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Saints Row 2

Saints Row 2 isn’t Grand Theft Auto, but that's a good thing. With strong replayability and wacky mini-games, the game will remain relevant for months down the road.
76%Game Brain Score
story, gameplay
graphics, optimization
75% User Score Based on 24,050 reviews
Critic Score 76%Based on 6 reviews

Platforms

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About

"Saints Row 2" is an open-world action-adventure game that offers true freedom in customization and gameplay. Players can create and customize their own character, as well as vehicles and cribs, and seek revenge on enemies in a transformed city of Stilwater. The game also includes a co-op campaign with seamless integration.

Genres & Tags
Play Modes
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
Saints Row 2 screenshot
+3

75%
Audience ScoreBased on 24,050 reviews
story2.3k positive mentions
graphics290 negative mentions
  • Saints Row 2 features an engaging story that blends humor with serious themes, making it a standout entry in the series.
  • The gameplay is characterized by chaotic fun, extensive customization options, and a mix of serious and humorous elements, providing a memorable open-world experience.
  • The game boasts high replayability with diverse missions and character customization, enhanced by community mods like 'Gentlemen of the Row.'
  • The PC port is plagued by severe instability, frequent crashes, and poor optimization, making it nearly unplayable without third-party mods.
  • Many players criticize the outdated graphics and technical issues, which detract from the overall experience.
  • The grinding aspect of the game can be tedious, requiring players to complete numerous side activities to progress in the main story.
  • story
    7,592 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The story of "Saints Row 2" is widely praised for its engaging narrative that blends humor with serious themes, focusing on the protagonist's quest to rebuild the Saints gang after a coma and reclaim their territory from rival gangs. Players appreciate the depth of character development and the emotional weight of certain plot points, making it a standout entry in the series compared to its sequels. However, many reviews highlight the game's poor PC port, which leads to frequent crashes and bugs that can disrupt the storytelling experience.

    • “Saints Row 2 perfectly straddles the line between open-world chaos and a gripping story.”
    • “The story is surprisingly deep and engaging, exploring themes of loyalty, betrayal, and redemption.”
    • “The story in Saints Row 2 is both engaging and outrageous, striking a perfect balance between dramatic moments and absurd humor.”
    • “The story isn't that good; it is serviceable but not that deep or interesting.”
    • “The game crashes most often during the end of cutscenes, skipping them will also result in a game crash, with autosave only saving after the mission is over, some missions become literally impossible.”
    • “What broke it for me is the annoying reputation system that would block you from doing any more main story line quests until you went out and did some random and often frustrating side quests, to build your rep back up to start another story line quest.”
  • gameplay
    1,764 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay of Saints Row 2 is characterized by its chaotic fun, extensive customization options, and a mix of serious and humorous elements, making it a standout in the open-world genre. However, players frequently report significant technical issues, including crashes, poor optimization, and clunky driving mechanics, which can detract from the overall experience. Despite these drawbacks, many find the gameplay engaging and enjoyable, especially when enhanced by community mods like "Gentlemen of the Row."

    • “The gameplay is stellar, second only to its sense of humor.”
    • “The story, the characters, the world, and the gameplay are seriously the best in the genre.”
    • “With its fantastic customization options, diverse gameplay mechanics, and humorous undertone, this game is a must-play for anyone seeking a fun and unforgettable open-world experience.”
    • “The story is cliche and terrible, the characters are unlikable, the gameplay is atrocious and the enemies are just bullet sponges.”
    • “Each time I tried to get into the action, I was met with unexpected freezes and crashes, which ruined any chance of enjoying the gameplay.”
    • “Unfortunately, the game has already crashed about 5 times in 3 hours of gameplay and I can see where this is going.”
  • graphics
    1,538 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics of Saints Row 2 are widely criticized for being outdated and poorly optimized, with many players experiencing frequent crashes and graphical glitches, even on high-end systems. While some appreciate the game's distinct art style and charm, the visuals are often compared unfavorably to contemporary titles, leading to a consensus that they do not hold up well by modern standards. Despite these issues, the gameplay and story remain engaging, and mods like "Gentlemen of the Row" can enhance the experience, making it more playable.

    • “Graphics and sound: while the graphics may not hold up against modern standards, Saints Row 2 has a distinct and vibrant art style that still charms.”
    • “Released in 2008 and still one of the best games out to this day, graphics might be dated but everything else is far ahead of its time.”
    • “The graphics have aged well, the controls are pretty ok too and the story is interesting.”
    • “The frequent crashes, graphical glitches, and poor optimization made it a frustrating experience.”
    • “The game’s visuals, which were already dated, didn’t translate well to modern hardware, leading to a lot of issues that detracted from the experience.”
    • “Please don't play this in current quality, not only does it not support 1920x1080 or higher, the sound and graphics are horrible, you also can't aim for some odd reason so the game is a mess, I hope we'll get a remaster.”
  • optimization
    1,393 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The optimization of Saints Row 2 on PC has been widely criticized, with users reporting frequent crashes, significant frame rate drops, and overall poor performance, even on high-end systems. Many players recommend using the "Gentlemen of the Row" mod to alleviate some of these issues, but even with mods, the game remains unstable and unoptimized. Overall, the consensus is that the PC port is one of the worst in gaming history, making it difficult to recommend without significant caveats.

    • “Despite the PC port being poorly optimized, Saints Row 2 is easily one of the best sandbox games I've played.”
    • “The gentlemen of the row mod surely helps to optimize the game and make it playable on PC for anyone with performance issues.”
    • “The story, characters, gameplay are really good, but the game itself is horribly optimized, very lazy port.”
    • “The pc port, in particular, has been known for its technical issues, including poor optimization, crashes, and framerate drops.”
    • “Its a terrible port, terribly optimized and crashes so often that it makes the game unplayable.”
    • “The frequent crashes, graphical glitches, and poor optimization made it a frustrating experience.”
  • humor
    1,316 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The humor in "Saints Row 2" is widely praised for its perfect blend of absurdity and seriousness, offering a mix of hilarious side missions, witty dialogue, and memorable character interactions. Players appreciate the game's self-aware charm, with many noting that its crude and outrageous humor enhances the overall experience, making it a standout in the open-world genre. Despite some criticisms regarding its technical issues, the humor remains a key highlight, providing countless moments of laughter throughout the gameplay.

    • “It perfectly blends chaotic action, deep customization, and a story that’s equal parts hilarious and heartfelt.”
    • “One of the best open world games I've ever played, plenty of fun side activities, excellent main story missions, hilarious writing and character moments.”
    • “Saints Row 2 is a game that perfectly captures the spirit of open-world chaos, blending a compelling story with over-the-top action and humor.”
    • “And no, the terrible recent reboot doesn't somehow 'redeem' this - it's still clunky, janky, unfunny, and boring.”
  • stability
    1,208 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The PC port of Saints Row 2 is widely criticized for its severe instability, characterized by frequent crashes, numerous glitches, and poor optimization. Many players report that the game is nearly unplayable without third-party mods like "Gentlemen of the Row," which are necessary to mitigate some of the issues. While the game itself is praised for its fun gameplay and engaging story, the overwhelming technical problems significantly detract from the overall experience, leading to a general recommendation to avoid the PC version in favor of console alternatives.

    • “The game runs great on my Steam Deck; I don't know how, but I'm not complaining.”
    • “Runs great on a 1080 Ti/i7-8700k!”
    • “The game runs great on PC.”
    • “It's a broken, crashing buggy mess.”
    • “The pc port is horrendously buggy and is prone to crashing no matter what in the game you do...but if you can find a mod to fix a lot of this game's issues, then it can be a pretty enjoyable experience!”
    • “This game is a buggy, crappy, unfinished mess, and it is glorious, if you really wanna have fun with it, i'd highly recommend playing the console versions, they're solid, they have access to the dlc, and they allow you to enjoy a *near* flawless masterpiece of game without constant bugs and crashes, only get this version if you have little to no access to the console versions.”
  • music
    760 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in Saints Row 2 is widely praised for its diverse and nostalgic soundtrack, featuring a mix of genres including hip-hop, rock, and 80s hits, which enhances the game's atmosphere and overall enjoyment. Many players appreciate the variety of radio stations and the inclusion of lesser-known tracks, although some criticize the audio quality, particularly in the PC port, which can be significantly compressed. Overall, the soundtrack is considered one of the best aspects of the game, contributing to its charm and replayability.

    • “The sound design complements the game’s atmosphere perfectly, with a diverse soundtrack that ranges from hip-hop to rock, and everything in between.”
    • “The music selection of the game features many popular 90s and early 2000s songs, that really just set the entire vibe for the game, and really increase the overall enjoyment to be had tenfold.”
    • “Saints Row 2 has one of the greatest radio music selections of any game I've played.”
    • “But this port is awful, audio is all screwy, radio music sounds awful, aspect ratio and resolutions are crap.”
    • “The radio is intolerable unless you either have a soft spot for listening to music through a Nokia phone speaker or you, like mentioned previously, download mods that replace the sound files with the ones from the Xbox 360 version.”
    • “The music quality is pathetic, it sounds worse than music from the N64.”
  • emotional
    168 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Saints Row 2 is praised for its unique blend of humor and emotional depth, striking a balance between chaotic fun and poignant moments that resonate with players. Many reviewers highlight the game's ability to evoke genuine feelings, particularly through character deaths and impactful storylines, making it stand out as the most emotionally engaging entry in the franchise. While it revels in absurdity, the game also features serious themes that can leave players reflecting long after the credits roll.

    • “Saints Row 2 is a non-stop thrill ride of action, humor, and pure, unadulterated fun... with a side of surprisingly dark and emotional moments that will leave you reeling.”
    • “Carlos' death scene made me cry as a kid.”
    • “The emotional moments of the game pack way more of a punch than later installments.”
    • “This game is nothing but a cheap ripoff of Grand Theft Auto, which is way better in any way you look at it. This game gets a 1/10 overall. It's a boring story, and I find it incredibly disappointing. I'm never playing this boring game ever again.”
    • “Saints Row 2 is not the type of game I thought it would be. It has a really boring storyline, and to complete missions, you need to increase your respect, which is one of the most tedious aspects of this game. The developer should release a remastered version to make it more enjoyable.”
    • “What can I say? This game did surprise me. I thought it was going to be a boring shoot 'em up type game with a dull story, but I was wrong. This game is pretty amazing, and I love that you can create your own character, from the way they look to the way they talk and walk.”
  • replayability
    165 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game boasts high replayability, with players praising its extensive character customization, diverse missions, and engaging open-world activities. Many reviews highlight the enjoyment of replaying the game with different character builds and the added value from mods like "Gentlemen of the Row," which enhance gameplay and fix issues. Overall, players find the game to be endlessly entertaining, making it a standout title for repeated playthroughs.

    • “The character customization is deep, allowing you to create a protagonist that truly reflects your style, while the variety of vehicles, weapons, and outfits add to the game's replayability.”
    • “I can't describe the amount of fun I had playing this game, still stands as such an amazing sandbox title, with insane replayability and a gripping and fun story.”
    • “The gameplay itself is rather fun, with a variety of different activities, diversions, missions, and strongholds, all of which are replayable-- you can even replay individual cutscenes.”
    • “This game has zero replay value.”
    • “I don't really think there's replay value to this as you would be doing the same thing even if you change your character, it will only look different and the epilogue is just 1 secret mission.”
    • “But besides that, it's also too much replayable game, that makes me feel sick ...”
  • grinding
    96 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Players generally find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious, as it often requires completing numerous side activities to progress in the main story. While some activities are enjoyable and varied, the repetitive nature of grinding for respect points can detract from the overall experience, leading to frustration, especially when players are eager to continue the narrative. Despite these criticisms, many acknowledge that the grind can be rewarding and fun at times, particularly when engaging with the game's humor and diverse missions.

    • “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
    • “A bit grindy sometimes.”
    • “One long, tedious grind.”
    • “Strong start, but then the most annoying game design choice presents itself: obligatory grinding to play the main missions.”
    • “Imagine having a game with a great story, but you're locked from playing it until you tediously grind up enough points or play the most frustrating side quests to do the next mission.”
    • “The respect system is used to make sure that the player can't just do all the missions at once, and it forces the player to explore the map and its various environments by killing enemy gang members, doing stunt jumps, etc. Sometimes this can get tedious, especially later in the game when you are on the brink of a climactic event and have to go grind for respect levels.”
  • atmosphere
    52 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its unique blend of humor and serious themes, creating a gritty yet vibrant world that feels alive and immersive. The diverse soundtrack enhances the experience, while the character designs and world-building contribute to a nostalgic 90s/early 2000s aesthetic that many players find appealing. Overall, the game's atmosphere is considered top-notch, offering a distinct charm that sets it apart from other titles in the genre.

    • “Atmosphere is top notch, nothing else like it.”
    • “The story is without a doubt the best and craziest, most nuts in the series and I really fell in love with the atmosphere of the city.”
    • “There's a charming atmosphere to this game that isn't found in much of the series.”
    • “3, 4, and maybe the reboot will be okay but won't have the character and atmosphere this title delivers.”
    • “Mediocre atmosphere.”
    • “Though Saints Row 2 profits from its easy and humorous atmosphere, those can’t make up for its technical weaknesses.”
  • character development
    31 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Character development in the game is generally praised for being engaging and well-executed, with players feeling invested in the characters and their growth throughout the story. The customization options for character design, including voices and appearances, enhance the personal connection players have with their avatars. While some reviews note that the game may not reach the narrative depth of competitors like GTA, it still offers a fun and entertaining experience with solid character arcs and memorable moments.

    • “Incredible storyline and character development, it makes you want to get involved.”
    • “The SR series doesn't take itself very seriously, but I felt like the character development was solid and I felt invested in the characters.”
    • “More story is filled out as the Saints grow into a proper gang along with much more character development when it comes to Pierce, Shaundi, and Gat.”
    • “It's not going to win any awards for plot or character development for sure.”
    • “It doesn't have the heavy storyline or character development of a GTA game.”
    • “Even the story is really interesting from start to end, but they give character development so well if you haven't played the first one.”
  • monetization
    18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The monetization aspect of the game is not heavily criticized, but players note the absence of microtransactions, which is seen as a positive. While the game features humorous radio ads and a decent selection of music, it falls short of its advertised customization options. Players recommend using mods like "Gentlemen of the Row" to enhance the experience and address bugs in the PC port.

    • “☐ microtransactions”
    • “The game advertises itself as having a raft of customization options - while there are customization options, these are nowhere near as detailed as the advertising would have you suggest.”
    • “However, the PC port is buggy as hell, but if you get the Gentleman of the Row mod, it adds a lot of features to this game and it won't be buggy anymore.”

76%Critics’ scoreBased on 6 critic reviews

Buy Saints Row 2

19h Median play time
70h Average play time
20h Main story
51h Completionist
8-40h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 114 analyzed playthroughs

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