LTTP: Saints Row 2

A

AkuMifune

Banned
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This is a PSA to all of you who never played SR2 but loved SR3, give this one a shot. I (like many I imagine) dismissed SR2 as a low-brow janky GTA clone that was focused on shit jokes over content. But many of us thought SR3 was the right game at the right time: The story missions finally matched the ridiculous gameplay and they went so over the top we considered that things had finally come together for Volition they had "found thier voice". But I can say now, we're kinda wrong. While they didn't go as far as they did in SR3 (at least so far), there's enough of the humor and tone to make it fun as hell. Maybe they hadn't perfected their voice, but they certainly had it.

Playing it now as a prequel to my adventures in SR3 is kinda odd. Maybe that colors everything here, but that's why I'm specifically recommending it to fans of 3 who never got around to 2. I know you're out there.

Cons
  • Doesn't look nearly as good as 3 (it is 4 years old)
  • Story missions aren't nearly as ridiculous (so far at least)
  • It's much less forgiving. Flipping a car at the end of a tough mission and having to redo it is so bs.

Pros
  • Shaundi is cooler
  • It arguably plays better
  • It presents more of a challenge
  • Shaundi is hotter
  • There's more to do
  • Some missions are surprisingly serious, more than anything in SR3 (maybe a con?)
  • I really like how you can do all the events in a row from one location too.
  • Shaundi.

I'm not that far in, I'm doing all The Brotherhood missions first, but already I'm intrigued enough to finish it. I'm really surprised at how dark it's been so far. Grim, even.

Haven't bothered checking a FAQ even, just doing shit. Any activity rewards essential to finish early on?
 
I've never played a Saints Row game, but I didn't really enjoy GTA4 and I'm wary to jump into another sandbox game. I may give them a shot at some point when my backlog clears up though.
 
How the fuck am I supposed to play this? I got it off steam and it runs at ~1.5x speed and if I try the 'SR2 powertools', it just crashes on launch.
Sober said:
Isn't the PC port of this still atrocious? Like worse than GTA4.
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GTA IV was a goddamn masterpiece portjob compared to SR2. I can't even play the goddamn game normally.
 
3 had some cool missions, shame there were about 10 of them in the whole fucking game. They padded it out with activities disguised as story missions. The whole thing was blatantly rushed.
 
I had completely ignored the SR franchise until January this year, when I played all three in order back to back. All in all I didn't exactly do backflips over the quality, but SR2 was definitely the high point.
 
Wonderful game. Despite its significant port problems, it's an even better game on PC.

IdolNinja has done some amazing work getting the game working and much improved (far superior to console versions) on PC.

I found Saints Row 3 very disappointing after SR2. What's there is pretty great, but it just has so little content compared to 2, feels empty.
 
I was preaching this game to people for years.

There's a clear difference between it and SR3. In 2, the devs asked "Hey, isn't GTA kind of ridiculous?" and in 3 they said "Let's make the most purely fun open world game we can make". I guess the best way to put it is that 2 is a self-aware satire and 3 is more of a straight comedy. I personally enjoyed 2 the most because of that.

That said, it's hard to argue that 2 is the better game from a mechanical standpoint. The shooting, the movement, the graphics and technical aspects on PC especially, pretty much everything in the gameplay department was improved.

As much as I prefer the "style" and "tone" present in 2 over 3, I do hope that Volition continues on SR3's path and not SR2's. It has more of a unique identity. But I still hope they can take a few more queues from SR2, because to me it will always be the best GTA-like ever made.
 
Sober said:
Isn't the PC port of this still atrocious? Like worse than GTA4.
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Much worse than GTA IV for me. IV's framerate is much less than it should be for how it looks, whilst SR2 won't even run at all. It just crashes constantly. I would be more pissed if I had bought it at launch rather than getting it for extremely cheap in a Steam sale.
 
AkuMifune said:
This is a PSA to all of you who never played SR2 but loved SR3, give this one a shot. I (like many I imagine) dismissed SR2 as a low-brow janky GTA clone that was focused on shit jokes over content. But many of us thought SR3 was the right game at the right time: The story missions finally matched the ridiculous gameplay and they went so over the top we considered that things had finally come together for Volition they had "found thier voice". But I can say now, we're kinda wrong. While they didn't go as far as they did in SR3 (at least so far), there's enough of the humor and tone to make it fun as hell. Maybe they hadn't perfected their voice, but they certainly had it.

Playing it now as a prequel to my adventures in SR3 is kinda odd. Maybe that colors everything here, but that's why I'm specifically recommending it to fans of 3 who never got around to 2. I know you're out there.
Click to expand...


Saints Row 2 is easily the high point of the franchise IMHO. Better than SR3.

That said, if you play it, play it on 360 or PS3. PC port of SR2 was outsourced and runs like shit.

I think SR2 is still one of the free PS+ games on PSN, so available cheap if you subscribe to Sony's premium service.
 
Goldrush said:
Tried to play it, but it ran horribly on my PC. The PC could run SR3 pretty respectfully.
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They outsourced the port and it was shit, SR3 on PC was done in-house by Volition.

SR2 was good fun, but I enjoyed 3 more, because it took 2 ten steps beyond absurd. Only thing that 3 was missing was the missions were the ones were you drove around the sewage truck spraying shit all over people's houses. Also, 3 had Kinzie. <3
 
I played through 1 and 2 (thanks to the Double Pack) within the last few months, and SR2 was indeed amazing. All the little changes and additions from 1 to 2 made it so much better, and there was so much to do. Haven't played 3 yet, but am looking forward to it.

AkuMifune said:
Haven't bothered checking a FAQ even, just doing shit. Any activity rewards essential to finish early on?
Click to expand...

Most you manage without, but early on definitely do Insurance Fraud (lvl 3 doubles running stamina, lvl 6 makes it infinite) and finish Airport Drug Trafficking (gives a sweet shotgun and unlocks unlimited shotgun ammo). There are a few other good ones, but those I found to be the most helpful.

http://saintsrow.wikia.com/wiki/Unlockables_in_Saints_Row_2
 
I finished the game awhile back. 123 hours (98% complete) I put into it.

I did nearly everything except the Barnstorming (mainly cause I can never work out how to do them), the firetruck and the tow truck jobs. Mostly cause they're fucking impossible

I honestly loved this game. More so then GTA IV. Mostly cause it was the best damn game I played co-op wise, plus it was just so much fun. I remember just laughing my ass off at times when doing the Escort missions. My friend was driving like a nut case, and I had to perform weird ass sexual acts in the back

I also think most of my 200+ deaths were the cause of him playing chicken with on coming aircraft every time we did flying missions.

I found Stilwater in #2 to be more lively then Steelport. People would interact more. You'd find people busking, mimes performing, etc. I even stumbled across a couple cuddling on a park bench. An old lady was sitting on the lap of a young guy and he says "Time to go play Crouching Tiger, Hidden Penis".

I also miss having the old people walk around with those portable Oxygen tanks. They were fun to shoot and watching them explode and take out a bunch of people :P

With a real time day/night cycle, you would see the city actually transition from having workers and business people walking around during the day to having hookers walk around at night.

You also had more interesting things to find, like the underground Shopping Centre with the costume stores.

The Cemetery full of Goths/Emo's was pretty funny to see.

Singing to the radio :D

That said the game did have a few major flaws that stopped it from being truely epic...

- Screen Tearing. Holy shit!! This game had THE worst tearing I have ever come across (360 version)

- Pop ins and pop outs. Pop ins I don't mind. It's the pop outs that really bugged me. That's where you'd say stand on the roof of a building and see people down below. You'd then zoom in on them with the sniper rifle and they'd ALL disappear. #3 still does this :(

- Bullshit AI. This was by far the worst offender imo. Having the AI hit you in a car and you'd lose all control. I was doing a mission and I was driving one of the Armoured SWAT vehicles, and I was being rammed off the road by a cop car. I remember how this truely pissed my friend and I off, especially when doing the final 2 levels for the Drug Trafficking activities.

The DLC was ok. They did offer new Vehicles and such which were worth it, but the missions were short. You could finish each DLC in @20 minutes.

In regards to the final DLC....do we ever get to find out what happened to
Dex
??

I do like SR#3, alot (41 hours in atm, and 39% complete), but it does feel lacking compared to #2. I think it was because Volition were working on 3 games at the same time (Red Faction Armageddon, SR3 and InSane) and didn't spend enough time on it.

EDIT: Please Volition, for SR#4, can you please bring back Gary Busey for the ad's??? Better yet, put him in the game :D
 
bigboss370 said:
SR2 has waaay better campaign than SR3.
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As someone who has just finished SR3 within the last few weeks, I agree.

I found the SR3 campaign to have more big set pieces but I also found it to be way more shorter than the SR2 campaign. Plus, I wasn't overly big on what they changed Shaundi into, she was almost like a totally new character aside from the fact she still appeared to be a stoner.

Overall, SR3 just felt like a more "hollow" game, even outside of the campaign. Steelport just didn't seem as big or alive as Stillwater in SR2 and there seemed to be less side stuff to do after beating the main game.

Just my opinion.

But SR2, yeah awesome game.
 
I play these games for the world. SR2's world was great. SR3's world was terrible. SR2's was my favorite until the recent Sleeping Dogs title. I haven't looked forward to a game as much as I was SR3 due to all those cool trailers they were putting out, and then so incredibly disappointed with the final product.
 
Might give it another shot, but I tried it on PS3 recently and absolutely hated the controls which led to be quitting after 20 minutes.

Does not appear to have aged well.
 
Samurai Penguin said:
I do like SR#3, alot (41 hours in atm, and 39% complete), but it does feel lacking compared to #2. I think it was because Volition were working on 3 games at the same time (Red Faction Armageddon, SR3 and InSane) and didn't spend enough time on it.
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From my understanding, their team was cut quite a bit, and they had a new engine they had to work on as well as a new city to make. Where saints row 2 was using the same city and tech as the first game. This is the main reason why I'm ok with their not being as much content in 3, as its still a great experience. I love both of them. I loved how absolutely fucked up the boss is in 2 compared to 3, and yeah its hard not to prefer 2's shaundi, however pierce really stepped up in the third game. I'm really excited for the 4th.
 
So you telling me you went this long with the ignorant opinion that SR2 was awfUl even though you never played it even when people told you otherwise?

Not that it matters, you played it now, I'm glad you are having fun.
 
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