and nobody has to die.

I'm pretty sure that the dude I shot in the head fifty times in GTA4 didn't get up and walk away.

stevie, I'm not sure what the reviews said, but it is certainly poorly made.

fun tho eh?

It's good for an insane cheap thrill, but I'm not convinced I'd still be playing it after 5 hours.

I'm pretty sure that the dude I shot in the head fifty times in GTA4 didn't get up and walk away.

you miss my point, if you attack someone until they give up their 'wares' and they no longer function in the game so to speak they will still not be dead. Yes you can repeatedly hurt someone until they do actually give it up, but that's up to you.

I guess I never noticed that because I was too busy stabbing people until the circumference of the blood pool completely enveloped their bodies.

um the raining pedestrians cheat is a bit fkd up

Isn't it?

was getting weird WTC vibes when playing some co-op w/my li'l bro o_O

I mean, srs o_O

Huh, I didn't even think about that. I guess I forgot to Never Forget.

got this as an unexpected gift, and it's fucking awesome! ok yeah we eventually turned on cheats and used the grenade launcher to blow the subway train off the tracks (+ raining people) but the missions are actually fun instead of gritty and difficult as in GTA4. So far (and I'm just a few hours in) it's been hard to die, unlike in GTA4 where it's hard not to die and have to try the same boring mission twenty fucking times.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/12/14/the-games-of-christmas-december-14th/

Totally right. Too bad the PC port was so sloppy, but after mapping the controls properly to a PS2 controller and tuning the video settings properly, I got over it. Way over it.

(raining pedestrians? hmm i should try that... i never play these games w/cheats)

The co-op is also nicely handled, I think definitely a major evolution in the genre that isn't brought up enough. It's drop-in at any time, and every story mission can be done with it.

(also, there shouldn't be an an apostrophe in the thread title, it fools those searching for the real title)

take it to the demon's souls thread hater

No mercy for apostrophe abuse! Leaving it out is always better!

http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/8/830/U52Y000Z/two-weeks-notice.jpg

bought this cheap, tons of fun so far - cant help but assume that the mime makeup option was for all them wicked ninja juggalos and juggalettes which kept me from using it even though i wanted to.

I finally got this, and have been playing it all evening.

Lots to do, can't deny that and some really good gameplay. BUT how did they manage to fuck up the driving, it's sooo painful.

It's a real shame because everything else in this is great, maybe the graphics could have been stronger as well.