Okay, you guys can call me your official savior.
Went to ToysRUs in Times Square (it's a madhouse! it's like a zoo...only there are kids instead of chimpanzees) took me 20 minutes to find an available person, asked a worker, and viola! Saints Row demo.
Now for the extras.
The trailer sucks. It's like they show the whole game in slowdown. The theme and pics are good, and they are free, the best part.
I didn't watch the interview yet, so I can't say.
Now for the real meat and potatoes: the game
I only completed 2 missions. I've been basically experimenting with the game. (i.e: explodng cars 100 times) and I gotta say: the physics are SICK!!! (yep, better than Full Auto's)
The parts literally explode all over the place. Tires, bumpers, everything! Also, if you standnear the car after it explodes, you catch on fire. (since the car is on fire) and the animation is hilarious. It's only a couple seconds, but LEAGUES better than GTA's.
Car handling is very good. It feels quasi Full Auto/PGR3. Its impressive, especially for a free-roam game. 10x better than Driv3r, or True Crime. It has a great sence of speed, so you don't feel like you're driving Grandma's old Beetle when you're driving a Porshe.
Combat is pretty good, and amazingly good for a sandbox game. You can right jab, left jab, and kick. (I always kick since I always get a kick from the animations. Corny, aint it?) It works really well. Stabing annimations suck, tho. Baseball bat is where it's at. It gives you a nice 'whack' feeling when hitting it.
Shooting is just like The Punisher without the bullet-time. (which the developer happened to make) It really works well. I did a fair amount of headshots and it's real easy to get the hang of. Car shooting is just like Full Auto with alot less spunk. It's good, but it gets some time to get used to.
One thing that has irritated me with every game in existence is that no one EVER falls out of a car through the windshield. Guess what? In Saint's Row you can. It's hilarious when it happens, too. Kinda cartoonish, but you can't help but to laugh when you ram someone and the guy flies out of the car yelling 'Ahhhhhh!!!' Oh, that brings me to the game's surprising attraction: Humor.
It's sicker then GTA:San Andreas will ever be. They are straight out about it.. (No double meanings. A guy will say' Argh. Now I'm gonna be late to the stripper club!'')
I luvv it. I can't say all of the little lines, but they are dark humor, and it's all real great stuff. I didn't expect that all.
To those who want to know: There are drugs and alcohol in the game. I don't know how helpful they are, but each has it's own thing to them. (ike booze will make the screen blury)
You can eat in the game also. didn't try it yet, but I ate this dead guy's candybar. (yes, they drop money, weapons, AND FOOD!) (also there is a fast food esturant in the game)
You can swim in the same, but it's used just to make sure you don't drown. You can't jump or anything when swimming, but you can press Y to go on land. I don't know why it works like that,, but at least you don't drown...
The demo has only 2 radio stations, and there's like only one song in each and they are crap. I won't judge it by that because it's obviously limited by the demo.
One reeely nice touch is that if you pass by the car, you hear the music playing! Sick stuff...
The demo is pretty big. It's about 1/2 the size of Staunton Island, which is pretty big for a demo. I'd say that the game is AT LEAST 2.5x the size of Vice City. It looks like a really big metropolis. I love it. (and there's also a nice portion of the map that seems shaded out or some reason. Either it was cut form the game or you have to explore the game to get to it.)
The story seems pretty good so far. It actually looks surprisingly engaging. It's no San Andreas, but it's better than True Crime. (dragon kung-fu detective levels. WTF?!?!)
The city itself is very much alive and full of pedestrians. I just love eavesdropping on pedestrians. Also a nice touch is tat when you shoot a gun, people will react diffrently. Some will run at full speed, some will stare, some will cheer on, and the rest will run on their own pace. What I mean by 'own pace' is that the person, while running might trip, might waggle their arms wildly, and for women, might run in a stereotypical fashion. (i.e: very girlish)
Also, random stuff happens all the time, like a guy will run over pedestrians all the time.
People actially read newspapers in the game. Yep, an actual article. lolll
Also you'll enconter funny quirky pedestrians. (i.e: there was this old grandma walking crippled, so I shot her, and she started to attacking me ruthlessly! Funny sh!t)
In the game, you'll hear cursing ALOT. (like all the time)
I reeely nice touch: Dead pedestrians don't disappear. (though cars do)
There are plenty of cars in the game as well. I never once found a hard time finding one. One thing to point out: Drivers are VERY aggressive..almost New York agressive. (almost) They won't wait forever to steal a car like GTA. It you don't steal it with like 4 seconds, they'll just go around you.
Draw-distance is amazingly good for a Sandmox game. It's not FarCry, but it beats the hell out of Oblivion (pop-up grass FTW) No pop-up whatsoever, which is why I made the Oblivion comparison.
If it wouldn't be for the 3 big following complaints, I'd rate this better than GRAW...but here goes the bad:
Framerate: In-game, it's not so bad. Kinda like Oblivion. What is really bad is cutscenes. Have you ever played Advent Rising before? Remember the really low framerate cutscenes? THAT bad. i hope it's just the demo, but it really takes away from the game. Also, no cutscene sinking with the audio. (there is a couple of second gap) Like I said, it's probably the demo, ut something to watch for when it ships.
Police Warrent Meter: Maybe it's because i don't know how it works too well, but it seems like it's like Simpsons:Hit & Run, which is definetally NOT a good thing. It takes a while for a cop to catch you. Then AFTER you kill the police officer, more cops might not come back if no cop cars come to pass you within the next couple minutes. I never got into a chase sequence once in playing this game for 2 hours, and I ran over ALOT of people. If someone has an explanation why this happens, please say so because it bugging me out like crazy.
Health meter: Look, For COD2 and Halo, regenerating health rules, but in a GTA-type game, it kinda makkes you invincible as long as you stay away from your enemies for long enough.
If it wouldn't be for these 3 major quibbles, I'd give the demo a 10, but now I'd settle for an 8. I just hope the game isn't affected too much from the problems mentioned above.
