Playing Saints Row will have people asking you if you are playing Grand Theft Auto. The game is obviously very identical to the GTA series. I hate comparing a game to GTA just because it is open ended but this is very much GTA. This isn't that much of a bad thing since us next-gen gamers are currently left without a GTA. And Saints Row is definitely a next-gen title.
One of the big things that separates Saints Row from Grand Theft Auto is right at the start. You are able to create your main character. After creating your character, you can further customize him by visiting clothing shops, hair salons, tattoo parlors and jewelry stores. And if you become dissatisfied with the general look, you can get plastic surgery. Even the additional customization has further possibilities by choosing things like which finger to put a ring on or to have your jacket zipped up or unzipped. If you love customizing characters, Saints Row will have you playing for hours as you try to rack up the money for the high-end stores.
One thing missing from Saints Row that I'd like to have seen are some motorcycles. Otherwise, there are plenty of fake vehicles modeled after real cars. And to further make things more varied in the Saints Row world, there are a lot of paint options, mimicking a racing game. There are also rims, spoilers, body kits, etc. that can be added to your favorite car. A nice feature is that after blowing up a car that you had stored in your garage, you can just pay to have it reappear. Of course this is only useful if you customized that car otherwise you should just look for a new one to steal for free.
The overall game is laid out just like GTA. You can go and do a story mission whenever you please or you can go rack up some money or just cause some anarchy. Then there are also the side missions which will boost your respect and money. Of course they didn't just copy over all the side missions that GTA had. Two interesting one are Insurance Fraud and Mayhem. Insurance Fraud has you throwing yourself into/out of cars to build up insurance money that you would collect. This is really a showing off of the excellent rag doll effects. Mayhem takes the great aspect of just going on a rampage and destroying everything and gives you a time limit, set amount of damage to achieve and a set area of the map to destroy. To very things, the area of destruction isn't always the same and you are given different weapons to use depending on the area. This comes out very nicely as it is greatly varied to prevent you from getting tired of it right away.
Graphically, Saints Row looks really nice. There are a lot of animations and the rag doll physics are very nice in the game. Seeing someone (or yourself) fly through a windshield is always fun to watch in Saints Row. From the first released details of Saints Row there was one things that was always mentioned. The destruction in the game looks sweet. You don't have to worry just about the explosion of a car but the hood flying at you. The car doors are even a solid object where you can't walk right through them. There are plenty damage effects for when you crash your car or get shot at. It would be nice to have some building destruction added, however.
Saints Row is really good Xbox 360 game but is a little to close to GTA. The game has nice graphics, great customization, plenty of missions and something that GTA lacks. Saints Row features online play for up to 12 people and provides some fun play with other people. The game is worth the purchase but could use a little more originality.
