Currently Playing: Saints Row

Regular readers will remember how much I enjoyed last years Saints Row 2. I managed to pick up the original game for £8 on eBay which, with the DLC for the sequel weighing in at 800 Microsoft points, I thought provided good value for money.

So what's it like? Well if Just Cause had been made by people who'd only heard about GTA then Saints Row has been made by people who've played GTA III to death. Then tried to make it less annoying in places.

It's obviously very similar to the second game. Graphically it looks almost identical although the city of Stillwater is less refined. In fact that's pretty much the mantra for the earlier game as you'd maybe expect. There's no motorbikes or planes to fly. There's no cruise control, Almost unforgivably you can't configure the triggers on the pad for accelerate and brake, You can still create your own wanna be gangster but you can't be a female.

Most annoyingly for me there's no mid mission check points either. You can still carry up to four items of food and your health recharges if you can stay out of the action for a bit but die anyway during one of the more complex missions and it's back to the beginning. It's a step above GTA though. You get the option to start the mission again in exactly the same shape as you did originally. You get all your ammo and guns back, Any AI hommies you'd picked up and vehicles are all put back as they where. No annoying trips to the hospital to or reloading which at least keeps frustration to a minimum.

Overall then another enjoyable romp.