Let's get one thing out of the way first: Saints Row is almost exactly like Grand Theft Auto in every way. However, lacking any other game like it on the platform, this seemingly cookie-cutter version lights up the 360 with combustible mayhem on an order not yet reached by other titles
After mere seconds of play, the controls display a simple elegance that is instantly recognizable if not totally easy to get the hang of. Once you've scored a gat, you can shoot anything you like simply by
Are you sick and tired of Grand Theft Auto-derivative games? Wait, let's rephrase that: Are you sick of reading about GTA-derivative games? If so, we're wasting each other's time here. But you're urged to keep your mind open, because Saint's Row might just change your mind about the free-roaming drive-and-gun genre.
The most striking aspect of the game, of course, is the graphics. Saint's Row wasn't just put on Xbox 360 so that its publisher, THQ, could charge an extra $10 at retail. While the
Every day, some gat-toting punk game blasts its way across your console, frontin' like it's the next Grand Theft Auto... unless you're an Xbox 360 owner, in which case you're still thugless. Veteran developer Volition aims to change this with Saint's Row. On one hand, as yet another would be heir to the Grand Theft Auto empire, this ambitious prince may discover too late that it'll take more than mimicry to dethrone the reigning king. On the other hand, this is indeed one ambitious prince ...
We can just imagine the brainstorming sessions that went on deep in the bowels of Illinois-based Volition as it pondered the way ahead for the next generation of its games. And it would have boiled down to this: "Erm, how about we do a GTA, but, er, make it better? Stick it online or something?" "Yeah, that sounds good."
And so Saint's Row on 360 was born, with its gats precisely targeted on Rockstar's jewel in the crown and anything else of its ilk out there on the game shelves. But is this
