Driving and navigation
Another annoyance is having to drive back and forth to the ‘Forgive and Forget Confessional’. Like GTA, Saints Row features a wanted system. Kill a couple of people, set off an alarm during a robbery, or knock over a few innocents and you could have a lot of police on your tail. Once the wanted rank reaches its highest point you’ll have all of the local constabulary trying to hunt you down. In fact one chase with the ‘old bill’ that we were involved in, after admittedly we had stolen a police car, continued for 10 minutes as we weaved in and out of traffic and mowed down numerous pedestrians. It’s far easier to get to head to the ‘confessional’ which re-sets your wanted status and immediately stops the pursuit. It becomes frustrating having to head back to this safe haven during every police chase, but occasionally the police do stop pursuing you if you run for long enough.
Click for larger imageThe positives in Saints Row however do outweigh the negatives. Driving across the city of Stilwater is fairly smooth, depending on the vehicle you choose. Each vehicle handles differently, some are useless at cornering and braking whilst others will allow you to zip in and out of traffic without much difficulty. There’s a lot of driving, and travelling across the city for the umpteenth time to reach your next objective can be frustrating, but you can call for help. At any point you can phone one of your homies via the menu system and ask them to pick you up. They will then drive you to wherever you want, although you will have to point them in the right direction. It works extremely well, but it does take longer to reach your destination as they’ll take fewer risks on the road.
Whilst driving around the streets there are plenty of radio stations and talk shows to listen to, with some even providing ‘real-time’ news reports based on gang activity and you’ll also have the opportunity to drop by a garage and modify your car. Interestingly, unlike GTA, you’ll be able to smash your car to pieces and it will still be sat in the garage the next day, brand spanking new.
Click for larger imageThankfully navigating the city couldn’t be easier. The GPS map system means that you can set waypoints shown by a series of blue dots that take you on the optimum route to your destination. The map is far better than anything seen in the GTA games, and thanks to filters that allow you to display the information you’re looking for (such as objectives, stores and save points) you can get rid of any unnecessary icon clutter and easily find your chosen objective. The map clearly defines each territory through colour coding and therefore enables to see how much of the city your gang controls and which areas you need to hone in on.
Graphically, Saints Row isn’t as great as we’d hoped. It’s true that the rag doll physics engine helps create some superb explosions, causing utter carnage on a busy road is a visual delight and the damage modelling on cars is impressive, but it lacks the realism of the living and breathing environment that we’d have expected. There’s plenty of action on the screen at any one time, but dead gangsters and burning cars disappear far too quickly and the insides of buildings are mainly bland and lifeless