Saints Row 2
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| ♥ | This article is dedicated to Mike "IdolNinja" Watson who died from cancer in August 2021. |
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Saints Row 2 is a 2008 open-world action-adventure video game developed by Volition and published by THQ. It was released in October 2008 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with ports for Microsoft Windows and Linux following in 2009 and 2016 respectively. A mobile tie-in version was developed by G5 Entertainment and released the same month. The game is the second title and first cross-platform release in the Saints Row series, following 2006's Saints Row. It is succeeded by 2011's Saints Row: The Third and 2013's Saints Row IV.
Why It Rocks
- Stilwater is more of a living, breathing city than ever before. You can now find many pedestrians doing their own thing (fishing, reading a newspaper, committing armed robbery).
- Thanks to Ultor's multi-million-dollar efforts on gentrifying the whole city in a matter of "just five years" and Volition's "budget uprising" after the successful launch of Saints Row, Stilwater is now expanded and revamped, adding new districts and landmarks such as Stilwater University, Culex Stadium, Marshall Winslow Recreation Center, Poseidon's Palace Resort, an underground R&D center called "The Pyramid", the rebuilding of the Saint's Row district into a corporate utopia, and the expansion of the Suburbs district.
- Because of its expanded size, you can now access areas that you couldn't in the first game like Wardill Airport, Stilwater Science Center, and Rounds Square Shopping Center.
- There are a lot of easter eggs in the form of "secret areas" that you can find, such as Joseph Price's abandoned mansion, a "robot house" at Stilwater University, and a deserted island where you can find an easter egg in the form of a giant Cabbit (an animal from Volition's previous game, Summoner) that appears from below sea level.
- Thanks to Ultor's multi-million-dollar efforts on gentrifying the whole city in a matter of "just five years" and Volition's "budget uprising" after the successful launch of Saints Row, Stilwater is now expanded and revamped, adding new districts and landmarks such as Stilwater University, Culex Stadium, Marshall Winslow Recreation Center, Poseidon's Palace Resort, an underground R&D center called "The Pyramid", the rebuilding of the Saint's Row district into a corporate utopia, and the expansion of the Suburbs district.
- Tons of customization. You can make your character with the detailed character editor and dress them up with many different clothing options. Your cribs and cars are customizable, too.
- The story is amazing and is easily the best in the entire franchise.
- Like the previous game, this game features 3 rival gangs with their own unique looks and ventures in the criminal underworld.
- The Brotherhood: A heavy metal gang who cover themselves in piercings and tattoos and specialize in arms trafficking and vehicle tuning. Lead by Maero, his girlfriend Jessica and Maero’s tattoo artist and heavy metal band frontman Matt.
- The Ronin: The American branch of the Yakuza who drive sporty cars and motorcycles, wield katanas and specialize in gambling and pornography. Lead by Shogu Akuji, Jyunichi and Shogu’s father and international Yakuza leader Kazou.
- Sons of Samedi: A street gang consisting of Voodoo practitioners and other thugs from Haiti, and specialize in leading Stilwater’s drug trade with their own drug “Loa Dust”. Lead by The General, Mr. Sunshine and DJ Veteran Child; a high ranking lieutenant.
- While the first game was considered "serious" and the later games were considered "light-hearted", this game has a perfect balance of the two and manages to make it not feel inconsistent.
- By extension, it's also by far the darkest game in the franchise.
- The cutscenes are much more cinematic and are filled with tons of over-the-top and emotional moments.
- Lots of new side activities with lots of crazy stuff to do in them:
- "FUZZ" involves you pretending to be a police officer and taking part in a violent COPS-style reality show.
- "Crowd Control" involves you being a security guard, protecting a celebrity from "crazed fans".
- "Fight Club" involves you engaging in hand-to-hand combat with other people until there's only one man left standing.
- "Septic Avenger" involves you spraying sewage on buildings, cars, and people with a septic truck.
- Unlike the previous game, the entire game can now be played in co-op.
- Tons of vehicles to drive. This is also the first game in the series that allows you to ride bikes and fly helicopters and planes.
- It has an awesome soundtrack, with a huge variety of music genres, ranging from the '90s and 2000s rap hits to '80s pop hits to easy listening music to classical music.
- There's also some pause menu music that's great to listen to.
- Many new shops to visit. On top of that, you can now buy properties that help to build up your "Respect" and give you massive discounts on the shops you've purchased.
- You have access to more cribs this time (of course, you'll have to purchase their property rights as well, unlike in the previous and the next game, in which you unlock the cribs by completing missions and strongholds).
- You can now perform stunts that are spread across Stilwater, which range from land to air stunts.
- Gunplay is improved, as you can now zoom in whilst aiming, giving you much more accuracy than before.
- A huge arsenal of weaponry, easily the biggest amount in the entire franchise as you get new weapons like katanas, machetes, sledgehammers, light machine guns, miniguns, and more.
- This game is the only game to include "Improvised Weapons" (not to be confused with homemade weapons that used the same term), in which you can pick up any type of item everywhere and use it in combat like chairs, parking meters, cinder blocks, bar stools, tower viewers, mailboxes, lawn gnomes, road signs, trash cans, and coffee makers.
- Lots of new character features:
- The player character is now a fully-voiced protagonist, giving them much more involvement within the story arcs.
- Dialogue changes depending on who you play as, making it well worth playing through each mission multiple times.
- You can now perform gestures that allow you to express yourself to NPCs.
- You can now customize your combat style and borrow fighting moves from the Ronin, the Brotherhood, and the Sons of Samedi.
- The Third Street Saints also have new features:
- You can now customize their style of clothing, like having them dressed up as Ninjas or Pimps and Hoes.
- You can also select what type of vehicles they can drive.
- New additional homies you can call with the inclusion of vehicle delivery, which allows homies to deliver whatever vehicle you ask for.
- Tons of likable characters, with returning ones like Johnny Gat and Aisha and new ones like Shaundi, Pierce, and Carlos.
- There is a secret bonus mission that fully resolves the cliffhanger from the first game (to find out how to unlock it, read GT&T#3).
Bad Qualities
- Some ports have some problems.
- The game was ported to the PC by CD Projekt before they were well-known for their AAA games such as The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077. The game suffered from enormous draw distance issues, the controls are poor since keys can and will become sticky if held, and the audio quality is also really poor. None of the DLCs made it to the PC, either, because by the time any of it even came out for consoles, Volition had essentially fired the porters from the project and declared it hopeless. Luckily, there are mods to fix many of these issues (Gentlemen of the Row is very popular) and improve the audio quality, but even the mods can't guarantee that the game will run on any particular set-up, with even high-end hardware made years after the game's release didn't help.
- The Xbox One version of the game for the most part is perfectly fine, but during many of the beginning missions, the game tends to lag. Not to mention that without VSync turned on, character textures in cutscenes are infamous for looking quite strange.
- The PS3 version has a bug where, if there are too many explosions at once, the game will leave no sound at all and the only way to fix is by exiting the game and re-entering.
- Numerous bugs and glitches that can be game-breaking, such as game freezes and characters glitching out.
- The driving mechanics aren't too good, as vehicles feel very janky when they turn and drift. However, bikes don't have this issue.
- Bad AI, both enemy and friendly.
- Gangs and police will often attempt to run over the player at higher notoriety levels.
- Enemy Tornado attack helicopters spam their homing rockets, eating up at least half of the player's health, if not outright killing them.
- Homies have poor pathfinding and can get stuck on tables, vehicles, and just about anything. They also have a habit of getting in the way when you're fighting enemies.
- Co-op makes the AI even more aggressive and nonsensical. This is especially bad in the DLC missions, more specifically the second Corporate Warfare DLC mission, Corporate Meltdown, in which one player has full control of the Tornado, while the other drives the chemical truck from the garage to the docks as they come under constant fire from Masakos equipped with RPGs and Ultor goons chase the truck like a rolling roadblock with their FBI SUVs.
- You can't access the train anymore, despite having trains all over Stilwater!
- Like Crackdown, this game had sixth-gen console quality graphics for a game released in 2008, and a bit of a downgrade from its predecessor, released 2 years prior. More notably, the visuals look washed-out and the character models look slightly inferior to the previous game, as their facial expressions come off as bizarre and odd-looking.
- The day-and-night cycles don't look the way it's meant to (though it can be explained by the brownish color scheme used in the game).
- Forced level grinding in the form of respect: there simply aren't enough gangs to kill (the police and Ultor don't count towards your score), so you'll have to do some of the activities and diversions to unlock all missions. Thankfully, many of these are awesome with unique cutscenes and call-backs to the first game.
- Some missions and later levels of side activities can be very difficult, especially when dealing with the above-mentioned bad AI.
- A couple of the activities in the game can be rather unbalanced:
- "Escort" is rather annoying to play, as you have to drive away from footage trucks while trying to raise a pleasure bar. However, if you run into anyone, it will go down.
- While not the worst activity, "Snatch" can be rather boring and annoying to play, especially since the fact that the hoes that you try to collect can get kidnapped, forcing you to go save them
- "Drug Trafficking" is not a bad activity, but the driver in the activity can be rather annoying because, if your car gets stuck in a wall, it will take forever for them to get unstuck.
- "Crowd Control" is a fun activity, but it can get rather hectic in the later levels because the "crazed fans" will constantly gang up on the celebrity and will constantly hit them with baseball bats, making it easy to lose the activity.
- While "FUZZ" is still a good activity, it can sometimes run into glitches or bugs, notably when you are ordered to apprehend a battle of the century, and the cameraman wants you to use Satchel Charges to get extra footage, the last 2-3 people fighting can sometimes be invincible and can't be killed without a melee/ranged weapon.
- The "Tow Truck" diversion is by far the worst activity in the entire game. It's bad enough with the tow truck's clunky controls and slippery handling (due to the towed car), but add in the aggressive police AI and the fact that you can't switch to a different tow truck, can't repair your tow truck and can't use Forgive and Forget makes this activity almost unbeatable! Worst of all, since it's a diversion activity, there's no checkpoints, meaning that you have to start all over again if you die!
- Once you've done a lot of activities, your Respect meter fills up to infinite, which renders doing activities almost pointless to do afterward, unless you've done all of them before finishing the main story.
- The final boss fight against Dane Vogel is far too easy since he only carries a NR4 pistol for protection. Keep in mind that he's the same person who had the money and the audacity to gentrify and rebuild Stilwater (especially the Saint's Row district) and is the chairman of Ultor, yet he barely has any heavy weaponry like rifles or shotguns around his main office!
- The online multiplayer is a bit of a downgrade compared to the previous game, as there are a lot fewer game modes.
- The steps to unlock the secret mission mentioned in WIR#21 are never told in-game, so if you want to unlock the mission, you either need to watch a guide on YouTube to understand the methods or scroll down to GT&T#3, or have the Corporate Warfare DLC.
- While the main story cutscenes are very cinematic, the cutscenes for the DLC missions are very bland (makes sense, because sometimes post-launch, they had no effort and budget to do motion captures, maybe..). They are very similar to activity cutscenes. You have 2 people on a backdrop, and they talk to each other about the progress. That's it. All done with no climactic moments and everything that made the cutscenes feel intense whatsoever.
Game Tips & Tricks
- Satchel Charges are by far the best throwable weapon in the game, as you can throw a lot of it and blow them all in a sequence. This weapon is recommended while you're doing pushbacks, car chases, Escort activities or just wreaking havoc.
- A user named Synopser, who was a former Volition developer, reveals three secret Easter eggs on a Reddit post.
- A hidden Easter egg was found by equipping the "Roar" taunt, starting any Insurance Fraud activity, and pressing the crouch and sprint button at the same time while doing the taunt, so that the adrenaline mode will be buffed to oblivion, causing "Ride of the Valkyries" to start playing in the background (instead of the adrenaline mode jingle), and cars will send you flying over. mrsaintsgodzilla21, an avid Saints Row YouTuber, recommends doing this Easter egg with the 'Low Gravity' cheat activated.
- Another hidden Easter egg was also found by starting a Demolition Derby activity, equipping all upgrades to the max, turning the car 180 degrees, and pressing the crouch button and the sprint button at the same time while highlighting the 'Start Derby' button until the prompt appears, in which it will make you play with full upgrades at any level.
- Yet another hidden Easter egg can be triggered by getting three bronze stars for near-misses before pressing the crouch button and either the sprint button or the Human Shield button. It will make your car impossible to flip over.
- To unlock the secret mission mentioned in WIR#20 and BQ#13, head to Stilwater Police Headquarters, located at Harrowgate in the Saint's Row district, and go to the third-floor Stilwater Detective Bureau room, where you will find 3 boxes marked with the Saints' logo. Those are the wiretaps and you need to listen to all three of them. Although it's a lengthy conversation, it tells the story of the 3rd Street Saints' downfall and resurgence, from Dex knowing that Troy is an undercover cop and dropping his flags to work on Ultor, to the reaction to the cliffhanger ending in the first game. Once you've done listening to all of the wiretaps, go to the chief of police's room and get Julius' files. In there, you can get Dex's number, which can be called to unlock the mission.
- It is recommended to do this mission after completing the prologue missions, as you will be rewarded $30,000, which is good for starter money.
- Four "Disc-One Nuclear Bombs" can be triggered.
- As soon as you complete the prologue, you can now do activities, for this trick, you can only do 3 of these activities;
- Projects FUZZ (all levels completed = Kobra pistol and unlimited pistol ammo).
- Downtown Snatch (all levels completed = GAL 43 SMG and unlimited SMG ammo).
- Airport Drug Trafficking (all levels = XS-2 Ultimax and unlimited shotgun ammo).
- If you happen to get the first crib (the Red Light Loft), you'll get space for a land vehicle. Now, gain some notoriety and steal a Bear APC that you can keep for the rest of the game.
- The Saints HQ, the second crib that you can get, has a helipad, so, what time is it? It's time to break into the Stilwater Police HQ and steal the Tornado at the latter place's helipad.
- The AR-50 XMAC that comes with a grenade launcher can be unlocked once you gain 1 star in every combat trick and 3 stars in gang kills.
- As soon as you complete the prologue, you can now do activities, for this trick, you can only do 3 of these activities;
Glitch Warning
Escaping the Zombie Uprising minigame (by enabling the Low Gravity, Never Die, Unlimited Ammo and Super Explosive cheats and throwing a grenade to the cinema roof (basically behind where you spawned) and throwing it again in a corner) and roaming around can result in breaking the disc thanks to a creature named "The Freezer". It is a flat, semi-opaque silhouette human entity that can instantly crash and break the game as soon as it appears. The Freezer's "nest" (where he frequently spawns) was the tunnel below the TNA strip club in the Red Light district, so if you loved the game and didn't want to break it, do not do this glitch.
- This video explains it all.
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