I actually did like SR2 a lot. There were things from SR2 that went missing in SR3 that I missed. I just feel that SR3 and SR4 stepped up the quality of the game engine. Unfortunately I believe the increase in quality, while meeting the capabilities of consoles is the reason some features had to get cut.

I prefer the city in SR2 over SR3/4, also. I'm glad I played SR2, but if I have to choose I would pick SR3 first. If you want to play them all, play them in order.

If we're comparing the two, each game has its own positives and negatives when compared to the other. I'll give my own (extremely brief) thoughts on those myself below.

Saints Row 2
Pros:
Bigger and more varied and interesting city with many "hidden" places to find
Deeper clothes customization
Cops will fight members of other gangs without you being involved in one way or another
The ability to use random world items as weapons (such as trash cans, pay phones, mailboxes etc etc)
The ability to buy and eat food and other items to regain health
Slightly more varied citizens of the game world
(Debatable pro) Slightly more serious story (though it's nowhere as serious as some fans would have you believe)

Cons:
Controls are a bit loose, both on foot and in vehicles
Extremely repetitive missions (which plagues every Saints Row game, but this one has it the worst)
Floaty feeling to combat regardless of what weapon you're using
The respect mechanic makes side activities mandatory, as it locks you out of missions until you reach a certain level of respect, so you may have to stop right in the middle of a storyline because you're some trivial amount of points from the next level of respect which is required to be allowed to do the next mission in the story
Shaundi is annoying
(Debatable con) there isn't any DLC (for the PC version)

Saints Row: The Third
Pros:
Feels like it came into its own rather than being yet another "gangsta" gta style game
Tightened up movement (both on foot and in vehicles) and combat (both melee and firearms)
Side activities are still present but are incorporated into the main story to make it a lot more seamless (and so you don't get locked out because you didn't grind enough)
Less clothing options but more clothes that you're actually likely to wear or want to wear
About the same amount of hairstyles but again, more that you're actually likely to wear to want to wear
Less cliched story that doesn't hold itself to "gta clone" style writing
Melee is fun and there are plenty of possible moves (running attacks, nut shots, beatdowns)
You can now hijack a car by running and jumping through the windshield/window
It features a lot of risque humor and moments that other games in the genre wouldn't touch
Three story based DLCs that extend the game and are generally really fun (if a bit short)

Cons:
Less possible clothing customization
The humor can probably be seen as just stupid if you're not into it
Little focus on being a "gangsta" game, which was a major theme in the first two games
The city is rather boring and there isn't much of a reason to explore in hopes of finding a secret store or area
There isn't a day/night cycle, it only switches for and after missions
A great moment is ruined by Kayne West's Power acting as a theme for the moment (can be a pro if you like his music)
Shaundi is still annoying



Both are really great in my opinion, I would say that The Third is probably easier to jump into as it feels like a fresh new start of the series rather than just a sequel.

Saints Row The Third is one of my favourites. Insanely fun and almost over generous in what it gives you to play with.

Saints Row 2 though was a shitty port. Does anyone have any experience with the GOG version? Does the DRM-free version run any better? Sometimes DRM can make a big difference in terms of performance.

Too bad i bought it few months ago on steam sale lol :P

... by mimicking Prototype instead. :D

But I was quite impressed by it, too, before I got to play the latter. And I still think SR4 is great, even though it's not quite as original as I thought.

Saint's Row was the most consistant game in the series. The story was just quirky enough to go with the gameplay, but still felt important and worth working towards to see where the story was leading.

Saint's Row 2 has more varied and more "fun" gameplay, but it clashed badly with the much darker story. Your character is nothing like the character from the first game despite supposedly the same person. Some of the story aspects are straight up gross and decidedly unpleasant, which is the polar opposite to the gameplay which is almost fraternity prank silly.

Saint's Row 3 Openly admits the first two has problems. This is the game itself. It has frequent and funny references to the problems of the two previous games. While it does continue the story of "the Stillwater Saints" it does its best to distance itself from the prior two games. It does everything but spell out this game is a fresh start for the series. This time they concentrate on having both fun gameplay and a fun story. You are a badass Street hood and you revel in it.

Saint's Row 4 is a huge expansion pack for Saint's Row 3. How do they top it? Superpowers, of course. Because Aliens. All pretense of anything realistic is not just dismissed in this game, iit is straight up executed. Everything in this game is so far over the top and absurdly fun it bears no resemblance to the firsttwo games at all. I mean, the male voice options when building your character are "male 1". "Male 2", Male 3" and.. "Nolan North". One of the characters in the game is Keith David. Yes, the Keith David. The famous Voice Actor. Who also Supplies the voice for himself and other characters. This is how stupidly self aware this game becomes. This game exist only to make fun of you, itself, and pretty much anything else it can find any excuse to shove in there somewhere. It is without question one of the most entertaining experiences I have ever had.

I did. A lot more than SRTT in fact, even though the PC port was so bad. There was a lot more content and character. It felt like a great holiday. I'll wait and see if we can get it translated into spanish (text only, and not like I need it... but the version I have on Steam has that) and see what people have to say of the built in fix it supposedly has. I'd be happy to buy it again if it did those two things.

Just when I said no more GOG purchases for a bit, you release this... only thing that would make this better is adding the Galaxy API. GOG should clearly label with a nice medium size banner or something if it's a Galaxy powered game, because I know some people thought they were. >.>

Wonder how long until SR4 and Gat out of Hell show up. SR4 was just so much fun to play but I haven't tried Gat out of Hell since I had enough of Steam by the time it came out.

Can you elaborate on that without any spoilers?

My reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQCP85FngzE

On a related note, for Saints Row 4, I was DEEPLY disappointed in the lack of "John Carpenter's The Thing" references for a game with so many other 80's references, and the presence of Keith David.

No. Not really. They are massive spoilers. I do not recommend Saint's Row 2 to anyone who cares about consistency in games. This is not a character you can like. The messed up things they do are not "am a cool anti-hero" badass. They are just straight up wrong. This is all according to the story. Which flies straight in the face of the gameplay. The gameplay is the most varied in the whole series, and almost all of it will have you at least smiling, if not chuckling or out-right guffawing. This story, and this character. The things they do, and as a result cause to happen within the story, have absolutely no place in a game with this sort of gameplay focus.

It is unquestionably the most unbalanced separation between story and gameplay I have ever seen. I can NOT recommend the game to anyone. If you like playing an asshole with no redeeming qualities, there are far better examples out there (Hatred looks a prime candidate). If you like playing stupidly fun games, stick with SR3 and/or 4.

SR3 was great, if some1 still don't own it it's great occasion to get it.

Saints Row 2 is an interesting release. If GOG somehow managed to fix it up, then all the praise in the world. But it's horribly, horribly broken in just about every single way elsewhere. It's pretty much unplayable if you bought it from Steam or another source.

I have to admit that doesn't sound very promising. From memory, I turned settings down to the lowest and it looked rubbish like a game from 2001, yet it still lagged. Think my system requirements are better than the recommended. I was able to play SR3 on lowest settings with no lag and it looked a lot better than 2 with the settings turned up.

Does navigating the menus still require to use weird keys like Crrl or Shift or Page Up?