Saints Row is a likeable game for the XBOX 360 that grips you at the start but after a few hours you'll get bored. Best advice use it as a pick up and play, you'll definitely find it in plenty of stores once grand theft auto iv is released on april 29th.

Yes Saints Row is a complete GTA rip off, yes its ugly at times, yes its cliched to the max but for a cheap bit of fun to get you through till the latest next big thing comes out its ideal.

The basic plot involves taking over gang territory, and completing side tasks.
The main missions usually involve driving to a certain place on the map and wiping out gang members before driving away avoiding the police.
The side tasks are good fun, my favorite being the insurance scams where you have to throw yourself into oncoming traffic and try to fall over convincingly.

This game is rated 18 and for good reason, apart from the violent aspects of the game it has copious amounts of swearing and some sexual content. Recommended for the Xbox 360!

Over the years the free-roaming game market has been pretty much dominated by the Grand Theft Auto series. But it has been announced that we can expect a long wait for the next instalment in the GTA series (about 400 days at the time of writing this review). So many people need to find their fix for mayhem and destruction whenever they want it elsewhere.

Saints Row answers the call for the Xbox 360 owners.
Their are the obvious next - gen improvements like better sounds and graphics, which go a long way to making this genre so much more enjoyable and immersive. As well as the achievement system for the Xbox 360. But then there are so many more improvements on the GTA formula that make this game more than just a basic pretty looking clone of the Rockstar Games series.

The single player component opens up with you creating a character. Something that a lot of fans of GTA have always wanted. A chance to really be who they want to be in the game. You can choose from any skin tone (that is human...no orcs), any build - muscles or rolls, hair colour, face shape and the rest. All aspects of a human creation system in a game are covered in depth. A good feature implemented into this game is that you can change how you look in the game if you are later unsatisfied by paying a visit to the plastic surgeon - which admittedly I haven't yet tried.

When you are done here you go on to a cut-scene. The cut-scenes seem to use the game engine, but they add a few affects that make the game look a bit like Fight Night Round 3 in the graphics department. In this cut scene you get caught up in a gang shoot-out between 3 local gangs. You are in the sights of a gang member but are saved by 2 other purple clad gun wielding gangsters. They help you up and ask for your help in getting back their territory pretty much, and the scene ends. It is quite impressive at first to see how your character (no matter how he looks) is used fully in the cut-scenes. But he doesn't seem to talk - which many have seen as a take on the GTA3 character - Claude. You are told to swing by the church for your duties and then left to your own choices.

Thus, your controlling of the character begins. When the game opens up to your control you can plainly see that the next gen graphics are in use. While not at the Table Tennis or FNR3 level (for size of the game reasons) they are definitely a marked improvement over GTA:SA. I like to compare the graphics to something a healthy deal better than the Outfit at its best, but don't quote me on that. There are good shadows and decent contrast between light and dark and great reflections.

From here you can carry on with the story or go around causing mayhem from the start. But your choices will be limited as money is tight until you start taking part in the main story missions and side line activities. So lets assume you take the main story on from the get go, which brings me to my first negative. The mission variety. The duration of the mission based story will consist of you getting somewhere in a car, killing a particular person or group of people... and that's about it. It all comes down to killing somebody in the end. But the missions are still fun as they are driven by the interesting story that is voiced by actors such as Michael Clarke Duncan, and the voice actor for Meg from family guy to name a few. You won't notice the repetitiveness of the missions until you finish the game and think back on what you did for missions. It is still an enjoyable experience nonetheless.

Aside from the main story missions, there are side activities you can take part in that earn you respect and money and other little bonuses. For example there is the mayhem activity, you go around causing as much destruction in 5 minutes in one area without being "busted" or "smoked". Points come out as the cost of destruction you have caused. Meet the requirement - and you get paid. This can be really fun because it gives you a chance to run riot - while the game also shows you one of its strong points... the explosion effects. The game has an amazing explosion effects system. The car will explode and will fly into the air with realistic looking flames, and the fragments of metal will fly through the air damaging surrounding people and objects. In most cases the passengers of cars are ejected from the vehicle during an explosion in a giant fireball. It can be really great fun to watch a chain of 10 cars going off. But then there is a another weakness to be noted.

When you have full wanted level and cars are blowing up left right and centre you will notice a severe drop in frame rate. It is only noticeable in severely action packed scenes, but it is still there. It's a drawback to having beautiful visuals and strong effects. You will be pleased to know that the frame rate is steady throughout the rest of the game though. Maybe a 1 or 2 frame loss in minor action scenes, but nothing that ruins the gameplay in any way.

There are many little side missions to take part in that are great fun, but I won't spoil the surprise for future buyers. The side missions lead to achievement points and other bonus features, as well as money and respect. The features can be weapons delivered to your hideouts or cars delivered to your garages. The garage system in the game is a fantastic feature that hugely improves the typical system that GTA3 to GTA:SA employed. Instead of having a car limit you just pop the cars in your garage and they are saved in a list. When the cars are saved you go to a garage or a car repair centre (Rim Jobs) and bring up the list. Even if the cars are no longer in the garage (say you parked them and forgot where you put them), as long as they were saved at some point in your garage and added to the list, you can retrieve them. There is no limit to how many cars you can house.

Which brings me round to the car tuning feature. This feature is fantastic. It is so much more in-depth than that of GTA:SA. You can select from a list of body kits and spoilers etc that are unique to each car. So no car has the same two parts. This allows for huge variety in what cars you drive around in. There are about 200+ colours to choose from that range from basic matte paint to iridescent paints. You can make your cars truly shine and look fantastic. This is a feature you will definitely spend a lot of time if you like making your cars look the part. Then there is the clothing customisation. There are hundreds of different clothing combinations. Because you can change the colour of the piece you are buying to suit you. So you can choose between a tan leather jacket or a black leather jacket for example. Then you can choose whether to have that coat zipped or unzipped. All clothes are then sent to your hideouts wardrobes as you buy them. So if you feel like setting a different look for your character then you can pop round to your "crib" and change. This, combined with the plastic surgery leaves you with a character that can look good in anything as long as you customise enough.

The gunplay is fantastic. Instead of an auto-lock system you have a movable crosshair that you control whenever with the right thumbstick (by default). It is like the shooting system on the PC versions of GTA:SA.
This allows for headshots and specific shooting on certain parts of cars and the ability to spray weapons. The character controlling is simple, just move with the left thumbstick (by default). As is the car controlling: A to accelerate and X to brake with the LT for the handbrake. The control system cannot be faulted.

The downsides of the game are very few in the upsides, but they are still noticeable, especially in the case of the multiplayer component. It is nearly unplayable in most cases. It is like every player is suffering tremendously high lag, and it can be very frustrating. But Call of Duty 2 suffered the same problems on the 360, and they were addressed, and now Call of Duty 2 multiplayer is one of the most played online 360 games. There has been a patch announced for Saints Row multiplayer, so it is only a matter of time before these problems are addressed and fixed. Another thing is the lack of land to play with. The game is about the size of GTA3, so when put against GTA:SA, it is quite disappointing, especially for a next gen game. But there is lots to do in the comparatively small space that it doesn't matter so much. The last bad point is that the story seems too short and leaves you wanting a lot more, as it turns out to be a very gripping story, so that is a bit of a let down. The game is still fully playable when you finish all the main missions though, so the game is in a way never ending.

For those that love GTA or action games in general, be sure to check out Saints Row as soon as possible. You will not be disappointed by it.