92. Saints Row 2

(PS3/360/PC, Volition, 2008)
Crime sims have been in abundance since GTA3 took the world by storm way back in 2001. Cemented by the insane success of GTA: Vice City, it was confirmed that anti-social drive and murder sims were the way to go, apparently FOREVER, as they still hit the shelves to this day, driving the tabloids mad and turning our children (who shouldn't be playing them) insane, but that's not our fault. Its those evil developers. Bastards.

Anywhoo, GTA clones suck, True Crime, 25 To Life etc are terrible carbon copies, usually lacking the style and dark humour of Rockstar's games and carrying a zip gun to GTA's grenade mounted M-60. THQ's Saints Row suffered the same problem.
Saints Row 2 however, is GLORIOUS. Taking the crime sim template (Vehicles, wanted rating, shopping, hyper violence, mission selection etc) SR2 ramps it up in the story department, providing a cast of brilliant characters with some of the best voice acting in game history.
Where SR2 really stands apart though, is in the customisation. You build your perp (or perpette) from scratch, building figure, colours, voice and even walk and idle animations. Theres a whole host of stores selling wide varieties of clothing and accessories so you truly get to build the character the way you want and can then customise your cars, hangouts and fellow gang members to follow a certain "style". For example, all your gang members dress 80's style and ride bikes, or all wear suits and drive limousines. This truly sets up the feeling of "your" gang, as it were.

The soundtrack is varied, with your usual blend of hiphop, bad metal and reggae but with an awesome classical radio station. There's nothing like driving full speed into an all out block war whilst playing Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" at full volume. The visuals are generally as to be expected from this type of game, the cut scene animation is great though, body language and facial expression come through really well.

There isn't enough room to do this game justice (maybe one day Ill give it its own seperate write up) SR2 has a great, over-the-top story about warring factions that isn't too "Gangsta, Yo" and goes almost the opposite way from the GTA series by being so ridiculous with the events that take place, it also has some really mean spirited scenes, but with this type of game it kinda comes with the territory. This is sociopathic carnage taken to an almost scientific level, there's even a "spray the family picnic with shit" side mission, which truly let me fulfil my lifelong hopes and dreams.

The long awaited GTAIV divided its audience, with some claiming it was too realistic and had characters that were beyond reprehension, others going as far to claim Rockstar had lost their edge. I wouldn't know about that, but, in my opinion, Saints Row is no longer a pretender to the current GTA universe, its now a legitimate threat.

Visit the city of Stilwater soon. You won't ever wanna leave, you might not get the choice.