It’s really just a bizarre twist of fate that I happened to have a chance to play both Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV and Volition’s Saint’s Row 2 during the same week. Volition’s near-launch Xbox 360 open-world driving/shooting/crime-spree simulator was a solid title, but garnered more than a few comparisons to Rockstar’s now classic series. Some went as far as to call it a “good Grand Theft Auto ripoff,” and for good reason — it kind of was.

But when Saint’s Row 2 ships to stores on August 26, gamers are going to find that those comparisons, in many ways, are no longer apt. Put it this way — if Rockstar’s this-gen iteration of GTA is a $200-a-head Las Vegas illusionist performance featuring Pamela Anderson, then Volition’s sequel is a balls-to-the-wall, over-the-top Coney Island sideshow starring a limbless, glass-eating female midget named Senorita Cobrita. To be clear, one approach isn’t necessarily “better” than the other, and it’s evidently Volition’s intentions for Saint’s Row 2 to be the most ridiculous gangster/crime fantasies in videogames. A faithful adaptation of violent street and gang life this is not.

As for the phrase “balls-to-the-wall,” it gets thrown around a lot, but in Saint’s Row 2 they’re taking it literally. Morbid curiosity forces you to hit the jump.

Via Destructoid

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