Saint's Row (Demo)
I've followed Saint's Row fairly closely from day one. It's being developed by Volition, and I always thought that Summoner was a fun, underrated RPG. Summoner also featured a very vibrant, dynamic city, and I thought converting that kind of vibrance into a contemporary setting played to Volition's strength.Then I saw it at E3 this year. I thought it looked very weak compared to the other 360 games, so weak that I thought it was dead.
The demo came out in very limited release about two weeks ago (if you pre-ordered from Toys"R"Us, they gave you a demo disc), and almost immediately the buzz was very, very strong. Now it's available over Xbox Live and OXM magazine (now entirely content free!) has a demo disc in this month's issue.
I played the demo and was very surprised. For one, it looks much better than I remember it looking at E3. And while I expected it to be somewhat of a GTA-clone, they've really taken cloning to new heights here. Plus the control seems much tighter than the the GTA series, which was always one of my primary complaints. It seemed less raggedy than a GTA game, too, or at least it did to me. So it's basically GTA with better control and a little more refinement, and I think that's a winning formula.
Based on the demo, I think the game has gone from entirely forgettable to a potentially major hit. And they also have a multiplayer mode. Look, I think eighty percent of the people who play this game couldn't even tell it apart from GTA, plus it has multiplayer. Volition may hit it very big with this one.
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