Tailor the experience
Returning to Stilwater five years on, things have changed considerably. Not only has the city been given a suitably impressive graphical makeover and new areas to explore, you also discover that your gang, the 3rd Street Saints, are no longer ruling the streets, but have been replaced by three new powerful gangs who now control the local businesses and drug pushers.The core-gameplay of Saints Row 2 hasn’t changed. It’s all about earning money and respect on the streets and by walking, running or driving to designated points marked on the map, you can pick up missions, visit weapon or car dealers, or go shopping for new clobber. You can choose to follow the main storyline, pick up one of the hundreds of side missions on offer, or simply explore the city at your leisure.
Each mission or objective fits into a certain category that is represented by its own unique icon on the map, allowing you to tailor the experience to your own tastes. In addition to racing missions, escort objectives, Hitman duties and drug-trafficking activities, there are a number of new entertaining game modes on offer, including Fight Club, where you head to an underground arena to do with melee battle with other like-minded thugs, or Trail Blazing, where you take to a quad bike and blaze around the city wearing a flame retardant suit that ignites passers-by or other vehicles that come into contact with it.
One of the most entertaining of the new activities on offer are bouncer missions where you have to protect a celebrity from the crowds, using brute force to keep them away.
Furthermore, many of the side objectives and activities on offer are all designed with co-op play in mind.
Saints Row 2's strength lies is being allowed to tailor the experience to your own needs, doing the things (activities) that you like doing, and skipping the ones that you don’t. Yes, you're still restricted to following the main missions in order to complete the game, but because they’re made up a mixture of all of the different gameplay elements on offer (driving, shooting, melee, escort etc..) they’re varied enough to keep you entertained. With the side objectives, however, you can pick and choose the ones that you want to do.
Whilst tailoring the experience means that you can play the parts of Saints Row 2 that you enjoy, customisation also makes up an integral part of the gameplay.
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