Microsoft has announced the latest additions to its list of backward-compatible Xbox 360 games on Xbox One: BioWare's divisive RPG sequel Dragon Age 2, and Volition's delightfully outlandish open world adventure Saints Row 2.
Saints Row 2
Key events
22nd January 2016
2nd April 2009
27th January 2009
21st January 2009
14th October 2008
4th April 2008
11th May 2007
Jelly DealsJelly Deals: Get Saints Row 2 on PC for free at GOG.com for the next two days
Plus, 75% off other Deep Silver titles.
A note from the editor: Jelly Deals is a deals site launched by our parent company, Gamer Network, with a mission to find the best bargains out there. Look out for the Jelly Deals roundup of reduced-price games and kit every Saturday on Eurogamer.
Cancelled Saints Row PSP game unearthed
Canned Saints Row: Undercover to be live-streamed next week.
A cancelled Saints Row PSP game has been revealed.
Dubbed Saints Row: Undercover, the canned project was shuttered in 2009 when developer Volition and then-publisher THQ decided it wasn't up to scratch with the series' standards.
Amusingly, most folks at Volition these days didn't even know it existed. As explained in the video below, Volition associate video editor Josh Stinson simply happened upon the game laying in a wayward PSP dev kit tucked away in a storage room.
Saints Row: The Cooler was a motion-controlled brawler spin-off
Kinect and Move game canned by THQ in 2010.
Unseen64.net has unearthed images of Saints Row: The Cooler, a motion-controlled brawler spin-off that never saw the light of day.
The Humble Bundle goes daily for a fortnight
Re-introduces the Deep Silver Bundle at an even cheaper price.
The Humble Bundle's pay-what-you-want offerings have gone from every other week to daily over the next two weeks.
Saints Row dev "didn't appreciate" THQ's focus on porn actresses
Promoted porn star as "special producer".
Some staff at Saints Row studio Volition were uncomfortable with former publisher THQ's emphasis on porn actresses when promoting the series, a producer has revealed.
Pay what you want for Saints Row: The Third in the Humble Deep Silver Bundle
UPDATE: Metro 2033, Sacred Citadel, and Risen added.
UPDATE: The Deep Silver Humble Bundle just sweetened the pot further by adding Metro 2033, Sacred Citadel, and Risen as the offer enters its second and final week.
THQ auction rumours: Relic to Sega, Volition/Saints Row to Koch, South Park to Ubisoft
Update: sale hearing pushed to 8pm UK time.
Update: It sounds like proceedings may be delayed. The auction is still going and the hearing could start this evening at 8pm UK time rather than at 5pm. That information comes from an investor (@DDInvesting) who seems reliable.
Lara Croft: Guardian of Light, Saints Row 2 free on PlayStation Plus
Instant Game Collection gets fortnightly update.
Isometric platformer Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light will be available as a free download for PlayStation Plus subscribers tomorrow.
More Saints Row, Darksiders in 2011
THQ producing more de Blob too.
THQ boss Brian Farrell has said there will be more Darksiders, Saints Row and de Blob next year.
GOD welcomes LEGO Indy, Saints Row 2
Plus: Winter Sports demo on Live.
Xbox Live's Games on Demand has grown and now includes Saints Row 2 and LEGO Indiana Jones.
Free Saints Row 2 fashion DLC today
T-shirts and tattoos in third and final release.
Volition has made the "third and final" DLC pack for Saints Row 2 available for free on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.
Darksiders, Saints Row, Guerrilla sequels
THQ reportedly blabs to investors.
THQ already has sequels to Darksiders: Wrath of War, Saints Row 2 and Red Faction: Guerrilla in development, according to information given to investors.
GameSpot reports that investor relations folks have outed Darksiders and Red Faction sequels for release during fiscal 2012 (1st April 2011 until 31st March 2012), while Saints Row 3 should appear in the preceding 12 months.
The slideshow apparently also said that the publisher's Warhammer 40,000 MMO would be out in fiscal 2012, while Kaos Studios is working on a shooter of some sort and de Blob studio Blue Tongue is doing a Marvel licence.
Saints Row getting three DLC packs
Starting with Ultor Exposed in April.
Volition has revealed that it is working on three downloadable content packs for Saints Row 2, the first of which, Ultor Exposed, is due out on 16th April for PS3 and Xbox 360.
50 Cent to make Saints Row movie
And maybe a Blood on the Sand tie-in.
Rap star 50 Cent has revealed plans to produce a movie based on Saints Row.
The ugly thug ball.
Should reviews try to discern between quality and amusement? I'm trying to understand the gulf in review scores between GTAIV and Saints Row 2, back when both games screeched onto consoles. GTAIV is an important game, and an ambitious one, and we reviewers do so love that sort of thing. It deserved its accolades, even if they did feel as inevitable as the rather tiresome backlash that followed.
Saints Row 2, on the other hand, is only just emerging from the shadow of its more acclaimed rival. Indeed, it's probably the first sandbox crime game to make the derogatory "GTA clone" tag seem misplaced. Saints Row 2 isn't so much a copy of Grand Theft Auto, as the natural heir to the series' brattish attitude. With Rockstar casting aside its more cartoon-like excesses in order to better suit Niko Bellic's melancholy immigrant saga, Volition was quick to position Saints Row as The GTA That Still Lets You Be Silly.
There's a plethora of character-creation options that let you define not only how your virtual gangbanger looks, but also how they talk, walk and screw up their face in fury. Clothing is not just a choice of tastefully chosen urban outfits, but a veritable fancy-dress shop. For those who want to rule the city of Stillwater as a deformed funky dancing transvestite, there's really no other option.
PC screenshots.
PC screenshots.
Digital FoundryXbox 360 vs. PS3 Face-Off: Round 17
LOTR Conquest, Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, Saints Row 2 and loads more.
It's the first face-off of the New Year and with it, the opportunity to bring the cold, hard, iron first of order to the games cupboard by rounding up the games we really should have covered by now, but didn't for reasons too numerous and too tedious to get into. It's also the chance to take a look at how the first high profile release of 2009 - EA's Lord of the Rings: Conquest - measures up under Eurogamer's unyielding scrutiny.
As we've got a lot of software to get through, we've bumped up the interesting games to the front of the feature, then grouped together the rest in the form of smaller, round-up featurettes at the end. However, as per the norm, all games get the full screenshot gallery treatment - captures losslessly derived from the HDMI ports of both consoles at full range 24-bit RGB precision. Where PS3 outputs a 1080p signal on any given game, additional galleries are provided, along with their 360 counterparts.
For the headline games there's also the customary video coverage. Set your Flash Player to 'high quality' to appreciate the full might of h264 encoding, or check out the author's blog if you want to download bandwidth-saturating full-HD versions running in real time, optimised for playback on PS3, Xbox 360 and dual-core PCs.
US to get Saints Row 2 PC in 2009
No word yet on European release date.
THQ has confirmed the release of Saints Row 2 PC has been delayed in the US.
UK chart: PES dispenses with FIFA
Saints Row 2 features. Top 40 inside.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 has burst into the UK All-Formats Chart at number one this week, shoulder-charging genre rival FIFA 09 down to number two.
Reckons it makes you depraved and that.
The New York Police Department has "popped a cap" in the "ass" of Saints Row 2, claiming it'll make people mad and wrong.
Saints Row 2 back to full price at Tesco
Someone must have noticed.
Update: Tesco has returned the PS3 version of Saints Row 2 to GBP 39.97.
Where angels fear to tread.
If you want to talk about Saints Row 2 (right place to be, innit), you've got two different approaches open to you. You could talk, in technical terms and a tone reminiscent of a slightly disappointed maths teacher, about how the graphics aren't terribly impressive. It's got a huge city for you to explore, but compared with the deftly filtered visual richness of something like Grand Theft Auto IV (a comparison that's going to be hauled out a lot, I'm afraid), it looks dated.
You'd probably go on to mention, with faintly pursed lips, that the animation messes up regularly - with characters "popping" out of cars when the doors don't have space to open, for instance. Or you might complain that enemy AI and other road users are fairly simple and dim, or that the radio stations are understocked to the extent that the '80s station seems to play The Final Countdown at least three times an hour. If you want to nit-pick Saints Row 2, you won't have a hard time doing so. It's even got a little bit of screen-tearing and the occasional frame-rate drop.
If you look past that, though, you've got approach number two: it's the first sandbox game since Vice City where 3am comes and goes, and for me, Saints Row 2 is a diamond, no matter how roughly hewn. For all the visible seams, I'm happier talking about fun stuff, like the time I hijacked a car with a passenger still inside, and found myself playing a hidden mini-game where I had to evade the police without letting him escape, until he was so terrified that he offered to pay a ransom. Or the time I walked into a stadium to discover a fully functional Destruction Derby, complete with customisable scrapyard vehicles.
FeatureSaints Row 2 - Multiplayer
Wanna take this outside?
I can't pull off any form of "gangsta" talk. It's a geographical, ethnic, cultural impossibility. I'm from Ireland and while the place I grew up definitely had its nasty undercurrents, it was definitely more "farm" than "phat". Any attempt to describe watching television as "chillin'" or imply that I might be about to get "all up in this bitch" sounds so ridiculous it makes me want to strangle myself.
More than a Grand Theft.
Everyone wants a piece of me. Mind you, in the last couple of hours I've been doing my utmost to piss everyone off. I started the day with a daring one-man raid on a courtroom, which ended when I shot a Judge Judy-style harpy in the face with a shotgun. By mid-morning, I was spraying an entire neighbourhood with human excrement from a hijacked sewage truck in the hope of dropping the property values (and I drowned some cops in liquid faeces for good measure).
Gun-shaped box for Saints Row 2
360-exclusive with golden bullet USB key.
THQ has announced the Saints Row 2 Collector's Edition bundle, and in keeping with the game's general sense of fun and social responsibility, the box is shaped like a gun and you get a USB stick in the shape of a bullet.
The patron saint of clones.
You know, Saints Row is quite a lot like another game I've played. Can't remember which one. Anyway, a number of internet-based backs were put out by the first wave of advertising for this sequel, and their owners found their fingers reaching for the Caps Lock button once it became clear THQ and Volition were suggesting Grand Theft Auto IV wasn't perfect and they could do certain parts better. Grand Theft Auto! That's the one.
Tera Patrick working on Saints Row 2
Porn star to be "special producer".
Tera Patrick, who you're not likely to see in a Disney film, has joined the Saints Row 2 team as a "special producer".
Saints Row 2 "very differentiated"
On a different path to GTA, says THQ.
Saints Row 2 will be very distinct from Grand Theft Auto IV when it launches in October on PC, PS3 and 360, says THQ chief executive Brian Farrell.
THQ ignores analyst's pomposity accusation
GTA IV parody video under fire.
THQ has told Eurogamer it has no comment on analyst Mike Hickey's claim that its recent Saints Row 2 trailer parodying Grand Theft Auto IV is "unusually pompous".
Saint Row 2 to get PC offering
It can't refuse, brrap.
THQ has decided to add a PC version to gangland sequel Saints Row 2.
Saints Row 2 delayed to October
Needs more polish before hitting the streets.
THQ's sandbox game Saints Row 2 has been delayed by almost two months, and will now launch on October 17th in Europe, the publisher told Eurogamer this morning.
Saints Row 2 gets release date
It's out this summer worldwide.
THQ has announced that Saints Row 2 is coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 on August 26th.
In the US, anyway - it's not yet clear if the game will get a simultaneous release in Europe. (Update: A THQ spokesperson has now told us it's a "global" date. That reminds us of another game, you know. Any ideas, readers?)
The news came at THQ's Gamers Day event in San Francisco, currently being attended by our very own Tom. He's also reporting that there's no sign of Dawn of War 2 at the event, despite the game having been announced yesterday.
What an unholy row.
Saints Row 2 contains the same slightly disquieting mix of openworld, urban violence and gang culture as its predecessor. It begins with your character waking up in prison, having been comatose since getting blown up in the last game, lending the game the perfect pretext for a darker, revenge-oriented story as you return to Stillwater to find out how and why you were betrayed. Your character is, according to the game's producer, Greg Donovan, "a very angry young man or woman who needs to rebuild the saints, find out why he was betrayed, and reclaim Stillwater for his own." And it's a game that is, apparently, "a lot darker, a little bit more sinister."
Saints Row team not fazed by GTA IV
Eurogamer not able to spell.
Saints Row 2 producer Greg Donovan reckons that his game will be competitive with Grand Theft Auto IV.
Let's be avenue.
Let's be avenue.
Saints Row 2 officially unveiled
Online co-op, darker story, yo.
THQ has officially de-cloaked gangster sequel Saints Row 2.
Frontlines set for January 08, Saints Row 2 confirmed
With Saints Row PS3 canned.
THQ has revealed that it's targeting January 2008 for the release of Frontlines: Fuel of War, while Saints Row for PS3 has been scrapped in order to push resources into production on a sequel for Xbox 360 and PS3.
Speaking in light of strong financials that saw the company's sales top USD 1 billion, CEO Brian Farrell said: "The most important thing for the Saints Row franchise is to have a simultaneous shipment into a larger installed base next year." The sequel, previously hinted at but until now unconfirmed, is expected to be detailed in the near future.
Frontlines, meanwhile, was unveiled at last year's E3, and we've seen it a couple of times since. It's a next-generation openworld shooter and the first game from Kaos Studios - largely staffed by former staffers at Trauma Studios, the team responsible for the Battlefield Desert Combat mod and elements of Battlefield 2.