XB360 101: Saints Row 2
Review:
The Saints Row series is a clone of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto. Nonetheless, THQ did a great job making a fun game with the first Saints Row, and Saints Row 2 is a complete re-build of the entire game.
The first Saints Row was pretty glitch-y. You’d be driving along in a car, minding your own business, and the car would hit a curb and fly into the air several thousand feet. Or worse, the game would just lock up entirely. Saints Row 2 is much more stable. There are still a few glitches, but none really detract from the overall playability.
Despite being an obvious clone of Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row 2 offers a lot of unique and actually fun side-missions, unlike the pointless and half-finished side missions of Grand Theft Auto IV. My favorite: mayhem. Go to a specific district and blow stuff up as fast as you can (with unlimited ammo). Definitely a good stress buster!
Tips:
- Yes, there are cheat codes for this game. But if you’re playing the Xbox 360 version, the cheats disable the ability for you to earn achievement points, plus the game is actually pretty easy if you just play straight through it, so don’t bother with the cheat codes.
- Stop a taxi and write down the number on the side of the car. Enter it into your mobile phone at least once so that you can call a taxi. It saves a bunch of time to take a taxi across town instead of having to drive yourself. (Note: taxi’s aren’t available during most missions, though.)
- Spend the money you earn early and often on clothing and accessories. These increase your style ranking, and that increases the amount of respect you earn for side-missions. Once you earn enough respect (x60), you’ll have infinite respect, allowing you to retry the main story missions and strongholds without having to drain your respect meter.
- Buy the stores in the neighborhoods you control. They earn you extra money that you can collect at your hideout. Also, play all the stronghold missions as soon as they become available. This allows you to quickly extend the number of stores and neighborhoods earning you cash.
- The old car entry glitch from the original Saints Row still exists: jump on top of any car and press Y to enter the car immediately without having to throw the passenger out.
- Complete Snatch Level 6 (Downtown) in order to unlock the unlimited SMG ammo reward. This will make all the missions much easier. You can complete Snatch much easier if you hijack an FBI Bear vehicle. It can carry 4 passengers (including the driver), it has a top-mounted machine gun, and it’s nearly indestructible. To obtain an FBI Bear, raise your wanted level to 5 stars and look for the huge vehicles with the FBI lettering on the side. Jump in and toss it into your garage to keep it for later.