If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery then the Rock Star team should be blushing like spring virgins at the latest offering from Volition and THQ.

Who's colours you think you wearin'  Bro ?!

At first glance Saints Row seems not much more than a clone of GTA 3 with a next generation makeover. You have a multitude of cars, trucks and other four wheeled vehicles to drive in a large free roaming world and a fictional city to take over through missions as gang member in the 3rd Street Saints. There are no motorbikes, no planes and just like in GTA 3 you control a mostly silent protagonist as the story flows around you.

But with a little bit of play, Saints Row starts to shine, and while it never reaches the heights of GTA Vice City or San Andreas, it becomes an enjoyable sandbox experience, at least for a little while. It even manages to add a few innovations in game play that the Rock Star team should hopefully take into account for the next GTA game, such the ability to totally customise your character, a free aiming control for combat, GSP style radar to guide you around and a multiplayer mode on Xbox Live.

 It's all about the Bling! And owns it......

The next generation processing power of the 360 helps to make Saints Row a sharp looking game, with everything from the many types of cars right down to characters bling clothes having a detailed and polished look.

Saints Row is all about gang warfare on a street level, with four fictional gangs vying for control of the city of Stillwater with the players mostly silent character thrust right in the middle of the action, guns blazing. But you won’t have to do it alone, as another innovation in Saints Row is the addition of your ‘homies’. Players are able to summon up to 3 gang members to follow them around and fight with them. When killed you, if you get to them quickly enough, you can revive your followers by pouring a 40’oz beer over them. This effectively makes them invincible, but doesn’t seem to overly unbalance the game. You also have the ability to heal in Saints Row, either by eating food you carry or ducking out of combat and not taking hits for a spell. Saints Row combat isn’t particularly hard, but the number of opponents and some of the high calibre and explosive weapons they use keep fights interesting.

The games physics provide great control for driving and just importantly crashing. And there are few games that handle explosions in such a pretty manner. The solid control schemes in Saints Row are what make it such fun to play. Combat is easy and totally in players control, although the weapons selection is tied to the B button and left stick, which can make choosing the right piece tricky in a sticky situation. You can also shoot while driving, all the way round your car and even behind you, through driving while doing so isn’t easy. And at last you can shoot through car windshields, taking out opponents before they become a problem. 

These are the people in my neighbourhood

The police and other gang members work very much as they do in GTA, ramping up the level of their response according to how much trouble you cause. The police AI can at times be a bit simple, and would have worked better if the police responded to the player doing things such as wandering around with loaded shot gun. It can take quite a while to make them notice you at times. When they do get going through, they throw as much as they can at you.

All the normal people on the streets go about their business, making crazy comments in responses to all the things you do and talking amongst themselves.

Saints Row has blowing stuff up down to an art form

The story moves along in missions, but the player needs to unlock those missions by engaging in activities, which can range from street racing and hijacking cars to insurance fraud and assassination. The activities are what add depth to the game and earn the player money and the needed respect go on missions.

It can feel at times as if you’re being forced to do these activities, but for the most part they’re fun and interesting. They also provide you with the cash to go shopping in the games many stores, to give yourself the perfect ‘gangsta’ look. Good clothes add to your respect quota too. A large number of the cars in the game are also customisable, with everything from look and paint work, to nitro and hydraulics.

The games story and setting, while not very original, work well enough. Taking over the city and wiping out your enemies while building up your reputation and that of the 3rd Street Saints, while encountering and watching the reactions of the other mostly inept gang leaders is enough to keep you going. Just don’t expect to many twists and turns or (non obvious) surprises.

Do you know who you're messing with!?! 

Some fine voice work by well known actors such as Michael Clarke Duncan, David Carradine and Keith David as Julius, leader of the Saints, help to keep things interesting, but you’ll find yourself missing the more subtle and tongue in cheek humor of the GTA games in the script. Saints Row fully earns its 18 certificate, profanity seems to be what Saints Row uses instead and you’ll find yourself wincing at corny and irritating lines in cut scenes. The car radio returns just as it is in GTA, stocked with everything from Hip Hop to Classical and talk shows. The selection isn’t bad, while nowhere as inspired as that in the GTA games, but you have the ability to use your own custom sound tracks from things saved on your hard drive. The rest of the audio in the game fits perfectly, with all the right rumbles and bangs delivered clearly. The tracks chosen behind the loading screens tend to all be Hip Hop, adding to the street atmosphere in Saints Row.

Rolling with my homies..... everywhere 

Multiplayer over Xbox Live was a great idea, but the implementation of it feels a little half hearted. There is standard deathmatch and team death match, but there are also a few variants to mix things up, such as Protect the Pimp, and capture the flag variants like Big Ass Chains. There aren’t enough maps yet and it can feel a little ‘thrown’ together for the sake of it, but it’s a step in the right direction. One of the best elements is a Halo 2 style party system, which throws you into a warehouse with your friends, where you can fight while waiting to start proper matches.

Saints Row 4 life  

Saints Row is a fun game, with good control and a neat next generation engine with nice physics, but ultimately it’ll feel a bit small in scope to those of us spoilt by the huge scale offerings of GTA San Andreas. It isn’t all that long, and while the city can feel large at first, you’ll be able to learn and traverse it all without too much difficulty.

Saints Row is also fairly easy to finish, perhaps no more than 25-30 hours of core play. It’s limited by the fact that the story really isn’t that deep, and that you quickly get to see pretty much everything it has to offer.  But Saints Row is a blast while it lasts and a good first GTA style game for the 360.

THQ and Volition just need to get out of the ghetto and get a little more adventurous for Saints Row 2.

Reviewed by Sam Bandah.