Saints Row: Has the Xbox 360's Grand Theft Auto Finally Arrived?

Saints Row is developer Volition's take on the open-ended crime genre Grand Theft Auto made famous. Volitions take however, is strangely similar to Rockstars. So much in fact that its likely you will feel a sense of déjà vu, and catch yourself thinking "That's just like in GTA" more than once.

Volition is best known for the Red Faction and Summoner series, as well as last years The Punisher. Not a bad track record at all, and Saints Row levels out at just about the same quality of those titles: very good, but not great. Holding it back is mainly the fact that you have played it all before. You begin your story somewhat low down on the food chain in the city of Stilwater. The feel behind the rivalry between the gangs of Stilwater is a little more Warriors and a little less San Andreas. Nonetheless, it's your job to partake in a number of story missions divided up between the three rival gangs: The Rollerz, "the" Los Carnales, and the Vice Kings.

The missions are varied enough to keep things interesting, but should you want to get sidetracked, there are plenty of non-story activities to keep you distracted. This game features everything fans of San Andreas will immediately recognize, from street races and a demolition derby, to a few more unique activities such as insurance fraud (which makes good use of the games excellent physics system and should keep you highly entertained, even if you're not doing all that well at it). When all is said and done, there is a large amount of content available right off the bat, so the singleplayer should keep you busy for quite a while assuming you want to do it all, which you will.

Unfortunately, the game can't even copy its inspiration properly. While the game looks good (not overly impressive, but still good), the collection of music is not that great. You get all the regular stations; rock, hip-hop, techno, etc. but most gamers will likely switch over to their own soundtracks after just a few hours of playing. The music is not the only thing that comes up short: Saints Row has a wide variety of cars, but that's it. No motorcycles, no boats or flying vehicles. Just cars. Its obvious that's just one more thing to tout in the sequel, but Saints Row is already trying to play catch-up with GTA, and the omission of other vehicle types weighs heavily on the overall experience.

What GTA doest have, however, is multiplayer. And no that half-hearted "2player" mode in San Andreas doesn't count. Saints Row offers the standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes, a protect the pimp mode where one team has to escort a designated player to the safe zone while battling the other team who is out to kill him, and a coop mode. While Volition could have really done something with the idea of a coop mode (i.e. give gamers what they want), it instead feels tacked on. Rather than roam the city of Stilwater with your friend riding shotgun, you instead must partake in box-escorting in a small, linear map.

Saints Row does get a few things right however, like a robust character customization system, and a linked garage system that can store as many cars as you can jack. The cutscenes are also surprisingly good, and occasionally Volitions trademark humor rears its pretty little head for a chuckle. All in all, Saints Row is a decent game. It won't replace GTA anytime soon, but it will at least give 360 owners something to hold them over for a while, and it sure is a hell of a lot better than True Crime.