So why, then, do I suddenly love Saints Row 2? Drop-in, drop-out co-op. I sincerely believe that this can make any game –- no matter how horrible -– fun.

Luckily, Saints Row 2 isn’t horrible. Set aside the part where it’s a gangster shoot-em-up; that either is your thing or it isn’t. Focus on the fact that the game has all the fundamentals every action game needs: fine-tuned controls, solid graphics, a decent combat system, and a map that actually tells you where you are and where you need to be. Tack onto that the detailed customization and a pretty jumpin’ soundtrack, and it’s easy to see Saints Row 2 has put in the effort to be something besides a Grand Theft Auto “me too” game.

I jumped into a system linked 360 co-op game with Randy Nelson of Joystiq – two great gaming blogs, together at last. We were both given the chance to construct our characters (he made a very butch version of himself, I made a bearded Dr. Girlfriend gone very much to seed) and then the game dropped us in the single-player storyline. Everything from single-player carries over into online multiplayer and co-op. The customization, the cutscenes, the frame rate – everything. Moreover, in co-op, you’re not tethered to the player hosting the game – so you can go anywhere and do pretty much anything the same as you would if you were playing alone.

This makes co-op both easier and harder. On the upside, you’ve got someone with you to help out in massive brawls – and they can revive you by pouring a 40 over your corpse, should you get gunned down. They can also range farther and wider, collecting cash and scouting out places to rob while another player completes objectives. This carries over in team multiplayer modes; especially the much-vaunted “Strong Arm” mode, which I’ll get to in a sec.

The downside of co-op is: you’ve got to keep track of who’s doing what, who’s protecting the VIP in this mission, who’s driving…

Oh my God, did you just shoot the store clerk while I was buying clothes? Now we’ve got the cops after us again and I’m not wearing any pants! (This is what I did to Randy after about an hour of trying to outrun the cops in a tow truck – he spent the rest of the game running around in a basketball jersey and tighty whities.)

Really – I dig the customization in Saints Row 2. You might remember me going on about the fat avatars in Aion: Tower of Eternity; if not, let me just say I salute any game that can make a person really look fat instead of a bigger version of skinny. Saints Row 2 lets you run the gamut all the way from emaciated to morbidly obese. I also heart games that understand how women are built; maybe it was just my ignorance, but it seemed like the only feature on my Dr. Girlfriend’s body I couldn’t control the size or color of with a slide was her bust. If I made her fat, her tits became huge and saggy. If I chose the emaciated body model, there weren’t much way of tits at all on her. This, to me, is a mark of good game design. ‘Cuz let me tell you fellas, your girl starts losing weight and the boobs are the first thing to go…

But I digress. I did that a lot in co-op. Randy would kick open a door and run toward the gate to perform the prison break objective and I would get sidetracked by something sparkly (usually a Taser wielded by a prison guard). Or he’d get in the police car to drive off and I’d run ahead, shooting wildly at helicopters.

This of course resulted in us failing the prison break mission, like, 10 times. Even when Randy could prevail upon me to follow him instead of running off in the wrong direction, we kept getting our escort killed, or exploding our escape car as we crashed into shit. Rather, *I* crashed into shit – or some strange bug got my character stuck against the side of the car and Randy crashed into me. And then, periodically, Randy would get dragged out of the car by a cop for a beatdown, and then I’d get in the car, run the cop (and Randy) over and then explode, presumably from crashing into something I didn’t see. That or Randy’s avatar was made of napalm.

But strangely, we didn’t seem to mind the multiple failures. And that could have been the booze served at the event or the swanky setting – but I really think that the experience of trying to cooperate with someone in the same room as you is pretty hilarious, what with all the yelling and the swearing.

Which is why Saints Row 2 is a good game to play with your girlfriend: it’s a game you can share.

Now – about the Strong Arm online mode… This is the culmination of Volition’s lofty ideal of having a multiplayer mode that encompassed all types of multiplayer modes. They wanted to take “protect the VIP,” treasure-hunting, point-capturing (and so on) and roll it into one giant mode that focused on teamwork as well as being a badass motherfucker in your own right. To that end, you’re put on a team of 4 versus another team of 4 and sent into a city filled with neighborhoods ripe for the conquering. You start off quickly with an activity – say, capturing points on the map by tagging them with your gang logo. Once an activity is completed, you earn money. You earn more money the more activities you complete, and you can also earn cash by killing your opponents on the rival team. As you gain more money, more activities become available and your team will be participating in everything from drag racing to target practice. And don’t forget to defend your tagged spots – that’s an ongoing activity, as far as I can tell.

Strong Arm is part of a series of updates the dev team made to the online modes offered in the original Saints Row. Other improvements include a lobby that’s easier to get to (you can move around in it and stuff – apparently, if someone talks smack to you in the lobby, you can go up to them and shoot them); a 12 rank progression system (everyone starts off at New Jack); and a Badge system that works similarly to Team Fortress 2 (you shoot people in the head a lot and you get the “Brain Surgeon” badge).

The bottom line is: Saints Row 2 is a bigger, louder, more in-depth Saints Row. The new online modes are icing on the cake for fans of the first game; and the co-op is the gateway for non-believers to discover the joy of running over hookers with cars.

Saints Row 2 PlayStation 3 Trailer - Co Op Trailer [IGN]

In Saints Row 1 we got about half way through the process and then we realised that we just couldn't get our heads around Cell. It's just really complicated and I'm sure you noticed other games like Stranglehold push their dates up.

A sad, if familiar tale. But that begs the question: what about Saints Row 2? Don't lose any sleep over it, PS3 owners. Sutton goes on to say that thanks to increased assistance from Sony with some of the trickier aspects of the Cell, Saints Row 2 is coming along just nicely.

Saints Row dev couldn't get its head around Cell [CVG]

The potentially NSFW clip is after the jump for your safety.

A high-res version awaits you at IGN.

Tera Patrick Developer Commentary [IGN]

The game will be set on a terraformed Mars, 50 years after the events of the original Red Faction game. Now the Earth Defense Force folks are in control and have turned bad. Players will take on the roll of a man caught up in the struggle against the EDF. The game will play out in third-person perspective and the entire world will be destructible.

You can, I was told, bring down an entire three-story building piece by piece. The multi-platform game's open world will also allow you to steal vehicles, swipe weapons even recruit other people to join your band of guerrillas.

While I didn't have a chance to play around with the single player campaign, Volition did give me time, lots and lots of time, to play matches of multiplayer.

Chief among the things that Guerrilla adds to the Red Faction franchise is the fully destructible environment. This time around players get both weapons and special power backpacks as they shoot it out with each other. These packs give players different abilities they can use as they rampage through the stark Martian landscape. Some packs let you thruster hop around the map, other's give you a temporary shield or the ability to charge things and inflict massive amounts of melee damage. That last one, a Rhino Pack, was by far my favorite one to use, allowing me to charge right through a building's wall and take down people camped out inside... with a sledgehammer. That's right, you can run around smashing people with a two-handed sledgehammer. Great fun!

The game will feature five to six modes total including anarchy, team anarchy, capture the flag, bagman and siege. In that last mode, one team tries to defend a structure while the other team tries to dismantle it. In all of the modes teams can repair damaged buildings with a rifle that shoots out what appears to be a cross between flames and plasma.

From what I played through, it looks like the physics are pretty dead on. For instance, you can take out a few stabilizing beams on a very tall building and then watch the whole thing slowly buckle and eventually cave in on itself. Volition told me that the stress system in the game calculates by the second where the stress in a building is and how it should crumble depending on the weight. As buildings topple, debris showers down around you. Nice touch.

The game will support 20 to 25 multiplayer maps, all unique to multiplayer and Volition is toying around with the idea of allowing a third, unnamed, force to be unlockable for multiplayer. Unfortunately, the game won't support co-op multiplayer.

Finally, Volition said that Microsoft came to them back in May or so to talk to them about someone using the Xbox 360's recently unveiled avatar system.

"We are talking with Microsoft about their Mii thing, about maybe allowing you to link up with each other in that and then go into the game."

The downside: It's a developer diary. The upside? It's a developer diary that actually has a ton of proper footage in it! And not just pre-rendered stuff, either, proper footage. Of your man running around Mars, blowing stuff up, hitting bad men with a giant hammer. Looks surprisingly fun, in a hitting-men-with-giant-hammers kinda way.

Mr. Allen began his game industry career as a QA tester on Summoner 2 and The Punisher, and became a designer in 2005. Prior to joining Volition, Mr. Allen was a high school English teacher in Emporia, Kansas and Ankara, Turkey. He leaves behind his wife, Lesley. He was preceded in death by his grandfather, Chauncey Griffith. Mr. Allen was one of 12 grandchildren, and had many close aunts and uncles.

"Chris was truly one of those people who, after seeing them, you'd think ‘I wish I was more like that guy’ and mean it," said Chris' colleague, James Taylor.

Many more of his teammates at Volition contributed thoughts in his memory:

Jeff Thompson: "Chris was very passionate, creative and clearly driven to be in our industry. This is where he belonged."

Dave Bowring: “Chris was an amazing friend, an awesome person, and had a spectrum of knowledge that always impressed me. He will be greatly missed.”

Jason Votava: “I wasn’t done with Chris yet.”

Brian Bosse: “I wish Chris were here to help me put words to how much I'll miss him.”

Clint Bundrick: “Chris' infectious passion and natural sincerity meant there was no better person to show our games to new-hires and potential candidates. This is how I originally met him and months later he remembered even the smallest details of the conversation we had that day. That's one of the things I'll always remember about him.”

Steve Jaros: “Chris was a man with big ideas and a bigger heart. The fact that people around the world won't get to experience his game ideas is a crime, the fact that he's not around the office to brighten our day is a tragedy.”

James Tsai: “Chris had boundless love and friendship for everyone, and he showed us all how to be better people. The size of his heart was incredible.”

Anonymous: “Chris was one of those types of guys who genuinely cared about the people around him and who always had perspective. Like the foundation of a house, he was sometimes easy to take for granted but he was there when you least expected it and always there when you needed him. He touched many, many lives in his short time on this Earth, and we all miss him terribly.”

Anonymous: “ There are so many other things about Chris that made him so important to a lot of us. Thank you Chris, for being a part of Volition and our lives.”

Lesley Allen asks that any donations in Mr. Allen's name be made to the Make-a-Wish foundation or to the Humane Society.

THQ delays 'Saints Row 2' by nearly two months [Reuters]

The thing about watching Shatner act goofy is that you know that he knows he's there to be "Shatner." The thing about watching Walken act goofy is that you know that he knows he's there to be "Walken."

But Busey? We have no fucking clue.

THQ Enlists Gary Busey to Discuss Saints Row 2 [Gaming Today]

It's not Donovan's fault that things are weird. Someone has painstakingly setup a small table filled with various drinks and snacks that, as Donovan explains, "aren't there everyday."

Things are weird because I have an absurd headache on top of an even more absurd head cold making me a complete bitch to talk to. Donovan breaks the silence again.

"I saw you ran that quote." What quote? Oh, right, where he said that Saint's Row 2 would have bugs.

"Yeah, the internet just went crazy on that one," I respond.

"95% of gamers aren't even going to come across them," he assured me.

Tsai arrived moments later, and we loaded up Saint's Row 2. Donovan had to be at least a little relieved.

Saint's Row 2 takes place an unspecified number of years after Saint's Row 1 (though ironically, the development of Saint's Row 2 began with a small team of people before Saint's Row 1 was even out).

Your friends have betrayed you, and you'll have to start building the Saints from scratch. Tsai explains, "The player comes back, he's pissed, and he does some nasty things...you are definitely a criminal this time around."

Unfortunately, you choose to wear purple once again.

Starting with the character creation screen, I immediately see that SR1's robust character customization engine has gotten some major upgrades. To start, your model looks better, a Calvin Cline underwear ad adorning shader-chiseled muscles.

While players will still not be able to face map with the LIVE camera, the seemingly endless sliders should make up for it. I particularly enjoyed watching models be subjected to the age slider. Let's just say moobs become moooobs.

Apparently Lead Designer Tsai is a huge fan of wrestling games. And the influence is undeniable as you look through various animations that you can now assign your character. Everything from the style of gait to combat techniques, players will find more movements unlocked as they play. But the animations are a lot more than just a bonus for completion—they really signify SR2.

Open up the taunts, for instance. Your character can flip someone the bird. They can do the famous throat cut. Or, in a turn to the absurd, they can squat down on someone and gesture defecation complete with butt waggling.

Donovan explains, "We gave up any pretense of being authentically hip hop."

Everything is streamlined for fun. While SR2 will feature a compelling story with a near feature-length set of cut scenes, players can make the choice constantly to have a serious or outright zany experience. Create a hard-nosed gangster or create a computer geek with a pot belly. No one's gonna judge you.

They take me through the example mission and I see one of the new area expansions to the game's 1.5x larger city. You are in a dusty, almost wild west world. It's a trailer park, and you're here to blow it up. Running into one of the 130 new internal environments, you grab some satchel charges (essentially sticky grenades that can be remotely detonated).

Heading around outside, Tsai dropped bombs in dramatic sequence, blowing up trailers one after another. He spoiled an otherwise impressive street of open world AI and animation at its finest, in which I'd seen a jogger tie their shoe, a power walker anally strut past, an old man hobbling slowly and one guy lounged out on a beach chair (who I was assured would get up and go about his day if we'd watched him long enough.)

But Tsai wasn't content with spoiling a good day. He's played the mission before. So he opts to throw a satchel charge onto a jogger instead of the next trailer. It seems like a normal enough decision as it sticks to the side of her head like a lopsided cubic afro. Then he throws another and another. Now the jogger is having a tough time jogging. Finally, Tsai steps back and blows her up with a massive explosion. She shoots 50 feet into the air...then he hits the trigger again...and again, "juggling" the innocent in mid air.

I could act mature about the situation now, but I chuckled.

The neat thing about this sort of debauchery is that Saint's Row 2 will reward you for it. Called "diversions," these mini achievements are built for fucking around and will earn you "respect" that's usable in the storyline. "Chances are, if you try it, it's been done," Donovan assures me, meaning that the game will acknowledge any feat you throw at it. And it's an idea that's long overdue in a genre in which gameplay so often...digresses.

But what I didn't get a chance to see was the game's co-op. The full campaign supports two players ala Crackdown. Oh, and those "diversions" we talked about above? They will include co-op combos, as well as the rare moment when you might actually try to harm your friend in crime with a submachine gun.

"It will be a lot of fun," said Tsai. "In Crackdown, players sort of had this static objectives...in SR2 our missions are a lot more complex, we're actually forcing more interaction."

I ask him why we've seen co-op games explode in the last few years.

Tsai laughs and lets me in on his personal theory. "All the guys like you and me who grew up playing...Contra, Ikari Warriors, Jackal...have disposable income." He's probably right.

After talking to Donovan and Tsai and seeing the game, those still bent on fueling some war between GTAIV and Saint's Row 2 need to realize something...in what is maybe the crudest analogy I've ever put to print.

Rockstar is like Hugh Hefner. They create a product that hides behind (what is often) a facade of high artistic vision. Volition is more like Larry Flynt, not shying away from what they purport the audience is really looking for—the gynecologically precise experience of juggling a woman in mid-air with properly timed sticky bomb explosions—fulfilling your deepest id impulses, spread eagle on your monitor.

"They're gonna do what they're gonna do," Donovan said. "That's actually a good thing for players."

We wouldn't be releasing this year if we didn't think we could be competitive...The only thing I know about GTA is what I've read. From what I've read it seems like they're going in a more realistic direction. For us it's more about almost a hyper-realistic quality, over-the-top, all about these memorable moments.

It won't be bug free. I don't think any game is. But part of what we did was to start development early on. Our development schedule is all about getting the gameplay in and even though this (version of the game shown to press) is pre-alpha, we're all about iterating the gameplay now.

First Images Of Red Faction: Guerilla [2Qr @ NeoGAF]

UPDATE: OK, we have an answer! The top one (ie the better-looking one), yes, that's from the game, and appears in the latest issue of Game Informer magazine. The bottom one, no, it's a FAKE. [thanks Keldan!]

Building interiors will also be a new focus of the game, with over 130 throughout a city that's now 45% larger than SR1. Oh, and you can be a transsexual now, too. Hmmm...I wonder what I have to do for another invite to Volition...(not just because I'm extremely interested in transsexuals or something).

Saints Row 2: A first look at GTA's competition [via n4g]

Speaking of cameos, the latest episode of ABC legal drama Boston Legal featured a brief guest appearance by THQ and Volition's Saints Row. A portly William Shatner as chronic nutjob Denny Crane is seen getting his virtual hooker on, probably at the behest of some nerdy writer on the show's staff. Either that or a production assistant was tasked with getting "one of the Grand Thefts for the Nintendo PlayStation so Mr. Shatner can keep busy between takes." Surely, THQ didn't pay for this kind of product placement. I hope.

Thanks for the tip, Greg!

Thanks, Mike!

Announcing Blazing Lizard

Savoy, IL, August 7, 2007 - Industry veterans announce the formation of Blazing Lizard, Inc, a new game development studio dedicated to producing high quality and compelling console downloadable games for all ages and demographics.

The core development team is lead by Sandeep Shekar, Jiovanie Velazquez, and Christopher Stockman and has a combined industry experience of over 30 years. The team was most recently at Volition, Inc where Jiovanie served as Studio Artist Manager leading the growth and managing the careers of the studio's art department. Chris and Sandeep, most recently, lead the design team for the critically acclaimed, million-selling Saints Row for the Xbox 360. Saints Row has gone on to receive numerous nominations for 2006 Action / Adventure Game of the Year and won 2006 Sandbox Game of the Year from Official Xbox Magazine.

The Blazing Lizard team has played leadership roles on many other games including the million-selling Red Faction series, Summoner series, The Punisher, Freespace, and Elite Force 2.

Blazing Lizard's first game, an original IP for unspecified platforms, will be announced on August 13, 2007.

ABOUT BLAZING LIZARD, INC.

Formed in early 2007, Blazing Lizard's goal is to create high quality, compelling console downloadable games for all platforms. Their first game, an original IP for unspecified platforms, is poised to take the fledgling console downloadable genre by storm and will be unveiled on August 13, 2007.

We're assuming that the game is in development by THQ's subsidiary Volition (as with past titles in the franchise), but other than that...expect better graphics, smarter AI and larger environments than in Red Faction 2. The cover art may or may not resemble the work of three-year-old.

THQ Announces New Red Faction [gamelife]

Why the cancellation? According to Gamespot's report, THQ CEO Brian Farrell told analysts:

We think the most important thing for the Saints Row franchise is to have a simultaneous ship into a larger installed base next year. We think the bigger opportunity is a multiplatform launch.

In other words, there aren't enough PS3s out there to make it worth their while. Okay, now make with the "I didn't want it anyway" or "PS3 is doomed" comments. I'll tally 'em up later. Michael McWhertor

Saints Row 2 rollin' onto PS3, 360 in '08 [Gamespot]

You know what that means: it's definitely coming. And that shouldn't come as a surprise to almost anyone. With no "Only For Xbox 360" branding and THQ's desire to actually make money, it only makes sense to port the action adventure title to Sony's console.

We'll obviously let you know when THQ formally announces the game's existence. Michael McWhertor

Welcome to the world of microtransactions... when the last few dribbles of outflow in front of the gaming urinal cake can be shaken out for a few bucks apiece.

THQ and Volition have released their first downloadable content update for Saints Row online. It's the "Funky Fresh" pack! It costs 100 Microsoft points! It's a total money-grab insult!

What do you get for your 100 points? Such exciting content as "fake tuxedo t-shirt", "crazy bunny slippers" and "the ankh tattoo." Oh, there's more, but this is the sort of content update a few years ago that developers would have been embarrassed to release for free. Florian Eckhardt

Saints Row Content Incoming [1UP]

I've been playing Saint's Row almost nightly this week, which is sorta unusual for me. What with the Rocky Mountain News, Kotaku and my family I don't usually have or take the time to play a game...nightly.... till 2 a.m.

But Saint's Row has hooked me. I'm not crazy about the graphics, they're sorta cartoony and that bugs me, but the rest of the single player game is golden.

SR is essentially a next-gen GTA. But there are two things that makes the game more addictive for me: the amazing artificial intelligence and the unbelievable rag doll physics.

It's not that the bad guys are exceptionally clever or use good tactics, actually they sort of suck, it's that everyone in this world seems to have a much higher level of AI than I've ever seen before.

Walking around on my home turf some woman walked by me muttering something about my attitude, so I pistol whipped her of course.

After I knocked her to the ground I was about to walk away, but a fellow banger (your gang's members are all over the place, this one was just walking down the street) ran up and started kicking the hell out of the woman, screaming that the woman needs to show me some respect.

If you whip out your gun and fire a shot or two, people run, cower, beg for their lives. Some even run over and try to stop you. It's amazing.

I noticed early on in the game that you can hop onto the hood of a car and car surf. "This will be fun," I thought. But a few seconds into my ride and the driver just started freaking out, screaming, swerving all over the road. She was basically acting like you or I would if someone just hopped onto our car with a gun and expected to go for a ride.

It's this across the board AI that makes the game, and running around inside it, so much fun.

I know rag doll physics are nothing new, but the way this game uses them is just hilarious.

The first time I noticed something different was when I got into a head-on collision with a convertible. Yeah, the car buckled. Yeah, glass broke. But then something else happened. The front passenger in the other car shot through the windshield and the backseat passenger went flying over my car.

And running into people, they don't just fall over or get knocked to the side. They fly, arms flailing, legs at painfully odd angles, across the screen to land in crumpled heaps.

Sweet lord, this could be it's own game.

The online modes are just as addictive. Volition has done a lot of things to make it tons of fun.

First off, the modes are really interesting. There's Gangsta Brawl, Big Ass Chains, Protect the Pimp and Bling My Ride.

Most of these are modes you've seen in other games with a gangsta twist. But whenever you can pimp slap someone in a game it's all good.

The game also supports gangs. You can form a gang and get members to join in. I've formed the Kotaku gang for those of you interested. Currently it consists of me. (My gamertag is crecente if you want to hit me up in the game.)

The best part is that most upgrades to your character's appearance is done by earning cash in the ranked matches and then going shopping. I'm saving for some pimp sunglasses right now.

Unfortunately, Saints Row suffers from some of the worst lag I've seen in an Xbox 360 game. It makes the modes nearly unplayable. Every single game I've played online to date has suffered from this problem.

Fortunately, THQ have already said they are working on a patch.

We are working hard on the update now. Here are a few (but not all) of the issues we expect it to address: Improvements to the way the game handles packet loss and bandwidth management between players. This will address the issues commonly cited as "lag", and general synchronization problems between the players' clients (vehicles/players warping around, etc). The system for rating a player's quality-of-service has been improved, and made less conservative. This means you'll see many more matches with 10-12 player limits. Fix for the "clothes stealing" exploit in multiplayer Fix for widescreen formatting issues in certain resolutions Changes to Matchmaking phase, to get players in the game faster At this time, we have no ETA on when the update will be available. We want it to be available soon, but we also want to make sure it addresses as many issues as possible.

Microsoft provides product updates to anyone with a Live connection, even without a paid membership.

Get it done already, I need to get me some big ass chains. Brian Crecente