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All of these improvements would be meaningless if the core gameplay couldn't match their quality. Thankfully, Saints Row 2 delivers on this end as well. Aiming is a breeze, and melee combat is simple and effective, especially when you have a decent weapon in hand (no, the stun gun, though cool, doesn't count). Players can now take NPCs as human shields, something very useful for times when the police or gangs come out in force. They can even be tossed at enemies to buy some time for escape!
Driving is just as easy, and while I appreciate the desire in some games to make it more realistic, such realism really isn't needed in a genre when simply outracing the cops makes them forget they're chasing you. Saints Row 2 now lets players not only add cars and trucks to their garages, but they can also bring motorcycles, helicopters, planes, jet skis, and even boats into storage for immediate use. How does having your own personal docks and airport hanger sound?
For all its wonderful sites and fun things to do, all is not perfect in Stilwater. Most notable is the severe drop in frame rate when too much activity fills the screen. I'm talking single digits here. When one has to run away from a fire fight just to stop the game from chugging along with a gasp, there's a valid complaint to be made. I also had the game simply lock up on me several times for no reason and homies sometimes got stuck behind railings and stairs. While I've grown to accept such hiccups as unfortunate staples of the sandbox genre, one hopes that these little wrinkles should be ironed out this far into the current generation, especially for a sequel. I would also have appreciated it if Volition had permitted players to quick travel between cribs. It's something of a pain to want to use a helicopter and find yourself at a crib without one – all the way across town. None of these problems are more than an annoyance, given that they don't occur all that often, and it shouldn't detract from anyone's desire to play the game at all.
All in all, I simply cannot say enough about Saints Row 2. The sheer depth of the game makes it the benchmark for the genre, and as evidenced by how Rockstar emulated several improvements from the first game for GTA IV, it appears I'm not the only one taking notice of just how good this series is.
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