If you've even glanced at any news medium in past months you will be well aware of the global financial crisis and, ahem. . . the credit crunch. With less disposable income avaialble, we are becoming familiar with inferior products than we are used to. This familiarity with inferior products certainly softened the blow when i first put Saints Row 2 into my PS3. Wtf was this all about? some ropey arsed storyline involving overly tattooed fools, who looked like characters Niko Belic might play as if he played sandbox games when he wasn't out carjacking or what not. Everything about it seemed botched from the controls to the players movement, weapon selection, generally rubbish. I persisted with it though, i figured since GAME no longer fall for the old "you'll never guess what mate!? i got two copies for my birthday! just my ruddy luck, eh?"  And I didn't want to trade it in for half the price, I'd try to squeeze some entertainment out of this pile of wank, if it was the last thing i fecking did!

After a couple of hours play I was getting into it, although at this point i was still very much a cynic. Little things were beggining to seem cool, like the array of activities you can get up to, particularly the hitman. Very one dimensional in it's presentation e.g. your given target is an ambulance driver, you get given the amblance number, you dial it up and then 2 seconds later your target turns up. simple stuff really, but with other, less see through targets, you do get a cool hitman sub-activity to enjoy. The pick up truck is a bit of a laugh too, get the fuzz tailing you and you can pick their cars up when they get close enough, pick up some speed (no pun intended), and then fling them off a high way with a handbrake turn. yes cheap thrills aplenty and it is these cheap thrills and the detatchment from realism which makes Saints Row 2 worth a go. It's not GTA4, repeat it is definately not GTA4. Once you have this firmly embeded into your mind you will then be able to enjoy Saints Row 2 for what it is. An arcadey blaster set in a fantasy gangland utopia, where gang related deaths are a big part of gang related life. The plethora of gimmicks and activities are certain to make you chuckle and playing the missions is alot of fun once you've been won over by the rest of the game.

It got slated, but give it a whirl, why the funk not?