Despite it's "Plastic" (Good word to use) appearance, if it's anything like the first then it will be a blast to play (if primarily for the laughs)

I agree also that it does look great considering the scale and I enjoyed the first game so I'll certainly try this one!

Plastic FTW lol

That last chick is fucking hot :D Will probably get this even tough i'll get GTA4 first. There is place for more than 1 FPS, RPG and racing games etc, so why not for open-city-games?

@ pic 6: The floor textures took yet another life!

Seriously, everything looks so good for a game that big, why are these so low res?

looks funny

Love the "company of gyros" add ^^

I enjoyed the first one, and there's no reason why this and GTA4 can't be on the same shelf. It was a laugh the first time, and I don't expect the second to disappoint.

Yup, I'll be getting this for sure. Looking forward to some co-op driveby action :D

Will there be a demo of this?

It looks quite good =)

Honestly, this game doesn't stand a chance in hell up against GTA4. It just looks plain rubbish and very last gen akin to how GTA used to be. From what I'm hearing from someone who's actually completed GTA 4, nothing, absolutely nothing, comes close. Even though this game has co-op going for it, nobody will give a shit. It's ancient already, obscured by GTA 4's shadow.

I remember in the last demo, you could hack through the demo walls to get to a larger part of the map to find an ak47. ;)

Gah, the Saints Row demo isn't there anymore ¬¬

that was awesome

main highlight for me was just experimenting with the ragdoll, taking cars by surprise as they came across the bridge and getting owned by them, good times.

lol @ 2nd pic

Who really cares about the floor textures!!! No one plays games and run around looking at the ground. Well I know I don't at least, and after all that said I really do think the graphics are good. I like GTA but I find the graphics in this to be better than GTA's.

I really liked the first one despite its horrendous technical faults (horrific framerate, disappearing cars etc). If they make this as fun as the first and with a decent framerate I'll get it. But thats one HUGE IF since Volition have yet to provide a decently running game on a next-gen platform AND they cancelled the conversion of SR1 for the PS3, which they hadnt if they were capable of converting it and or it was in a good enough shape to be converted, which it wasnt.

Then again their Red Faction games for the PS2 were technically sound if even groundbreaking, which either makes them lazy instead of stupid, or underbudgeted, or moneygrabbing or everything above.

But SR is hands down the best GTA-clone to date and MANY have tried with nearly unlimited budgets (such as that Sony PS2 London game).

i found that really strange, becasue, by what i could tell it was the ONLY weapon that was just lying around the streets. GTA games have special weapons you can find scattered about the environment, and its like saints row was going to have a similar thing, but then decided not to, but forgot to take out that one, single AK47....very odd.

first was good, but i honetly think that was down to a lack of GTA on the scene. now GTA4 will have been released before this game, im not sure if there room for a wannabe.

That guy in the 2nd picture looked hilarious. He was like smiling and stuff, like he was having a mildly fun time

I just wish it didn't look so plain... The textures aren't bad though.

Disagre totally. GTAIV is already borrowing a lot of features from the original Saints Row, and the second has a lot of new stuff that GTA still doesn't have that should prove to be a lot of fun. The ability to throw people alone is going to add a whole bunch of interesting options, and off course the co-op play should be amazing. Especially considering GTA is still playing catch up with the multiplayer aspects. (Pretty much all of GTA's multiplayer options were in the original SR).

I do agree that GTA has a very better art style and storyline. But in terms of customisation and sheer fun, I think Saints Row may have it beat. But once again, I see no reason people can't play both. A lot of the GTA fans seem to be shrugging this off as nothing more than a clone.

Personally I don't like any GTA style games for ethical reasons so you can't call me a Saints Row fanboy or anything like that but I have to say that judging by the screenshots this blows GTA4 away at least graphically! (Sure, there are some dodgy textures here and there but not as much as the GTA screenshots and videos I've seen.)

it is a clone, more so then any other open world game to date. i mean, i can appreciate what the streets of LA/NY games where TRYING to do at least.... more then saints row simply cos its a different direction. saints row however is about as clone-like as you can get. i mean, originally the third street saints where going to wear green. which was the colour of the grove street families in san andreas. there was improvements made, features added, but it was essentially a developer cashing in on the fact there was no GTA on the scene at that time or in the near future. and it ended up doing well. and rightly so, the games good, i put a ton of hours into it and enjoyed almost everything. but that doesnt stop it being a clone.

what killed the original saints row for me was its style. story and characters. but also its gameplay didint stand up too well either. it was fun enough, but simply didnt have enough variety, especially for a person coming from the GTA games, especially san andreas with its variaty in transportation alone. after san andreas you expected certain things and saints row didnt have them.

i cant see saints row 2 being anywhere close to GTA across all areas of the game, story will no doubt be just as terrible as the first with a forced, cringewothy "gangsta" attitude, characters will be more likable in GTA as has been the case previously. missions more varied. better (less rap focused) music etc etc. saints row is a good game. but in terms of evolving the open-world genre, GTA is and always will be the series you can rely on. saints row 2 is only really meeting what san andreas offered in terms of content (the lack of bikes/heli's at LEAST in saints row 1 was just unaceptable at that stage really), while the GTA series has moved away from the "lets just make the level bigger" approach, and instead are improving the core gamplay and story based elements. from major things like implimentation of euphoria, to simple stuff like recording different voice work for the same cut-scenes to add some variety. its what i love about the GTA series. it's never content with where its at, its constantly trying to improve, and i know i can rely on GTA4 to offer that again. saints row however i expect bikes and planes to be added and thats about as far as the improvments go.

im gonna give it a go, hell, i'll probably buy it and love it, but the chances of supassing or even coming close to GTA's status is slim. saints row far from surpassed san andreas and i cant see it happening now either.

also, what is GTA4 borrowing from saints row? i've not heard of any elements they share. i mean, aimaing is still "lock-on" based in GTA4? GTA hasnt incorporated those shallow, repetative mini games that you where forced to do before doing main missions in saints row? its focusing on a central character WITH CHARACTER rather then a 2 dimentional avatar. from what i've seen GTA is its own game. hasnt borrowed anything from saints row. unless you mean rag-doll physics, but thats not exactly an exclusive feature in games is it...although GTA uses euphoria which is the better tech anyway. so what exactly has GTA borrowed that it never had anyway and that saints row had??

I think there is room for both, especially now that it seems GTA is dropping all the really over the top stuff from story and gameplay to be more realistic in tone. I love the direction the GTA4 series looks to be headed with GTA4 but I also love that Saints Row is there to pick up the old wackiness torch and give us satchel charges on heads and a bunch of goofy shit.

And considering the recent info that the entire game of Saints Row 2 will have drop-in/drop-out co-op, well that's epic in it's own right for a sandbox game and something it will obviously have over on GTA4. 2008 Looks to be quite a year for open-world games though with GTA4, Saints Row 2, Just Cause 2 (that one might be '09, not sure) and Mercenaries 2.

I think you mentioned this before, but Saints Row was being developed at the same time as San Andreas, the fact the Saints were originally going to wear green was a coincidence, and that's why it was changed to purple.

And I do agree that it lacked certain things that made GTA more fun at the time. No bikes or other vehicles besides cars, was really a let down, but we've seen other games attempt it and fail, and if you remember, GTA3 didn't have any of those things either. The developers didn't think they had the time to implement them correctly, and I think that was the right thing to do. I see a lot of you guys poking fun at the "cringeworthy" story, but I think a lot of you missed the fact it was supposed to be over the top and satirical. You weren't supposed to be taking that stuff seriously, they were making fun of gang culture! And although the activities you had to complete to progress with the missions was an annoying feature, the majoirty of the activities were actually very enjoyable, and you are no longer forced into doing them.

As for GTA borrowing features from Saints Row, if you've actually played the original SR yourself, I find it difficult to believe you haven't noticed any. The combat system is now nearly exactly the same, with different melee attacks assigned to different buttons. I'm not sure how the aiming works in GTA, no one has been too clear about it, but from what I've heard it also sounds rather similar. As was said before, the multiplayer is pretty much exactly the same as what the original SR had. The phone system, with the ability to call friends, taxi's, or just random numbers you see on ads, eating food to restore health, automated garages, the GPS system in the cars, and there's probably more, that don't currently spring to mind :)

I think you should evaluate the games seperately. Sure they have things in common but that does not mean that they are stealing ideas from each other.
GTA: Vice City copied there storyline completely from Scarface and GTA: San Andreas had a lot in common with Boys in the hood. Nothing bad with that, because they are great movies, but don't forget that the creators of GTA also borrow ideas.

I think GTA will have more depth into the game, but visually Saints Row will be better (if they don't downsize the graphics later on). Anyway, I want to play both because I think they will both be great!

Its the angle of the shot. I'm sure the ground in that shot looks a lot better from the normal camera view.