Game Info

This review is based on the Xbox 360 release.

Since Grand Theft Auto III, many game developers have attempted to recreate the sense of open world freedom found in the Rockstar series of games. Some simply take elements of GTA and use them to their advantage, such as the freedom in The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Others, particularly the two True Crime titles, try to literally copy the feel of GTA, and ultimately fall flat. The bar was set incredibly high, and it is an very rare occurrence that a game emulating GTA can succeed.

This alone is reason enough to play Saint’s Row. It is, unabashedly, a Grand Theft Auto clone. However, it is a successful one. So successful in fact that it is a truly excellent game in and of itself, and plays much more like a cartoonish homage to Rockstar’s opus as opposed to a direct rip off.

Saint’s Row is a third person, open world action game based in the fictional city of Stillwater. You assume the role of a mostly voiceless, perpetually nameless protagonist who becomes embroiled in the overflowing gang activity that plagues the city. During your tenure, you will steal cars, shoot cops, solicit prostitutes, kill rival gang members and generally cause trouble. You have safehouses for storing your things and garages for your cars. You will go clothes shopping, sneak through obligatory stealth missions, blow things up, get double crossed and slowly rise through the ranks of the criminal underworld.

If this sounds like Grand Theft Auto, then that is because it is. Saint’s Row emulates every aspect of the GTA series, but does so in such a way that it plays like an original title. Think of it as a modern remake of a classic movie: it never blatantly copies its inspiration, but reworks everything in such a way as to be incredibly familiar and yet new.

The game begins with a remarkably well structured character creation session. You are limited to playing a male character, but there is a wealth of options for altering every aspect of your chosen gangster. The creation system is similar to the one found in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which itself was a massively featured addition. Everything from the jawline to the beer gut can be altered and enhanced, most across sliding bars that greatly change the character.

Once you have your man, the opening cutscene literally plunges you into the story. It depicts a brief firefight between rival gangs which you, an innocent bystander, only just survive. You are rescued