Saints Row 2
Description official descriptions
At the end of Saints Row the city of Stilwater was in the hands of the 3rd Street Saints. But the main protagonist also got blown up on Mayor Alderman's yacht, putting him in a coma. So things went down from there.
Five years have passed now and the main protagonist finally wakes up from their sleep only to find themself in prison and the city of Stilwater controlled by several rival gangs, with Johnny Gat about to be put on the electric chair. With the help of Carlos, a fellow inmate, the protagonist escapes, rescues Johnny Gat and once again begins to reform the gang and move the 3rd Street Saints back up to number 1.
Before the player can enter the open and non-linear environment of the city, they need to define who the main protagonist is by using an extensive character creator which allows for changing everything from gender to the size of the characters ears and the voice acting. But that's not the limit of customization in Saints Row 2. In shops scattered all around the city the player can buy additional clothing from underwear to hats to not only change their appearance but also the gang's. These clothes are then also available in the up to six cribs the player can unlock and buy during the course of the game. Besides changing their appearance, the player can also stash weapons and cash there, withdraw the daily earnings, rewatch cutscenes and more. They can also change the overall style of the crib and buy new stuff like a TV-set which grants them additional style points.
Style and Respect are the most important currencies besides money in the city. While respect is used to unlock missions and progress through the storyline, the player's style affects the overall respect modifier increasing the amount of respect earned. As stated, style points are earned by upgrading the characters look, home or car. Respect points are instead earned through the many activities and diversions available in the city.
Activities are mini-games that are started at a one of two specific points in the game world and span out over six difficulty levels. After completing three levels, the player gains unlockables like a 5% discount on clothes. Besides activities already known from Saints Row, Saints Row 2 includes six new ones including "Crowd Control" in which the player needs to protect a VIP from intrusive fans and "FUZZ", a parody of COPS in which the player is followed by a camera crew and has to deal with criminals in a very creative manner to gain points. Diversions on the other hand include the simple driving on the wrong side of the road, doing stunts, playing poker in a casino, hijacking a car with more than one person in it and taking the passengers hostage and doing the job side-missions like driving the tow-truck or playing taxi.
The game also features several multiplayer modes ranging from a two-person coop-mode to twelve player deathmatch ("Gangsta Brawl") and team-deathmatch ("Team Gangsta Brawl") and a mode called "Strong Arm" in which the team wins that manages to earn $100,000 first. This is accomplished by winning events based on single player activities like racing. Each activity has a time limit and at the end the winner goes home with $10,000.
Spellings
- 黑街聖徒2 - Traditional Chinese spelling
Groups +
- BPjS / BPjM indexed games
- Censored Japanese releases
- Drivable Vehicle: Jet Ski
- Drivable Vehicle: Monster Truck
- Game feature: FMV / cutscene player
- Gameplay feature: Chainsaws
- Gameplay feature: Game completion percentage
- Gameplay feature: Graffiti / street art
- Gameplay feature: House ownership
- Gameplay feature: Interior decorating
- Games with classical music
- Genre: Open world / Free-roaming / Sandbox action and driving
- Genre: Truck racing / driving
- Japanese PlayStation 3 games with full English support
- Middleware: Bink Video
- Middleware: LipSync
- Nudity
- Physics Engine: Havok
- PlayStation 3 Essentials Range releases
- PlayStation 3 Platinum Range releases
- Protagonist: Gangster
- Saints Row series
- Setting: 2000s
- Theme: Zombies
- Xbox 360 Classics releases
- Xbox 360 Platinum Hits releases
Screenshots
Promos
Videos
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Credits (Xbox 360 version)
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Technical Art Director | |
Animation Coordinator | |
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Cinematics Coordinator | |
Environment Art Coordinators | |
Interface Coordinator | |
Vehicle Art Coordinator | |
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Character Artists | |
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Concept Artists | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Saints Row 2 appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
German version
There are a number of changes in the German version. The Windows version requires a Steam verification and is region locked, i.e. an uncut version can't be activated when the player has a German IP address. * The cutscenes were heavily cut, e.g. violent scenes, attacks on unarmed people and drug use. The screen goes to black with the text "Wir bitten um Verzeihung - sehr böse Dinge passieren hinter diesem schwarzen Bildschirm!" ("Many apologies - very bad things happen behind this black screen!"). The audio and subtitles are still there. * All blood effects (except when shooting meat and in cutscenes) were removed. * Ragdoll effects on people (except after explosions and when they are hit by a car) and corpses were removed. * Killed enemies disappear almost instantly. This means the possibility to revive killed people with the defibrillator is also gone. * There are no flames on burning people; only black smoke. They also don't scream. * People only leave money behind if completely killed. * The option to take a human shield was removed both for the player and for the AI. This affects some missions. * During the fight club sequences, the finishing move quicktime events when an enemy reaches the bottom of his health were removed. Players have to finish off all enemies the hard way. * Likewise the finishing moves with the katana were removed. * The respect growth for performing combat moves like headshots was removed. * Some activities were removed: the amok drive with a burning vehicle, Fuzz (wreak chaos for a TV reality show), vandalism (earning money by destroying property) and being the bodyguard of a celebrity. Because of this, some of the unlockables are not reachable for German players. * The mini games Zombie Uprising (arcade) and drive-by were removed. During the pimping mini game, the screams of lust were removed. * During the first main mission, the player has to kill a prison doctor to progress. This was removed in the German version. * The cheats for getting the flame thrower, chainsaw and explosive charge were removed. * The "Zombie Carlos" companion was removed. * The texts in the German version differ from the German texts in the regular version, e.g. the game avoids the words "töten" ("kill") or "Nutte" ("hooker"). * Various "number of killed x" statistics were removed. * Xbox 360 version: a few achievements, mostly related to missing game content, were removed and the gamerscore divided between other achievements.
A detailed list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).
The Freezer
An infamous game-breaking bug is reported, but not entirely confirmed to exist, at least in the Xbox 360 and Windows releases of the game. It manifests as a large human silhouette (dubbed by fans as "The Freezer") appearing in unexpected places, which freezes the game and, in the case of the retail Xbox 360 release, reportedly permanently damages the game disc. This bug is most commonly seen when glitching out of the map while in the Zombie Uprising mini-game and then returning to the streets while the mini-game is still active. A fan named mrsaintsgodzilla21 explored the issue the most in this video, and while using a damaged Xbox 360 disc, he deduced in another video that the issue might be caused by distant pedestrian models spawning unnaturally.
Windows release
The Windows release of the game was ported by CD Projekt's then-localization branch, internally referred to as CD Projekt Black, and the result was a notoriously buggy experience. Fan projects have managed to fix some of the issues, chief among them being the Gentlemen of the Row mod by Mike "IdolNinja" Watson, who would later become Volition's community manager in 2014. The source code for the Windows version was lost in the THQ bankruptcy (since THQ supervised the port with little input from Volition) and Volition's attempts to reclaim the code from CD Projekt have so far failed.
Related Sites +
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IGCD Internet Game Cars Database
Game page on IGCD, a database that tries to archive vehicles found in video games. -
IdolNinja's Modding and Development Site
The homepage of IdolNinja, Saints Row 2 modder and current Volition community manager, home of the Gentlemen of the Row mod, which adds new content and fixes numerous issues for the Windows release -
Saints Row 2
official game website -
Wikipedia: Saints Row 2
article in the open encyclopedia -
X360A achievement guide
X360A's achievement guide for Saints Row 2.
Identifiers +
- MobyGames ID: 38790
- Steam App: 9480
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Sicarius.
Xbox One added by Plok. OnLive added by firefang9212. PlayStation Now added by Sciere. Linux added by lights out party.
Additional contributors: Sciere, Paulus18950, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, Plok, Victor Vance, FatherJack.
Game added February 3rd, 2009. Last modified March 24th, 2023.