Saint's Row 2 > GTA IV

Yes, it's true. I rate Saint's Row 2 above GTA IV. In theory, it should be a worse game by far. The original Saint's Row was a joke compared to San Andreas. It looked and felt like a game for a previous generation machine, and tried so hard to outdo the classic GTA humour and entertainment.

But then GTA IV came out and as I've said before, it took the classic GTA format and stripped it of the ironic sense of humour and parody and the many many things you could do other than the main missions. Instead of the glorious world of San Andreas where you could do almost anything, it went all serious and 'realistic'. Saint's Row 2 is fairly similar to the first one, but it's got more fun to it than GTA IV.



I've just spent a few hours playing Saint's Row 2 in co-op with Will. We found many hilarious things. Charging around naked and streaking was a good start, followed by attempts to land planes and helicopters on the tallest building, before parachuting down off it. Ramming petrol stations at top speed with one player surfing on the car roof caused some interesting results. Then we used the pratfalls cheat in various hilarious ways before triggering wars between gangs and police with inevitable chaotic results.


After dressing my male character up in fishnet tights and a fetching dress, and Will's ambiguous fat character in a suitably bizarre outfit, we found a huge hill to throw cars and ourselves off with various results.



And of course, it wouldn't be Saint's Row without the glitches that pop up every now and again, usually with entertaining results. This guy was stuck in the side of the car for quite some time.

But this is what I miss from GTA IV. All the fun stuff that you can do while not doing the main missions. I have done some of the missions in Saint's Row 2 and they weren't too bad, although the whole gangsta thing the game is built round is quite irritating. The cut scenes are made far more entertaining if your character is naked though.