Easily the best Saints Row game imo

It's got a good blend of being the goofy series that it is while still being serious when it has to. I love the games wider weapon variety, the activities are definitely more fun and feel less dragged out, the characters new protagonists and villains introduced are honestly some of the best in the series, it's a helluva great time. The only things I don't like are honestly just some of the missions. I do think some of them are clearly better than others. If you have the same opinion on the first game as I do, then you'll be happy to know that 2 does improve from the first game and then some.

SR2 has a lot more personality than 1 and manages to find its own identity. It's a mix of serious and comedic that none of the other SR games nail. The map in this game is very well made and has a ton of variety and secrets. There's an absurd amount of hidden detail to the way city life works in this game that most players won't even notice. I'd give this a 4 but it's got a fair amount of jank to it these days, even before factoring in the abysmal PC port. It's also, just like the first Saints Row, a game that reeks of being written and developed by a bunch of white dudes in the Midwest. I don't mean that as a negative, it's just the vibe the game has.

The follow-up of a classic I really enjoyed must be at least as good if not better than the original, right? Well I got some good news for you! Saints Row 2 builds upon the first game in every way but improves almost everything about it while being its own thing with its own individual identity.

Saints Row 2 follows the events about 5 years after the ending of the original Saints Row. Your goal is to get the gang back together and work together to gain back control over the city against 3 new gangs who, while you were gone, took over most of the city, with the main area from the first game as well as the area the name of the game is derived from - Saint's Row - being taken over by a capitalist conglomerate and gentrified to the point the only thing that would tell you this is the same Saint's Row from the 1st game is the church, the only spot from the area that still exists in 2, now used as a tourist attraction.

The game's overall different bloomier and more pale atmosphere alongside all the changes made to the city gave it a unique uncanny yet familiar feeling, a very "everything is eerily familiar yet entirely different" and I think that helps solidify how much of a tight grip the Ultor corporation has on the city and how much they want to transform it into a capitalistic utopia of sorts. Playing the 2nd game after the first makes you really miss the Saints Row 1 Stilwater, especially the classic version of Saint's Row and how colorful everything was in contrast to the 2nd game's pale colors on just about everything.

Saints Row 2 fixes just about every one of my complaints with the first game: It has a checkpoint system for its missions (which the first game did not have whatsoever), it has been changed to be a lot less grindy than the first game (gone are the times you have to do a couple side-missions to level up your respect. now one side mission or two at most could level you up easily. the game also adds a very convenient system that awards you points whenever you do various activities such as dodging cars, killing gangsters and bailing out of a car at a high speed) and also the side-missions themselves are much more fun - there's new side missions that are fun to play on their own and the returning missions have been tweaked here and there to be more fun, and to give out rewards that do help you outside of said side-missions a lot, such as infinite pistol ammo or the police/gangs forgetting about you much faster.

The story was pretty simple, maintaining the same format as the first game where you have a few prologue missions, then a number of missions of each individual gang that you can tackle in any order you desire and then a few epilogue missions but also including one secret mission that is meant to tie loose ends with the ending of the first game, giving some extra context as to what happened and why.

I know a lot of people who complain about Saints Row 3 taking the story towards being a bit too out there and wacky might dislike my answer but that started with the 2nd game. Everything is more over the top and a bit of a self-parody and while at times it can work in favor for the game (such as the over the top missions and some plot elements) there are some parts where the game has taken a few nosedives, particularly with the writing. Many of the returning characters (specifically the player character and Johnny Gat) have either changed a ton or have become a bit too flanderized. Johnny Gat sometimes acts so edgy it feels like a 12 year old's OC and the future games do play into that even more. Sure, Gat was always a bit more out there and more violent but it was not to this extent. Also the fact the player went from a voiceless character with 0 agency or personality to a character that has maybe a bit too much of both (to the point they're very much a self imposing asshole with little regard towards anyone they're not close with). At first I was not a fan of what they did with Julius but as I thought of it more, it really made a lot of sense and his intentions were ultimately more or less justified (I do think he was definitely very right about the Saints becoming the very thing they fought against).
Shaundi and Pierce didn't have a lot of significant writing at that point so they're kinda reduced to a few traits, such as how Shaundi is known to have had a lot of exes and is a huge stoner and Pierce is kinda some sort of a goofier version of Dex from the first game who doesn't get enough credit for the work he puts in. I think the characters being a bit cartoony and/or one dimensional is the biggest flaw with the game, really.

The story overall isn't much to write home about but does what it's supposed to do. The missions are fun and you get a lot of entertainment from the cutscenes and the action but just don't expect a storywriting masterpiece from Saints Row. I'm not going to expect everything to be Homer's Odyssey but as a video game and neither should you. The story is simple and that is the goal. Most of the charm is in the action and the story does a good job with that.

I really liked the themes of anti capitalism and anti gentrification and I kinda liked how you can see Saints Row 2 as a villain story of sorts if you think about it given the change of character motives between the games.
Also, if you play as a woman in SR2 and onwards the character is canonically trans and the game acknowledges that.

Saints Row 2 is a really fun game and I definitely recommend it. I recommend people to play the first game firstly for better context but it's not a must. It's more than your typical gta clone or whatever and it really shows. Volition went above and beyond to make Saints Row the best experience possible by fixing all the flaws of the first game and improving just about everything. Saints Row needed a stable comfort area to be in and the 2nd game does just that. It's a fun experience I do not regret having and playing both SR1 and 2 made me appreciate the series in a way I didn't get to by playing SR3 (SR3 is still a good game IMO don't get me wrong). This may not be able to capture all my thoughts on the game but it's pretty close. I've typed about 6200 characters in this review so I think I've sold the game well enough. Play it if you have an XBOX or a PS3. If you're on PC try to look for any mods that improve the shoddy port. I wholeheartedly recommend the game to anyone who wants to have a truly fun experience with an open world game

Logo de cara, SR2 não me cativou muito por ser bem diferente do SR3, com o qual eu conheci a franquia. Entretanto, depois de me acostumar com os comandos e o visual, eu percebi o quanto esse aqui é superior ao sucessor.

Na real, acho que esse talvez seja o melhor de todos os Saints Rows. TODOS os vilões são simplesmente fantásticos, as cutscenes são muito impactantes e apesar de ter um pé na alopração o jogo ainda mantém toda a vibe de gangsta badass. Coloca facilmente o GTA4 pra MAMAR.

As rádios são muito boas, e porra, poder sair atropelando gente ouvindo Paramore é bom dimai. Até a rádio de Hip Hop, que é um estilo que eu não costumo ouvir muito, me pegou legal nesse jogo. Claro, o fato de eu reconhecer as músicas que tocavam na MTV em 2000 e pouco quando eu era molecão contribui bastante.

A customização permite variar bastante o visual do personagem e dos carros. Eu diria que apesar de visualmente menos impressionante que a de SR3, essa aqui ganha por ser mais variada.

As sidequests são muito boas e não são repetitivas, o que dá uma alongada legal na vida útil do jogo.

O uso de consumíveis pra recuperar vida foi uma grata surpresa.

Um dos meus jogos favoritos de todos os tempos, talvez até o meu favorito de todos os tempos.

A significant improvement upon its straightforward GTA clone predecessor and the extreme high point of the Saints Row series. It's kind of like an Americanized Yakuza-GTA mixture. The main campaign is tonally serious and the stakes are high, while all the other side content is you committing absurd acts like excessive insurance fraud and tossing civilians into helicopter blades. Unlike many other open-world games, the sandbox and story are interconnected to make Stillwater feel authentic

Too bad Saints Row tanks soon after this and with Volition studios shut down, there is zero hope for the series to return to the heights of quality Saints Row 2 achieved

despite the terrible, awful, inexcusable pc port, if you can push through you'll find yourself with one of the best co-op games of all time. there's so much fun and charm in this game that the series never really managed to hit again. they seriously nailed the feeling of a big, open world in 2008! with (for its time) a crazy in depth character creator. a shame what happened to volition and idolninja but at least their work is still here to be enjoyed (until the port just straight up doesnt work anymore). highly recommend if you can push through the terrible pc port, or are able to play it on xbox.

This game is pretty much an almost perfect sequel. it irons out all the kinks of the original game and ends up being pretty much the greatest gangster simulator ever, one thing I hated in the first was how grindy the side activities are but they're way more fun in this game and a lot less grindy. the gunplay,cars,customization and pretty much everything wipes the floor with the first game. the radio stations give late 2000's nostalgia and the world of stilwater is much more fleshed out in this game with more memorable gangs than the first personally for me, the characters in general are great imo. Pierce,Shaundi,Johnny Gat and Carlos are all great and seeing what happened to the Saints Row 1 characters is cool. easily one of the best open world games I've played

I never played the original Saints Row until years later, but in the wake of Grand Theft Auto IV leaning away from arcade-like gameplay and more towards realism, this was an absolute blast back in the day. The story itself is fairly engrossing but as always with open-world crime games, the main gameplay comes from the fun you and your friends have with the limitations of the design. With an absurd array of customisation and crazy secrets you can discover, Saints Row 2 was a must have in the early days of the Xbox 360's life cycle.

I was worried going back to this game for the first time in many years, that it wouldn't hold up. My fears however, were completely unfounded.

The game not only holds up but is in fact better than I remember it being.

The best story in an SR game, the best characters, the most customization, the best open world, the best radio stations, the best art design.

Coming back to this world was a joy, while it isnt perfect, SR's gunplay mechanics in the first 2 games have always been janky and the weakest element for me, some of the side missions were boring. The good so massively outweighs the negative here.

If you are replaying these game's in preparation for the reboot later this year, as I am. Then take it from a series veteran, it doesn't get better than this.

This game deserves a proper tonal and thematic follow up, it's a crying shame the way the series regressed with the next entry.

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.

the Bugs I can honestly ignore since it wasn't so bad that it was game breaking. just a buzzing fly every once in a while.

That said, this game is LOADS of fun for me. great gameplay with fun Side activities and funny dialogue (as usual) and this makes it the best Saints Row Game for me. loved the Story that the Saints took on this game as well.

I have NOTHING bad to say about this game. just...beautiful.