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.

Round up of the Year - Part 3.

So here it is.. the big one. Apologies for being so late. I was trying to spend as much time with the big hitters as I could before making my judgement. I've managed to polish off a couple as you can see below and I've been trying to work up enthusiasm to play Little Big Planet. But at the moment I can't. Which probably says it's not going to be my GOTY.

So what is. Well not GTA IV. It's a good game but for me hasn't moved on enough. It's still basically the same game we've been playing since three and where were all the exciting missions?

Saints Row 2 was the surprise of the year and almost clinched it. Yes the production values are a lot lower than GTA IV but it's far more fun. There's checkpoints, there's recharging health, there's full co-op play. Almost everything is big dumb fun from start to finish.. But it's a little derivative and the gang/bling culture thing is a little off putting (Although you can pretty much ignore it).

For me the game that I enjoyed the most and sucked me into an awesome world of possibilty and depth was Fallout 3. I've already written plenty about it so I wont repeat myself here. Suffice to say it's an awesome achievement.

A look ahead to Quarter 4 - Part 4

So having broken down the purchase choices into three well thought out list it's not actually working out to plan.

We started off so well.. Bought Saints Row 2 as advertised and completed it the same week (give or take a day). But that's when things started to fall apart. Little Big Planet was delayed... and while it's still on my list it's now moved down to the second, cheap in the new year list, because I'm just not going to have the time to dedicate it too at the moment. Then I got all excited about Fallout 3 and bought it despite it being on list two..

Now I've cancelled my pre-order for Banjo & Kazooie because Eurogamer only gave it 7 and so now I'll have to see what EDGE give it. As I said I'm not a rabid Rare fan and was only excited about it cos it seemed like it was going to be brilliant and it seems it just isn't. So I've rushed out today and bought Gears of War 2. Cos.. well everyones playing it and I don't want to miss out on all the possible multi-player, co-op fun. I know.. Very shallow.

So what have we learnt? Lists are for geeks..

The "Complete" List

John Woo Presents Stranglehold
Portal
Test Drive: Unlimited ( ALL Gold in the SP challenges.)
Loco Roco*
The Darkness (Easy)
Lost: Via Domus
LEGO Indiana Jones - The Original Adventures (Story Mode)
Battlefield: Bad Company (Easy) & (Normal)
Ratchet & Clank : Quest for Booty
God of War: Chains of Olympus
Tiger Woods 2009
Haze
Saints Row 2

It's been a pretty rubbish year for completing games for me this year. There's been a lot of games I've put a lot of time into and haven't had the enthusiasm/skill for the final push to completion and some of the games I've completed (TD:U and Portal)where kind of hung over from last year. Still I hope to make a decent final push in the last two months.

What can I say about Saints Row 2? I started off saying it wasn't a GTA IV beater.. And in some ways I probably wasn't wrong. Rockstars effort has more polish, better characters (If there was an award for supporting character of the year Packie would win it every time) better physics, better car handling and although it's not quite so cut and dried probably the more memorable missions (certainly the HEAT copying mission and the funeral where gaming highlights of the year) but in almost every way that counts Saints Row 2 is the superior game.

Most Importantly it's heaps more fun. The co-op is fantastic. Being the crime lord is much more fun than working for them. The gun combat (despite not having any cover) is far more fun. The side missions are far more fun. The locations are nearly always better, The character customisation is brilliant, It has checkpoints, it has recovering health... There's far less frustration and there's much more interesting stuff to do.

Suffice to say I had a blast all the way through. Everything you'd like to try it not only let's you do but will probably reward you for doing. I've spent nearly 30 hours on it in just under a week. Who couldn't love a game that let's you do nearly everything wearing nipple tassles, a g string and a pair of high heels?

A strong contender at this point (with a whole heap of big titles to come) for GOTY

First Look @ Saints Row 2

Well on first impressions it's no GTA IV beater. Obviously visuals aren't everything but man.. It's like I'd switched on my XBOX again. Still the opening sequence was amusing (A reference to dead R'n'B star knocking out records from beyond the grave made me chuckle and pretty much sets the standard) and you're soon on to a rather detailed character creation screen. Here you can spend as much or as little time (you can randomise most of it) as you want perfecting your character. I went with a Brandon Lee in The Crow crossed with Arnie in his prime and a dash of skater chick vibe. Obviously she looks ridiculous.

The game then get's underway and your off to reclaim the streets. The game itself while fairly robust (it didn't crash at least) is rather glitchy with NPC's popping in and out of cars and walls and the AI is terrible. One mission saw me being driven by an NPC into every pylon and wall we came across.. Still the controls are solid as is the action with a nice Resi 4 style over the shoulder 'zoom' for better aiming and a reasonable selection of weapons even early on. So far so average.

What lifted the game a 100% for me was when I invited a friend in for some co-op carnage. We started with some of the side missions (annoyingly you need to do enough of these to earn story missions). The first such mission was basically trying to create a set amount of carnage in a neighbourhood and was hilarious with the pair of us blowing up and shooting everything in sight. It works very well and there wasn't any lag. Voice communication was solid and we could drive together (one drives, one shoots) and soon got on to some missions proper. It's an awful lot of fun.

A look ahead to Quarter 4

Anyone whose been keeping an eye on the games market will know that the coming next couple of months are when all the publishers release their big hitters in search of our christmas cash. Even by regular standards I think we can safely say it's a bit packed. Last year I bought nearly everything I wanted on release and rushed through them ready for the next.. This year it's too packed too even attempt that so, for your reading pleasure, I've divided them into three lists..

1, Purchase on Release

These are the one's I'll either be pre-ordering or picking up at my local game emporium.

SAINTS ROW 2

The first to blink and out of the traps on Friday. I didn't play the first game and I'm not overly keen on the bling/wanna be gangster angle. However, I'm liking the look of the gameplay. It seems to have more of the scope of San Andreas as opposed to the slightly disappointing, for me anyway, realistic nature of GTA:IV. The co-op angle also sounds fun.

LITTLE BIG PLANET

Obviously I've been following this with interest for many months. Is it going to turn around PS3's fortunes? I don't think so (but that's probably a topic for another post). Is it going to be huge amounts of 2D platforming fun? Certainly looks that way with all the reviews and previews complimenting the content on the disc. Will I be making anything myself? Probably not. Mostly I'm looking forward to seeing the imaginitive content that I think the great unwashed (Yes you at the back!) come up with.. Hopefully there'll be plenty of life in it.

BANJO & KAZOOIE: Nuts & Bolts

Never played a B&K game before but I love 3d platformers and this looks like Rare have finally made something I'm interested in. The chance to construct vehicles and perform challenges is an original concept. I'm also going to pre-order this from Play to get the download code for the original game. With the way our postie delivers it probably wont arrive for a few days after release leaving room nicely for..

MIRRORS EDGE

In a sequel packed release schedule it's another new IP that makes the essential purchase list for me. Not only did I win a Mirrors Edge T shirt but I've been following it with interest. I love the clean fresh look of the game and I really hope it pulls off the feat of making a fast free moving action game.

TOMB RAIDER: UNDERWORLD

Loved (and I mean totally *hearted*) the PS one games. The Crystal Dynamics games have been going in the right direction but this one really looks live they've captured the magic of the early games.. Looking forward to getting lost for hours in huge levels and complex puzzles. Oh and staring at that lovingly recreated Croft ass.

PRINCE OF PERSIA

Another sequel but with it being a re-imagining of the franchise I'm hoping for something more intune with Sands of Time with the joy of movement and being amazed at what you can do with the Prince rather than the sort of Emo Prince of the latter sequels..

So that's the six essential pre-christmas purchases.. Stay tuned for the next two lists