Be Excellent To Each Other

Preliminary thoughts:

The good!
- Constant stuff to do. Remember when GTA games were full of fun distractions instead of just plot? Well this game is where they've gone on holiday. Ambulance, Firefighter and Taxi missions abound! Along with an interesting but not very good tow truck one. You've got the repeats from SR1 in Escort, Snatch, Demo Derby, Hitman, Chop Shop, Drug Trafficking etc, along with new ones Heli Assault (gunning from a helicopter), Septic Avenger (spraying sewage over buildings), Crowd Control (haven't even got around to trying this yet), Fuzz (again, not tried) and Fight Club (fight an increasing number of men. To death.). And you're rewarded for doing these in the form of stat boosting making the rest of the game a little gentler.
- The game rewards you for listening to Europe and A-ha. A proper eighties music channel! Albeit with about 6 songs, but still MILES AND MILES better than the shite on GTA4.
- I could make a me on the avatar creation bit! It's normally very hard to do that.
- 2 player co-op through the entire game, not just 3 unsatisfying missions.
- When creating your character (hereafter known as Captain Sillyman) in the pre-amble, you can dress him up in women's clothing. I found this astounding.
- They've had a bit of a think on the map and extended down and up, as well as round the edges. I found the caverns last night and they were pretty darn awesome.
- It's fun!

The bad!
- Captain Sillyman now has a voice. This voice has 3 settings to choose from: twat, cunt and mockney cunt. Being An English I obviously went for mockney cunt, and it sounds so forced and wrong.
- The car speeds. No car is ever fast enough due to being limited. I know the reason for this, as the pop-up at even slow speeds is jarring, at 55mph it's astounding.
- The map isn't really that much bigger than the original. I very much suspect that the previous map of Stillwater has been compressed to make room for the new bits bolted on the edges. What do I mean? Well driving along the main south coast route in the original took a fair while to get from one end to the other. To travel the same distance now doesn't take a while. Buildings appear to be missing or made smaller to truncate the journey. I played the original about 3 weeks ago, so I'm sure I'm not going mad.
- The graphics seem rougher than the first one.
- The AI of the pedestrians still has the same bugs as the first game. Traveling along in a car, in a designated lane at a stately pace, will cause people to dive under your wheels for no apparent reason.
- The driver AI is also stupid. I've been knacked loads of times by oncoming traffic "wobbling" and then veering into my front end.

More when I've got a bit further in.

I fully agree with everything Dimrill says above.

Finally, a review that's useful.

Rewards also include lots of unlockable outfits, weapons, and vehicles.

Just thought of another one:

The bad!
- Awesome! We now have boats! Where are the boats? Oh, I guess I'll just have to swim there then. *glums* Ooh a boat on the water now Cpt Sillyman is in the water! Oh, it's too fast to purloin. *more glums*

I got my first boat in GTA IV by watching one trundle by and sniping the guy driving it, then swimming out to get it. Then I crashed it into a better boat, nicked that, then spotted the found the helitours so pulled out and nicked a chopper then visited the Statue of Happiness.

It was pretty sweet.

This thread might make me pick up the first SR for cheap. At some point.

The I'm Too Sure Yet!
- By going down alleys and so forth you unlock "GPS Shortcuts" that your GPS will then use to get you places faster. An interesting idea, but it does mean that the GPS is actually programmed to be shit to start off then? Hmm.

The Good!
- "I just bet my brother $1000 I know all of the lyrics to the next song you play!"
"Think you're gonna win?"
"Hell yeah!"
"Well here's Night Ranger with Christian Sister!"
"... fuck me."

The Bad!
- Police couldn't give a flying shite if you knock over a pedestrian in front of their faces, but knock over a lamp post and they start shouting "DON'T MAKE ME KILL YOU!" and give chase.

Can you take clothing off the dead?

That's accepted practice in Birmingham, yes.

I bet they'd leave your cardy though.

The Good!
- I was just swimming over to the prison island again (no fucking boats again, but one did pop into existence at the wharf 2 feet in front of my face when I'd reached the other side. Typical), and noticed tall seaweeds reaching up from the depths. A nice touch that completely set off my fear of depths to an arse clenching degree. To make it perfect, in the very depths a ginantic eye should've rolled around in to view and focused on Cpt Sillyman, while a deep throated growl echoed around and the pad vibration went mental. Cthulhu fhtagn!

Ia Ia!

Is it more fun than Burny P then?

There's a boat shop right at the top of the map and you have a boat garage there.

Maybe so, but I'm not traversing the map to get a boat to spawn. I've bought the docks at the Uni too. I live in a lighthouse, do you Craster? Eh? Craster? Eh?! DO YOU LIVE IN A LIGHTHOUSE CRASTER?! No you fucking don't.

Ohhhhh!
Come with me to the rolling sea
Where the weather's calm and swim
We'll have some fun and laughter with
The Adventures of Portland Dim

do do doodle ooh doo

Or use the free gyrocopter.

Big plus: You can run around dressed as a giant hot dog - looks good in the cut scenes!

On line co-op is mucho fun, if anyone wants to add me lordscotland (lurker trying to participate more!)

FTFY you none lighthouse owning Gypo. I don't have fancy free things due to cost cutting.

You're so nauticle Dimmers

I thought he was being a bit testi.

That's it, you're sacked.

</gets scrote>

Welcome, markh! Ignore the puns; they're bollocks.

The Bad!

Trying to enter co-op with someone appears to crash the Xbox. Randomly.

So the multiplayer's as broken as on the first one then?

Being fair to it, I think my 360 is most of the way dead...

At least you didn't get coerced into buying a shit game to play online co-op, to find out it doesn't have online co-op.

*glares at Dimrill*

Such as?

And I bought Saints Row 2 for offline co-op (like it says on the back of the box) only to find out it doesn't have it.

Is the co-op bit in green or red? If it's green then it's what you can do offline, whereas red is the online components.

Kane & Lynch, btw.

It's green. It says Co-op 2 System Link 2-12

That means it should have split-screen. Lying bastards.

mind you co-op2 and system link are seperated by two seperate boxes before somone goes on abou tthats hooking up multiple 360's and tvs.

I quite like this way of rating new games - just a thread with plus and minus points noted as they occur. More of this please.

Yep, they're lying fucks then. At least the back of the Kane & Lynch box has it in green (although I didn't get to see the box until I'd bought it).

ugh, kane & lynch, that I did not enjoy!

I did. Thought it was simplistic and annoying, but lots of fun.

I think my patience with games is fading now i have less time to play 'em!

I expect it'll be far more fun in co-op, which is why I'm annoyed it's only offline. Cras, do you still have it? The multiplayer looks interesting if you're up for it.

Nah, flogged it.

Take Cpt Sillyman in a whirlybird straight upwards, jump out and open your 'chute, then start the basejumping diversion! Land on the centre of the target and all fall damage will be removed for evermore. I have super knees.

The activity that ups the duration of your sprinting (insurance fraud i think) is also mucho handy

I shall fraud it up tonight!

Yeah, this. I found this out the hard way with Rainbow Sex Vogues, and it pissed me off immensely. You couldn't have four players on two linked machines, but you could have two on one. Silly.

Um - I've played both R6:V and R6:V2 co-op on one machine. On the first you have to play through each mission one at a time rather than as a joined up campaign, but it still works.

EDIT - Oh, just actually properly read what you said, sorry.

There have been some harsh reviews of this, but although this review is a bit New Games Journalism and needlessly highbrow I think this video review is worth watching:


Watch Here

I would like to point out that I am enjoying this game more than any game I've played in years. The missions are fun and interesting, the plot well developed, the side quests massive, and the whole thing has a fantastic sense of humour. And no fucker sulks because you won't go bowling with them.

Seconded! And mission checkpoints like these would have been most welcome in GTA..

The only thing I miss is the Taxi from GTA4. Driving everywhere after I've crashed my chopper for the 80th time trying to get a frigging barnstormer is a right pain.

Ive finished the story, quite a lot of lacklustre missions towards the end, the final one in particular is very easy.

I was reading on how to get one of the secret achievements and to save spoilers for others you have to go to the third floor of one of the police stations to find some information or something. I haven't done it myself.

Has anyone found the volition game studio yet? think its somewhere in the north and theres a cd to collect in there.

Oh also looking at an acheivement forum theres meant to be a few secret islands scattered around.

Id be up for going after the co-op achievements if anyone fancys it.

Not arf! Yeah, I collected all the CDs and did all the tags. Have yet to see the giant pink bunny that rises out of the sea yet. Apparently there's a "sex cave" :rollseyes: under the cemetary.

Ooh, i'd love a bit of co-op! None of my regulars have bought this for some reason! My gamer tag is lordscotland (no i'm not scottish!)

I found the sex cave - you have to fall through a hole in one of the tombs in the cemetary

Worth getting, or shall I stick Saints Row 1 on my Christmas list instead?