People say that you only get one chance to make a first impression. Inevitably, Saint’s Row 2 is going to be compared endlessly to GTA IV, which is both a compliment and a curse for Saint’s Row 2. I’ll tell you what has stood out for me thus far with Saint’s Row 2 is how quickly the game engages you. The game just blasts off like a rocket. Compare that to the relatively slow burn of GTA IV, and you’ve got yourself a real duel between the heavyweight champ and legit number one contender.
How does the first ten minutes of Saint’s Row 2 compare to GTA IV? After the jump.
With video games and our ADD culture, it’s even more important, especially with the Holiday Crush of video games upon us to make a good first impression. All of the great games do it, with some notable exceptions. That said, after playing Saint’s Row 2, I was surprised at how quickly the game engaged me. Almost from the word go, the game gets crazy fun. I appreciate that.
Inevitably, the game will draw comparisons to GTA IV. That’s fine. I think it stands right up there with it. That’s right. I think Saint’s Row is a pretty good “open world” type game. The first ten minutes of each game really illustrate the differences between the two.
Let’s start with the opening scene. In GTA IV, you’re dragged through this extended opening credit sequence of this ship sailing into port. It’s long and boring, but you marvel at the great graphics. Or something. It’s really boring.
In Saint’s Row 2, you wake up from a coma and immediately begin to customize your character. Ok, not earth shattering, but still, when was the last time you could create your own character in such a detailed manner in a sandbox game?
In GTA IV, after the ship docks and you talk to a few people on the boat, you meet Roman, your cousin. Then you get to drive him around… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
In Saint’s Row 2, you escape from a prison. You kill a few guards, I threw one female guard off a building, and it’s off to the races as you steal a cop car and high tail it to your getaway boat, while helicopters and other cops chase you down.
On the other hand, in GTA IV, you’re subjected to mind numbing cutscene after cutscene, interspersed with repetitive fetch quests that entail driving your loser cousin, Roman, around Liberty City.You learn that not only is Roman a loser, but his wanna be girlfriend is getting boned by some low level Russian mobster. All this time, you still don’t have a gun, but you do get a kick ass job as a cabbie! Bonus?
In Saint’s Row 2, the opening ten minutes culminate in an escape from your Alcatraz type prison island by boat. Not only do you get a gun, but you get a machine gun to shoot down both helicopters and police boats that give chase.
In GTA IV, you get to go on a date…
See where I’m going here? Saint’s Row 2 only gets more crazy from there. While I almost put up GTA IV for sale after playing the first few missions, out of sheer boredom, Saint’s Row 2 had me energized. I had escaped from prison, broke my buddy out of Federal custody, stole a Lamborghini and tore it up. In GTA IV, I get to drive around a crappy cab, driving my loser cousin around while he blabs about his loser life.
It’s a wonder I even finished GTA IV. To be fair, GTA IV is a good game, but you can really see the difference between the two games in the tone that’s set in the first 10 minutes. I just hope that Rockstar plays Saint’s Row 2 before making GTA V.
They could learn a thing or two.
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That said, dig deep… and I know what I’ll still pick up and play for random mayhem.
I guess it depends on how much patience you’re willing to use up before the meat of the game starts.
The beginning missions are a poor mans tutorial, aiming to get you used to the cars and the city.
Perhaps they could have included the option like at the start of Gears… where you can skip the basics and get straight into the action.
hey lono have you or doc or dave got far ry 2????
it was realesed to day and it is awsome it is like gta 4 cros over cod 4 in afrika!
ps. sory for bad spelling
cry*
I played saints row 1, and i noticed a that quite a few of the cool additions to GTAIV, such as the phone and most of its features, the GPS line that shows you where to drive, getting lifts in a taxi and the whole “ring a friend for backup”, were all taken from saints row
dont get me wrong, GTA improved on those, but no one gave saints row any credit for any of those, but GTA was raved about because of these features, although it did have plenty of its own new features in all fareness.
And no, saints row couldn’t have copied these features from GTA, because they weren’t announced at the time, just saying there are a few too many similarities to be just a coincidence
I loved Saints Row and Saints Row 2, and I love GTA4. Really, it is a matter of how much you care about story. GTA4 started slowly, we all know that. I did not find ONE cutscene in that entire game boring. You know why? Because I care about the story in games. Saints Row in no way has a bad story, but I don’t think it is as good as GTA4 story wise. Yes, the start of Saints Row is more exciting, but Volition went off the assumption that everyone had played SR 1 or a GTA game beforehand, and Rockstar went with the assumption that no one had touched a controller before touching GTA4 (for some reason). They just have different opening styles, I would like to see a full game review for these games, it would be much more accurate.
That being said, they are both great games.
What I can’t understand is why hair during cut scenes in Saint’s Row 2 looks so pixelated. I’m watching the cut scene trying to take in the story but the damn hair on my character look like it came out of a NES game. The rest of the game looks great but what happened? But the part that really drove me insane is when you start a mission and need a vehicle, there are none anywhere on the streets, it takes like 8-10 seconds for one to appear.
Yeah the hair really looks weird.
SAINTS ROW IS A GOOD GAME BUT THEY TOOK AFTER GTA MAKEING THERE CAR ALIKE TRYING SO HARD TO STAY IN HEAD OF GTA AND getaway so i know GTA is the Best of UnderGround Mafia games
i dont know how to get good guns in gta aside of buying them from the clandestine ammunation… i prefer buying a remake of gta san andreas rather than buying gta IV
The GTA games always have a slow start, but once they get good, they get really good.
It’s better than games that just toss you in without much explanation IMO. As well as the GTA formula of ‘new character every time’ which works really well, as you pay attention to learn about your characters past.
Granted I haven’t played Saints Row 1 or 2 and I certainly feel that I haven’t played GTA as much as I was expecting but there does seem to be a different take on the two games – I suppose it’s Godfather vs Die Hard – both top notch games but different executions – the more people in the genre – the better the games will get – bring it on!!
It’s nice to see someone give a level-headed opinion on this topic. Kudos, Lono. These two will alway be compared to each other, which isn’t fair for either of them.
I think Rob came close to it, though. It’s like comparing Godfather to Goodfellas. Exact same genre, but one is more ENTERTAINING while the other is a greater work of ART. They each fill their own niche.
On a side note, I think Saints Row 2’s addition of “Cruise Control” is easily one of the best things to happen to the criminal sandbox genre.
I like poo
Ditto
i like cheese too 
p.s Saints Row 2 FTW
Saints Row 2 FTW.
I agree with The Elephant Man and ForeverCrabby fer sure
Poo and cheese is very nice!
ok wtf is wit the poo and cheese things? but any way i havent bought either games yet but by look at a bunch of reviews and forums it a tie between gta4 and sr2. im getting an xbox360 for christmas and im trying to decide wich to get…… i like custimazation but the story line needs to have a point2 – not just like be a cab driver the first mission but the very next mission be a hardcore gangbanger that has a full backpack of miniguns. but right now im thinking more of sr2….. and suggestions y or y not i shouldnt buy sr2?
I Bought GTA4 and the only thing i like about it is the way it looks. The Story to me was weak because NIko is a horrible Main Character, The game was way to easy to beat unlike SR2 (has a hardcore setting). I personally rather play Demo Derby or Do some barnstorming with a plane, Drug Deals, Plane surfing,Drive bys, my personal favorite Mayhem, Excort level 6 is extremely hard on hardcore, Trail blazing, Killing Zombies, Play Poker,Play blackjack, Jumping out of planes doing back flips into a swimming pool, Heli assualt, and the list go on and on, then go out on dates, Play pool with my hommies ( btw you don’t have to set your shot up, it goes right in every time),Go bowling, play Darts, Download ringtones , Go to a comedy Club just to watch the show, get a lapdance, Deal with stupid Cops and only stupid Cops. I do that without playing a video game.
If you want a hard but fun game that will keep you busy hour after hour and have replay ability as well as co-op then SR2 is your game. After i beat GTA4 i tried to trade it in but everywhere i went said that this was the Most traded in game Since it came out and wouldn’t give me much for it at all. Don’t believe the ones that give GTA 4 a good rating, I was a huge GTA fan but i wasted my money on a boring game that i still have but will never play again. None of my friends would take it off of me for free.
I also like to add that the whole internet thing was stupid as well, SR started with the Phone, GTA stole that idea and came up with the Lame Internet e-mail. SR won’t be stealing that idea, i also would bet that R*won’t bring it back either.