Saints Row 2

Horrible controls, messy graphics, unrealistic fight prevented to enjoy the game. Driving is not fun, controls are very bad, even on foot the camera is clumsy. This is very bad point for a game where you mostly drive something. Graphics are nowehere good, not even for its age. Fight is too much easy, you can oneshot everyone while you outlast everything (except if you try to make a graffiti, then gang members come and kill you in no time). Already the opening sequence is about killing about 100 cops while making a getaway. The painting shop clone from GTA is even more hilarious, if you go in, cops forget you even if you're running with a SWAT car... This is definitely not a Good Old Game, much more fun to play GTA: Vice City hundredth time than this for once...

This crashes constantly, the airborne controls are broken, missions glitch, and audio is badly compressed. That said, even when working as intended, Saint's Row 2 is still astoundingly shoddy. This was outdated and generic by 2008 standards. Don't believe the nostalgia. Textures are low-res. Turn around and traffic disappears. NPCs and debris clip into cars. Fast travel is hidden. Ladders don't work. Vehicles have no weight. Sound effects sound like they came from a free stock library. Vehicle damage modeling is amateurish. The open world is dull and devoid of traffic. The radio is full of public domain songs, cheap lounge music, and polka. Saint's Row 2 feels like a San Andreas fan mod, going so far as to recycle songs from Vice City and San Andreas. Rather than differentiate the series from GTA, the devs doubled down and copy-pasted San Andreas's graffiti collectibles, side missions, and obnoxious turf wars. Saints Row's attempt to replicate GTA's humor and satirical radio stations is especially embarrassing. The real problem is that the main gimmick--the gang-simulation mechanic--is shallow and adds little to gameplay. Character customization isn't enough to carry a game. Driving is arcadey, AI is dumb, and combat is mediocre. There's no feature here that hasn't been done better elsewhere. Play GTA IV, Saint Row 3, Mafia: Definitive Edition, or Sleeping Dogs instead if you want a polished open-world crime game.

Saints Row 2 is a gang violence simulator in an open world. It has main story missions, and a lot of side activities. You are a leader of the gang called the Saints, and you fight rival gangs. The latter represent bikers, Haitian Voodoo stereotypes, and Japanese stereotypes. The game frames it up as over the top, absurd action comedy. Beavis and Butthead and South Park come to mind. Beyond morality, you do tons of violence. Only that it's not clear what's the point of it beyond the mindless fun. At some point we kill a horde of homeless junkies, who turn into zombies trying to get drugs from us. We kill them, the main characters conclude that they are not human at all, and killing them doesn't matter. If it's played for laughs, it's not the ones would expect from any point of compassion. There are others. We have prostitutes, junkies, potheads, pothead girlfriends sleeping with anyone who has pot. It's all very stupid. Most of the game is like this, and then they try to take a shot at rich real estate developers trying to use militarized security and police to evict poor people from high crime areas to rise the property value. It doesn't make any point, just a short part of the cutscene. I'm unimpressed. The gameplay is fine. The game gets unfair near the end, you are easily killed by random stuff. At some point you have a fight inside a multistory shopping mall, and for some reason there are cars with enemy reinforcements driving around. That's probably the most memorable moment from this game. This is a game they show a kid play in a movie for people who never play videogames themselves. The kid plays this game and grows up to be a nihilist who can't tell a political protest from a racist riot. He spends most of the time crying how games are not good anymore, because of the woke agenda. This game is not woke at all, and it's shit.

gog doesnt let me buy this game :(

Beware, this sh*t has a 30 FPS cap. I have found some tips to remove it but had no success. GOG stole my money with this release. The game may be great, but I'm not willing to play at 30 FPS... It's a shame GOG, it's a shame.