Hands on Preview. (Single Player)
It would be impossible to preview Saints Row without mentioning Grand Theft Auto which has continually set the bar in the crime based, free roaming action genre. Many developers have tried but none to date have succeeded in reproducing either a game of equal stature or success.
The biggest and most notable difference between Saints Row and the GTA series is the inclusion of multiplayer modes (see hands on preview here) where players are able to form gangs (clans) and take them online in a variety of game types including gangsta brawl, blinged out ride, protect tha pimp and big ass chains for some worldwide gang banging along with a more traditional co-op mode.
Saints Row commences by allowing players to create their own in game character using an extensive character creation tool which is very similar to that seen in many titles such as the Tiger Woods series and more recently The Godfather. Whilst wondering the streets of Stilwater, you are approached by a lady of the night and whilst she makes you an offer you can’t refuse you observe the notorious Vice Kings gang tagging (spray painting) over The Westside Rollerz (a rival gangs tag). The Rollerz suddenly roll up on the scene and trouble commences with the rival gangs naturally coming to blows. During the mayhem the Los Carnales gang drive by and let fly their projectile message to the other gangs. In the ensuing confusion and gunfire your character is Sent flying to the ground by the Los Carnales gang trying to flee the scene. Once you awaken you witness Julius (voiced by Keith David) the leader of the 3rd Street Saints and one of his homies, stroll into the battlefield and gun down the various remaining gang members. Well this is a great introduction to life on the streets and so, welcome to Stilwater, a city filled with hate, vengeance, larceny, fraud, pimping and murder and of course those ladies of the night with such tempting offers!
Once things calm down and your character regains his composure, Julius introduces himself and offers you the opportunity to join the 3rd Street Saints. This is where the only pre-scripted event ends and you are free to roam around Stilwater although you are not able to engage in any of the multitude of different activities or missions until you join the 3rd Street Saints. In fact players could play for hours on end prior to joining the Saints if they so choose to. Once you do decide to join the Saints and following a small initiation process you are free to do what you want when they want to do it. You are able to drive from one end of Stilwater to the other and never see a loading screen in fact the only time there are any loading screens seen in Saints Row is when you select a mission which will be introduced by a cut scene.
Driving in Saints Row is the obvious form of transport although you are able to catch the metro train if you choose, each of the vehicles which can range from a small compact, to and artic lorry or even an earth moving digger are unique in terms of both speed and handling, some are fast, some are slow, some handle well and others don’t and some offer a nice balance between speed and handling. The vast majority of vehicles in Saints Row are fully customizable, drive down to any of the local garages and you are able customize not only your paint job, wheels, bumpers, bonnets, roofs, spoilers add performance exhausts, nitros, hydraulics and tint your windows making for literally thousands and thousands of possible combinations of vehicle available.
Stilwater is a living breathing city with people actually going about their everyday business, whilst driving around you can and will encounter rival gang and police shoot outs and all manor of other random events. On one occasion I turned a corner to witness a cars crash involving two cars, which in turn caused a very natural traffic jam, as the police arrived on the scene events took a dramatic turn as the neighborhood gang opened fire on the police. One thing to note is, just because you hear the police sirens it doesn’t always mean they are after you as they could be attending any number of different crimes. There are other non scripted events such as people leaping from the pavement in front of your speeding car, or even pedestrians wandering the streets stumbling over their own shoe laces are not uncommon but these such events are not encountered so commonly that they become repetitive.
Stilwater is also a city which never sleeps, as night falls you will notice fewer civilians yet encounter a more seedy nature of character such as pimps, drug dealers and prostitutes. Along with the seedier characters at night the city level of crime activity rises and naturally with the higher levels of crime the police resources are stretched further and therefore this is an ideal opportunity for you to engage in any number of illegal activities available.
Visually the game is set in the fictional city of Stilwater which has seen better days, a mid western city something in the style of Detroit or Chicargo. Each of the city’s neighborhoods offers a distinctive look and feel from the slums of Sunnyvale Gardens, oriental splendor of China Town to the riches of the modern glass and steel downtown areas. Graphically speaking some of the locations are a little on the bland side and I never experienced a moment where I sat back and thought “wow that looks amazing”, generally speaking there are some very nice touches such as the dynamic lighting system that lights the whole Saints Row world in real time and casts realistic shadows over everything but what does really bring the game to life is the developers use of the Havoc game engine. The physics are excellent, as an example when you see the metro train take out your rocket launcher and derail the train with significant ease.
Saints Row features 13 radio stations each with there own unique vibe and feel. The many various news bulletins will change according to the goings on in the city so for example if you’re playing a lot of hitman or hijacking activities the new bulletins will warn the Stilwater residents accordingly. You also will hear advertisements such as a clothes sale where you will be able to go to the shop and bling out your clothes whilst taking advantage of the advertised sale. Changing your appearance with different clothes, tattoos or jewelry can also either increase or decrease your respect modifier, your respect modifier allows you to achieve a respect bonus when completing any activities.
Once players decide to take the plunge and join the 3rd Street Saints your character is now able to undertake any of the game activities or open missions. There are a total of 36 missions, which are unlocked as you raise your respect within the Saints gang. Each of the missions can be completed in any order as and when you decide so for example you could run around the city freely doing any of the various activities raising your respect and eventually every mission will be open and you can pick and choose which if any you want to do. Raising your respect is achieved by a verity of methods such as completing any of the pre-determined activities, which includes things such as Loan Shark, Hitman, Drug Trafficking, Demolition Derby, Insurance Fraud, Snatch, Escort, Racing and Chop Shop to name a few. These are featured numerous times in different locations throughout Stilwater and each offers 8 different levels of difficulty which all in all totals a vast number of activities for you to undertake and use to raise your level of respect within the 3rd Street Saints.
Further to the methods of raising your respect are things such as hold up’s where you hold up one of the many business’s. To conduct a hold up, enter the business and point your gun reticule at the attendant, with your reticule on the attendant they will proceed to lead you to the safe where you will be rewarded with both cash and respect. Another method and one which I personally enjoy is to carjack a passing vehicle which providing it has passengers you are able to take hostage, Basically with varying levels of difficulty dependent on the available ransom which is based on the passengers and vehicle worth you need to drive the car as fast as possible and evade the police in the process, slow down or stop for too long and your hostages will escape and you get nothing, drive fast enough for long enough and you not only get paid cold hard cash but also gain further respect.
Finally there is tagging, tagging as it may imply involves finding the locations of rival gang’s tags, complete the tagging challenge which involve a number of pre-determined combination of button and joystick movement sequence and you will replace the rival gangs tag with your own. There are 25 tags for each gang hidden in the various neighborhoods which are controlled by the rival gangs, complete a tag and your notoriety with the rival gang will rise as will your respect within the Saints.
Your notoriety with both rival gangs and with the local law enforcement is displayed on the heads up display. Police notoriety is a measure of how actively the police are trying to stop you and gang notoriety is a measure of how actively any of the rival gangs are hunting you down. Whenever you kill a police officer or civilian, your police notoriety will rise; it will also rise if you collide with a police vehicle or conduct any number of illegal activities. As your notoriety rises the police response increases until eventually you will have police helicopters, FBI and SWAT teams trying to bring you to justice. Your Gang notoriety is very similar other than instead of the police response it will be the rival gangs that respond. In both cases five stars is the highest notoriety, to lower your notoriety you will need to avoid all contact with either the rival gang or police. You can do this in many ways such as being able to swim out in to the harbor and wait or to simply use one of the forgive and forget confessionals which are located at various spots around Stilwater. Confessionals enable you to pay to lose your police and rival gang notoriety, depending on the levels of notoriety will determine the level of payment required.
As you complete missions and activities you will become more renowned within the 3rd Street Saints and able to recruit homies to aid you. To use a homie you simply call them up using your cell phone and they will follow you wherever you go. Once recruited a homie will attack enemies and engage in combat according to the current situation, a wheel woman homie is the only exception as will always drive the vehicle allowing you to ride shotgun in turret mode. You can also recruit a homie if you stand in front of a gang member and press up on the dpad, you can only have a maximum of 3 followers at any time and once recruited the homies health is displayed on the hud. The homies well being is your responsibility, if a homie is killed at any time you will need to revive them within 30 seconds, this is done by walking up to there body and pressing Y.
Each of the three rival gangs has a unique look and involvement in the criminal underworld. The Vice Kings are a mafia style big business and run by Benjamin King (voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan) who is a typical gangster and rules his gang with an iron fist. He doesn’t take any crap from anybody. Hector Lopez (voiced by Joaquim de Almeida) is in charge of the Los Carnales which is predominantly a Hispanic gang who are involved heavily with drug trafficking with the Columbians and finally The West Side Rollerz are run by Vincent Price and primarily a fast and furious gang involved in street racing & car theft.
Taking back Stilwater will not be any easy task for players with each of these rival gangs having a strong foothold throughout the city and controlling multiple neighborhoods. Each mission will enable your gang to take control of one of the various neighborhoods accordingly, however as well as the various missions you will also have to take control of your rival gangs strongholds located within certain neighborhoods. These strongholds are, as the name implies, heavily guarded and will require some serious fire power to overcome and take control of. The missions themselves are generally straight out of the GTA mould and involve you escorting someone or something, blowing up things, killing rival gang members, driving, shooting and even hijacking. Each mission is relevant to the rival gangs activities so for example in one mission I had to intercept a car transporter shipping high performance rides destined for The West Side Rollerz, once intercepted I had to take the truck to a specific location where the cars were loaded with a little surprise for the rollerz. Naturally the truck was under escort by and The Rollerz who had no intention of letting me jack there rides making for some fun moments.
Once you complete a mission and take control of a neighborhood there is always a chance that it’s previous owners will try to take it back, this is called a pushback. In a pushback situation you will receive a phone call from a Saint informing you which neighborhood is under attack, you must then race to the neighborhood in question and assist the Saints in resisting the opposing gangs advances. In order to maintain control of a neighborhood you must kill the opposing gangs lieutenants, these are marked on the mini map and also indicated in game by big red arrow directly above them.
Overall from the time I’ve had with Saints Row I can’t wait to get my hands on the final game. Saints Row will no doubt be classed as yet another GTA clone which is a fair enough comment considering but what developers Volition have managed to do is recreate a game equal in fun and enjoyment to the mighty GTA which no others have previously managed. Saints is a solid game that not only looks good but also plays great, it’s fun, it’s addictive whilst offering open ended and freeform gameplay where players can do as they please when they please and all without a single loading screen.
Preview By: Ade
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