One of the most insane things about this game, ostensibly a janky wacky crime game positively dripping with aughts-era attitude, is that the very final mission you unlock, after having done everything else in the game, might have one of the coolest and most fascinating portrayals of a playable character ever. A rejection of being silent and docile despite being completely open to every single bizarre change the player wants to impose on them, and a (spiteful, even!) rejection of any supposed morality one would want to put into a game where the main gameplay is built around being as disastrous for your environment as you possibly can. As such, this is essentially the real Drakengard 2.

the best saints row game free, IMO 3 is like OK but even then i feel like the series really fell off after this game, stilwater is just a way better setting than what came after and even though it's goofier than the first game still it has a blend of serious and silly that i think works pretty well throughout the story, i dont think its like anything ultra crazy but the characters have charm and the game expands on plotlines from the first game. like any good gta/gta-esque game this game is just an absolute blast to boot up and do whatever in, game is also filled to the brim with side things or minigames to play which is pretty cool. the only real tragedy of this game is that the pc port is really trash (it might work on some peoples setups, it works ok on my steam deck but its still objectively trash port) yet also the easiest way to experience it ATM, besides just the performance issues theres some weird pc exclusive bugs iirc (although there's an older mod to patch some of these it still doesnt completely fix the experience) and no way to play the dlc the console versions had AFAIK. i've never tried it on the port either but i think you need to get through weird hoops to do multiplayer if thats your thing. classic game of the 360/ps3 era that probably won't get it's proper pc version at this point sadly due to volition exploding

Hands down this has gotta be the WORST PC port for any video game. It's riddled with unstable performance hiccups, like draw distance not loading up textures right or unexpected crashes happening right before you complete a mission, forcing you to readjust your settings on an offbeat basis to make it playable. Suffering as this experience may be, Saints Row 2 proves itself to be such a grand old time that it becomes more than worth it. From completing the game I can definitely say I will never turn back to GTA. Everything people praised those games to be is funnily enough lived up to be better here, at least better than the ones I've played. It still pulls many of the trademark hallmarks of GTA but it never once feels like a shallow knockoff like its predecessor seemed to be and in fact carved out its own identity from the growing subgenre of open-world GTA clones.

Stillwater is an engaging open-world sandbox to just drive around in and witness its sheer personality while causing so much destructive havoc. What I really love about it is how the criminal parts feel much more involved, gameplay/story-wise, with factions that feel defined and truly an obstacle to knock down in your epic comeback to being top dog again. The map is split into various territories, each controlled by rival gangs, which is smart in helping you familiarize with the open-world and where to conquer the city through nonstop gang warfare. How this is done aside from main story missions are mini-game activities which left me skeptical in how plentiful yet mandatory they were to progress the game. Fortunately, mostly, this feels very earned as side content to churn through. There's a lot of variety so there's bound to be something to give you some enjoyment at least. No matter how busy work they can end up being, I still like doing these missions/activities because of how fun they ended up being and how it still feels like it matters to the story. You have the simple motive of climbing your way back to the top by doing odd jobs and fucking with rival factions to prove you're a boss, which gradually hypes you the fuck up when shit gets real. And believe me, shit indeed gets real.

I was not expecting the story to be this damn good. When you have a series that shares and owes so much of its DNA to GTA my expectations get hindered usually. Part of my problem with games like GTA IV and GTA V is how the stories never felt captivatingly told. They're certainly functional rinse and repeat stories of a criminal upstart rising through the ranks in the world but that's where it ends, really. No matter how much I can appreciate Rockstar's bluntness in delivering the stories that work for them I can hardly take anything away from that. Like, I can respect GTA V's story being about three guys representing different phases of getting suckered into crime while struggling to form a genuine camaraderie but there's no powerful moments that sticks in my head with this. I can also respect GTA IV for trying to tell an interesting story with Niko Bellavic but it was so unbelievably boring and colorless that by the time the game actually started being more enjoyable I just gave up on it completely. Saints Row 2 is weird because parts of it on paper aren't too different from GTA but everything else feels like an earnest attempt to tell a more well-realized story. When the game goes unbelievably hard, it just goes unbelievably hard. When it goes absurd, it's willing to embrace it, in the healthiest of doses. What helps it out are some well-written characters, heavy hitting memorable moments, and the most uneasy yet successful grip on tone. To sum that up; Saints Row 2 works because it's a realistic world where all the goofy and insane shit sprawls out naturally. None of it should really work when put together but these awkward pieces make up a fine looking larger puzzle to admire.

Player customization is practically near perfect as it can ever get. It's still impressive even by today and should be the base standard of the unrestrained freedom that comes with character creation. Love the attention to detail in making the player be able to stand out in any cutscene imaginable (kudos to using gender neutral pronouns to refer to both male/female protags) and feeling like this is indeed your story. The rest of the gameplay is better than what you'd expect going into this. The customization also extends to player homes and your own gangs which is a really cool feature to have. Driving has the right amount of weight to it while still easily being as ridiculous as it can be. The shooting is fine but the lack of a reloading feature or proper over the shoulder aiming can be annoying.

Sucks that this hasn't gotten a proper port, remaster, or really anything that directly builds on the foundation built here. There's a lot of overlooked good shit with open-world sandboxes that I'd argue this is a great example for. As of now, it's pretty inaccessible unless you're the one still standing Xbox Stan.

whoa... what an amazing game. i've been clearing out my backlog, and, despite playing over 40 games by now, this one... is by far the best one i've played, or at the very least, the most fun.

i played the WORST version of the game, the PC version, riddled with bugs, crashes, and other technical problems such as lacking resolution support, but fuck it, this game... it's good to the point that i didn't MIND having to retry missions thrice just because the game crashed, for one, missions are usually short and sweet, and well, they're really fun too.

one thing i'll say, in terms of presentation, this game sorta blows, it was made in the "piss and shit" era of games and it shows, but i still think it looks serviceable, some of the cars are pretty cool, and the comedy is actually funny, it has a lot of running gags and otherwise the game creates funny moments by itself, like when you shoot a car trying to steal it, but the owner drives himself off a bridge, this game is fucking amazing dude i laughed my ass off a lot of the playtime.

the whole structure of taking down gangs and getting territory, while you don't feel too much the impact of it, is definitely cool on a subconscious level, and damn these cutscenes go HARD, all the executions are downright amazing, specially the drug-psychic green guy leader i forgot the name of.

if it wasn't for the bugs in the PC version, i might've given this a 4.5/5 stars, if i had to complain about anything, is that the tension never builds up, even the last mission is more or less just another tuesday, which, does fit with the rest of the game, but still you'd expect a bit more for the last send off, no?

goated game tho

The best Saints row game?

If you've ever played a Saints row game, there's a good chance you've heard the enormous praise Saints row 2 gets from the community. Most fans will tell you this is where the franchise peaked or at least say it’s their personal favorite. Now, there is absolutely a reason for this and going back and looking at it from the year 2023 most people would probably shrug it off as another GTA Clone much like the first one. Well, I'm here to tell you yes, in many ways it still is a clone and generic shooter but on the other hand this game, especially for its time does things that I don't really see in a lot of modern games and is definitely where this franchise started to find its own identity.

Gameplay: So just like Saints row one this is a 3rd person GTA style open world shooter where you play as a member (now the leader) of the 3rd street Saints, A gang in the city of Stillwater. You do side missions called activities for money and to fill your respect Meter which levels you up and allows you to continue the main story missions as well as take over the city increasing your revenue. Its A returning unique system from the first game that actually forces you to do side quests to progress. I personally do like this system but it's definitely a hit or miss with fans where some people hate it others don't mind it. I think it makes the game unique and helps separate it from GTA but yeah, I get it, it’s also annoying if you are a casual player that just wants to rush through the story first. So, at its core the game works very much the same as SR1 but with improved graphics, smoother gameplay and a better story. Once again you have to take down 3 gangs, the sons of Samedi, the brotherhood and the ronin who all have their unique thing going for them. You also have a 4th antagonist this time, a corporation called Altor. Now I'll be honest the core gameplay is fun and balanced, but I do think it of course could improve and it does, with Saints row 3 (sort of). The thing that really makes this game a one-of-a-kind experience is the attention to detail with almost every aspect of this game. Now, you can have a male or female character and the level of customization is much, much better here, allowing you to layer cloths and add more detail. Car customization is better plus now you can customize your gang and cribs. You will probably mention that saint’s row 3 can do these things but most of the customization in saints’ row 3 involves outside the cribs and not the interior like you can in saints row 2. Combat is much improved with more guns and melee weapons that feel badass to use (like being able to use katana swords while riding on motorcycles). The boss fights are all unique and fun and The activities in this game is probably where it shines the brightest with not only the improvement of returning actives but the level of fun, silly and entertaining activities this game brings to the table. From fight clubs to a zombie mini game, some activities like Fuzz (my personal favorite) is a spoof on the show cops where you are followed around by reality TV show camera crews while you are disguised as cops and sent on missions to do things like "stop the battle of the century" and when you get there you find pirates and ninjas fighting. Or you have this activity "septic avengers" where you are paid to poor literal sh*t on properties to lower their value. Stuff like this is just flat out hilarious and I have yet to see anything this creative and funny in these games since. To top it all off the best part of this game is the fact that you now have co-op so you can experience all of this with a friend. The biggest con in saints row 2s gameplay is probably the crashes and some minor glitching. I ran into a lot of crashes which seems to just be the norm for all Saints row games (not that this is okay, no game should have this problem) I can say out of all entries in this series saints row 2 seemed to crash the least so I guess that's a good thing?

Graphics, music & voice acting: SR2 has decent graphics for a 2008 game but the attention to detail in the environment is really what drives this atmosphere. Though you are once again placed in Stillwater, the city is much bigger and better with a lot more immersion. You have not only the very unique districts but there are so many interesting locations and hidden areas. Like the underground tunnel labs or the hidden giant pink bunny Easter egg in the ocean with a shipwreck. This game also has super unique pedestrians running around. You can find cheer leaders, people protesting, streakers and even goth pedestrians! Now I know someone's gonna be like "yeah well, battle duty overdrive 27 had all those things" but personally in 2008, I had never seen a game with unique pedestrians and cool places like old ships, ancient ruins, and goth pedestrians mixed in with basic GTA city scape before, For its time this was pretty unique you have to give it that. The music and Radio in this game was faaaarr better than saints row 1 and actually had memorable music and the voice acting is much better this time around. Now you can actually pick a voice for your character and all the supporting cast have strong voice acting and fun personalities.

Story (no spoilers): Saints row 2 has a great story with a lot of new and returning characters. When a game actually puts time into its story, I don't like spoiling it because I want you to experience it yourself, so I won't say much. What I can say is it has fun moments, silly moments and very serious moments that will probably make you feel for the characters or at least feel something as the story goes from moments of sadness, humor or moments of just feeling like a pure badass. SR2 does a great job of hitting all these keystrokes. The story works much like the first game where once you get enough respect to continue the story you can pick between 3-4 different plot lines to follow and finish at your own pace before getting the final set of missions and like I mentioned there are some really cool secret missions that finish unresolved plot points from the first game and help build up the story better. Overall saints row 2 is a great game, plain and simple. A game that's probably not for everyone but if you like any of the other saints row games or like GTA there is a high chance you will like this one. I know there is a huge debate between which saints row is the best and for most it’s a tie between 2 and 3 and I can't say saints row 3 doesn't do a lot of these things better because it absolutely does but I also think saints row 3 drops the ball in certain places and goes a bit too far in certain directions with its gameplay and story changes. It's hard to say which saints row is the absolute best because saints row 2 & 3 have a lot of strengths and weaknesses but personally for me I think 2 takes the cake and I'll be honest. I played saints row 1 & 2 much later after saints row 3 came out. I enjoyed 3 so much I wanted to see what all the hype was about, and they did not disappoint. Though Saints row 2 still has plenty of GTA Clone qualities it’s where the franchise starts to spread its wings and fly on its own.
9/10

I am fully aware how ridiculous this may sound, but I am being 100% serious when I tell you that this game's cutscenes, seemingly driven mostly by "hm, what would look the coolest here?", are better—and more thoughtfully—shot and edited than most other games I've played.

"But what about [prestige game]" especially better than that.

Despite the average shot length being too short for my taste, the cutscene where the Ronin attempt to ambush Johnny Gat and the player was when I realized "oh, someone DIRECTED this." Beyond the flashier stuff like the derivative-but-still-great katana flower-cutting discretion shot, there's a real sense of rhythm to the scene and thoughtfulness to the blocking (to say nothing of the physical comedy) that persists across all the other story cutscenes, once I started paying attention.

(Of particular note is the long take late in the Brotherhood arc, which I bring up not because long takes are inherently good or something—they're frequently misused pretentiously by people who don't understand what they're for—but because it's specifically there to create a vulnerable, scrambling feeling that underlines both the larger theme of the arc of powerful people feeling powerless and lashing out in petty destructive ways, and the immediate theme of Maero Is Bigger And Stronger Than Me Oh No.)

The fact that these cutscenes come out of an era in gaming that was still pretty dominated by "just vaguely point the camera at the action" is nuts.

Oh also the rest of the game's alright. It's extremely 2008 in good and bad ways. It's better than the HD GTAs by a country mile. It's hard for me not to compare its controls negatively to its sequel, since I played it first—jumping on cars to get in them without the animation is a salve, but doesn't compare to jumping directly into the driver's seat in SRTT—but obviously the tradeoff is that Stilwater is a better sandbox than Steelport.

(p.s. the female player character is sorta-canonically trans, which is fun)

Just like its predecessor, as a game, this is no more than passable, but as a business move, it's kind of a masterstroke.

GRAND THEFT AUTO IV had finally come out, and while it was widely celebrated, you could make an argument that it was certainly a hell of a lot less FUN than previous entries in that series - focused as it was on (relative) realism, a "gritty" story, and the colors brown and gray. There was a segment of the gaming community that, while they enjoyed and appreciated their dour, gross, frustratingly checkpoint-less time with Niko Bellic and all those other desperately unlikable pricks, they longed for the salad days of SAN ANDREAS' jetpacks and eating fast food until CJ was fat.

So, once again, the SAINTS ROW guys stayed ahead of the curve and steered their series right into that lane, cranking everything about their sequel up into cartoon territory. The glimpses of humor seen in the otherwise run-of-the-mill video game crime narrative from the first one are immediately the focus of the whole thing here, and before you know it, you're spraying cop cars with poop, intervening in a battle between armies of pirates and ninjas, and prostituting yourself. Any grounding in the plot is long gone, and it's a high-flying, ultra-violent, juvenile quip-a-second action movie that pauses every once in a while to continue a thread from the first game or make a crack about evil corporations and gentrification. It's ... fine. The humor was a little cringey and a lot retrograde even in 2008, and time certainly hasn't been kind to it, but as an attempt to do its own thing and set itself apart, it's successful enough.

Much more successful are a ton of small gameplay tweaks that directly fix a bunch of annoyances from the last game - all clearly purpose-driven to make the game more fun and accessible. Everything from mid-mission checkpoints, to easy restarting for minigames, to tangible, fun rewards of unique weapons or character upgrades for close to anything you can accomplish seems like a response to any and every complaint anyone had, and that's a great place to put your focus. If you boil it down, it's pretty much the exact same game, structure-wise (and even most of the locations and activities are lifted straight out), but it feels brand new just from the mountain of smart little adjustments that were made. They managed almost a full-on copy/paste, but you couldn't be happier about it.

It's still really rough around the edges - it's clear that polish was not a priority, but maybe that's okay. An identity, QOL, and giving people what they want can trump that sometimes. The fact that this, a mechanically not-that-different sequel to a certified "GTA Clone", was a huge hit only a couple months after the real deal launched seems to prove it!

Great game, a lot of fun and badass moments. Storytelling is definitely great. But godawful PC port, hands down one of the worst of all time...with no patch in sight...

I grabbed this on Steam when they were giving it away for a while in 2017...I tried and gave up on various attempts up until 2018. I had some attempts in 2016 aswell.

We finally beat this thing with my wonderful friend joining me for co-op (which we activated through Radmin VPN). He made what otherwise would be a troublesome run once again a lot more fun and showed me a lot of cool things too :)

I'm also just so glad to finally beat this thing, whew...a literal 9 years after beating 3 and 4 but here we are lol...also 8 after Gat Out of Hell I guess but fuck that game.

I still prefer 3 and 4 gameplay-wise but storywise this is definitely something else, sucks the series got a bit flanderized and flat out abandoned plotlines with 3 onwards to it's eventual recent demise...this misguided mindset to differentiate itself from GTA among other things really wasn't a good idea.

We played on Casual difficulty since Co-op doubles the enemy count and makes some things harder.
We used Gentlemen of the Row (you both need the exact same version for Co-op to work), 4GB patched exe, DXVK and High Quality Radio mods to fix and improve the game as much as possible and reduce crashes...still had some dumb crashes here and there but it's made the game a lot more stable with a fluid 60FPS. I cannot tell you enough to check out guides and tutorials to how to make this port as smooth as possible through guides on YouTube and Steam, you'll need it.

Between no port of 1, this thing will likely never getting that patch, that weird remaster of 3 no one asked for and 4's Re-Elected update breaking mods and GOTH and further on...Saints Row is easily one of the worst preserved franchises of all-time and it's a damn shame cuz these games truly deserve better.

One of the ports of all-time.
I finally go to make a bad asian bitch in high heels tho! again!

O único jogo da franquia que eu não joguei é o favorito dos fãs, e eu estava muito ansioso para jogá-lo com a @cellerepe, especialmente após zerarmos o primeiro jogo juntos, que nem coop tem.

E nós jogamos. Um pouco.

Nos esforçamos muito pra fazer essa joça funcionar na loteria que é fazer esse jogo rodar. Foram muitas, mas muitas horas de mods, paches, pesquisas, e tudo relacionado, mas no final tanto a minha versão quanto a dela tem um "timer" pro jogo ficar a 1fps e parar de funcionar. Depois de meses, desistimos.

É de conhecimento geral que esse port pra PC é abominável, mas não esperava que realmente não fôssemos conseguir. É muito triste saber que um patch oficial estava sendo feito pelo IdolNinja antes do seu falecimento, e que a volition, agora fechada após o fracasso do reboot da franquia, nunca vai lançar essa atualização que transformaria esse jogo aparentemente extremamente divertido em um produto jogável para todos novamente.

Um dia, quando melhorarmos nossos PCs, podemos tentar a versão do Xenia, mas por enquanto, só me resta um coração partido.

As bizarre as it may seem, this is probably the best open-world crime game ever made. In retrospect, Saints Row 2 came out at just the right time: late enough that its shooting, driving, and other mechanics are reasonably engaging (unlike the PS2 GTA games), but early enough that it didn't suffer from the massively bloated map and content padding of today's open-world games. Its tone manages to strike a good balance between childish shenanigans and crime drama, and I was pretty emotionally invested in several characters by the end of the game. Saints Row 2 is no masterpiece, but unlike the later GTA games, it's not trying to make some grand (and incredibly misguided) statement on the American experience, and as a result, it's actually a much better video game than its competitors. I was never a huge fan of the series, but if you're looking for a fun sandbox crime game to waste some hours on, you can't do much better than Saints Row 2.

It's an amazing game with a top notch open world, and a story which manages to skillfully fluctuate between comedic and tragically serious.
It's a bit of a broken mess, but a fallen soldier who did his best to fix up this game made a patch which does away with the game's technical flaws, and gives you options to skip the grind of having to earn respect points before you can progress the main story.
I didn't mind that personally because doing side content in this game is very fun, i don't think there's any other game where you can spray the city with feces.
You could get lost exploring Stilwater and doing little side objectives for a very long time, i can't stress enough how well designed the city is.
Oh yeah and the music slaps.

I found out about Saints Row 2 by seeing a random Xbox Live friend I never actually talked to play it. I was 8 years old at that time and I'm glad that through sheer circumstance I was able to experience one of my favorite games of all time.

I think this is a game that was better to me as a young kid because I didn't really think too deep into it. I would mostly play it for the sandbox experience which I do think is one of the most fun and open of its genre. I also got an insane amount of mileage out of the cheats in this game it was just a pretty good experience that I hold very dearly as an older person.