New details have piled in on THQ sequel to Saint's Row, which is heading to Xbox 360 and PS3 next year.
According to the latest mag previews, Saint's Row 2 is set to feature a city 45 percent larger than the Xbox 360 original, with new vehicles including motorbikes, jet-skis and speedboats. So far, so GTA.
What's new though is the introduction of aircraft such as planes and helicopters, which excitingly you can smash right through buildings. You can't destroy buildings entirely (we don't think the US censors would be happy with that), but smashing through windows should open up plenty of gameplay opportunities.
Hostages can now be taken and used as human shields, weapons can be dual-wielded and you can rip things out of the environment and use them as melee weapons.
Character customisation has also been enhanced with the option to tweak your characters sex; male, female or whatever's in-between. Transsexual gangsters are well on the agenda.
The most exciting feature of the sequel though, and probably the only real reason you should divert your excitement from GTA IV, is the promise of a full-on Crackdown-style co-op mode allowing you to play through the single-player campaign with a comrade.
Considering how brilliant Crackdown co-op was, this feature could be crucial. We'll let you know how it turns out.
I'm really looking forward to this. Still got to finish the first one (must...find...reason..to..switch..on...360..again) but even if I haven't done so, I'm really looking forward to seeing Saint's Row growing into a great series in its own right, away from comparisons to GTA, and the condescending response it got because of some similarity.
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