To kick things off, you first need to customise your character. You can only be a male, but in terms of limits that's about all there is. There are all kinds of customisation options, ranging from skin tone, hair colour, build and nose length, and you can literally spend a good twenty minutes perfecting the look of your character. Extras, such as tattoos, become available later in the game and, if you ever get bored of your look, you can go to the plastic surgeon and have it modified. One of the best things about the customisation is that after you've created your character, he'll appear in every cut-scene with all the details you've created, and it's possible to create some severely deformed characters if you're feeling particularly diabolical.
Insurance fraud - surely one of the best activites in the game.
After you've created a character, you go through a basic step-by-step tutorial, before being thrown on the streets of Stilwater. The entire city is open from the beginning of the game, meaning you can either go exploring or simply head straight to a mission. Overall, there are about thirty six neighbourhoods in Stilwater, all of which have themes, such as Chinatown and Industrial. If you don't want to do missions in Saint's Row, you aren't forced to, so you're never restricted or forced by the game to do something you don't wish to do.
There are plenty of missions in the game and whilst we only saw a few of them, there appeared to be a decent amount of variety. The missions aren't just made up of one type of gameplay; in one mission we played you had to infiltrate an area, then go to a strip club and then finally chase an enemy down with your vehicle. If you're running out of health you can crouch down, and if you're not being shot at then you will slowly regain health. Aside from the missions there are also activities that you can take part in at any time.
The first activity in the game is called 'Snatch', a section in which you need to steal prostitutes from pimps. Every activity (excluding the Snatch activity) contains eight levels, so things get harder as you progress. One of the activities, called 'Hitman', gets you to drive around the city trying to hunt down certain characters (for instance, a hotdog vendor). Just about nothing in the game appears to be pre-rendered, so even if you're not doing the Hitman activity you may still see some colourful characters in Stilwater - we were lucky enough to actually see the hotdog man, and he's just begging for death.
The idea of the game is to take over Stilwater so that the Saint's Row gang rules the streets. Once you get into the game you can recruit homies to help you with your missions, and they're actually quite useful. If your homies lose their health then you have thirty seconds to resuscitate them. Homies won't always be who you expect though, and we even had a stripper helping us out, equipped with an Uzi. If you're fighting in your own gang's territory, then your gang members will come over and assist you in bashing up police officers, other gangs, little old ladies or that damn hotdog man. Recruiting homies is as easy as bringing up the menu and dialling them on your phone. Your phone isn't just used for dialing up fellow no-gooders though - there are numbers scattered throughout the city which, if tapped into your phone, may get you a special offer, like 50% off car modifications or discounted weapons. It's a great little touch and there appears to be plenty of phone numbers scattered throughout the city.
You may get an opportunity to kill this guy later in the game.
As you'd expect, vehicles play a prominent part in the game as well. There are plenty of vehicles, although there are no motorbikes. There are planes and boats, but you can't actually take control of them. If you're near a vehicle you can also carjack it. There's a lot of variety in carjacking. You'll punch the driver out or smack their head against the wheel just to get in. However, there are times where the driver will fight back and try not to get their car stolen. If you carjack someone with a passenger you can prompt a ransom activity where you have to avoid the police for a certain period of time. All of the vehicles handle differently, and we even encountered a bulldozer hidden in the construction yards which made short work of some of the cars around. You can also add modifications to your car such as nitro. The nitro isn't limited either, so once it's on your vehicle, you can just keep boosting, which is a lot of fun. Just about every vehicle is moddable, except the police cars and the larger vehicles like the bulldozer and trucks. There are safehouses located around Stilwater, and you can store as many vehicles in them as you want, as well as get access to cash and extra ammo.
The audio in the game is rather impressive also. As cars drive past you can hear tracks blaring out of the vehicles. You also have an MP3 player, so you can listen to the in game music at any time. The game also let's you customise playlists, so you won't be getting sick of the music any time quickly. There are plenty of musical genres covered, including classical music (so if you want a bit of fun we suggest driving over a ramp with Beethoven music playing). It certainly adds a touch of drama. The pedestrians will also make witty comments as you drive past, which adds to the humour of the game.
Even if you're not taking part in the missions or the activities there is still plenty to do. You can rob stores by pulling a gun on the shopkeeper. If this is occurs during the day then they'll take you to the safe (which is typically jammed with money) and you can nab the lot. However, go to the same store at night and you'll need to break into the shop and pick the locks. Breaking into a shop at night has its own problems, namely the alarms will going off and you having to quickly leg it into the back of the store and try to pick the safe to get the money. A full day/night cycle in the game lasts about twenty minutes, and even though you can't actually tell what time it is, you can witness the day/night cycle taking place. The streets look distinctly shady at night time as well - there are more seedy people out and about, and the city feels completely different. There are also other things hidden around the city like CDs (which unlock secrets) and if you don't feel like walking you can take the train.
One of the combat sections. Guess who you have to attack.
But easily one of the most exciting aspects of Saint's Row is the Xbox Live support. You can import your character from single player in the multiplayer so you'll have a unique look. There's plenty of Xbox Live modes including 'Protect the Pimp', 'Big Ass Chains', 'Blinged Out Ride' and 'Gangsta Brawl'. There are also two co-op modes in the game, although we got the impression more will be added down the track. We didn't get an opportunity to play the multiplayer, but if you ever wanted online multiplayer in a Grand Theft Auto title, then it seems like Saint's Row will fill that void.
It may seem like we've taken a huge look at Saint's Row, but in reality we've only really scratched the surface. We played the game for about five hours and only saw three missions and a few activities. There's so much going on here that it's easy to just get lost in the game. Before we had an opportunity to play the title it seemed as though this was just going to be yet another Grand Theft Auto imitator, but with the online modes and the addictive gameplay, this is one of the first true next-generation titles we've seen.
The official demo for Saint's Row will be available on the XBox Live marketplace on August the 1st.
LMFAO:laugh:
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