Looks very, very pretty. Hopefully not at the expense of framerate. Although the edges are so beautifully smooth (they look like they've had 100 AA passes!) that I'm very suspicious.

Pre-release shots are almost always touched up. This shouldn't even need pointing out.

wel maybe they are from movie segments of the game??

Crikey - the shotguns used by the Ultor Corpooration (see the Red Faction theme?) are so darn hexagonal!

why does saints row look so plasticy? is it the sayle they go for or can they not create characters that dont look like cheap action figures?

WHy the hell is Johnny in one of the pics?

ULTOR??? Damn - it's the Red Faction's Row!

Pretty much agree! They look like barbies... maybe it has some "life" in motion

Graphics are easily the worst part of the game, but at least there's a LOT of customisation :)

in the 4th pic the cigarette does looks like a hash cigarette

I just hope the character you play has a least one line to say.

Your character had at least three in the original :)

But if you watch the recent trailer you see him speak, he/she is fully voice acted this time.

Woah, women are hotter in Saints Row than in GTA.

By the way, the girl reminds me of Aida from Unreal 2

yeah because GTA doesn't go out of its way to make all the characters look like supermodel players.

GTA is less of the "gangsta fantasy" and more "this is what you really get"

I assume you're only speaking about GTA4, correct?

How? It's got a factory-applied brown filter. It just looks like a completely standard cigarette.

Johnny being in one of the pics doesnt bother anyone else?

I wish some gamers would bother to read at least one of the hundreds of previews and interviews for a game before commenting. A lot of questions, confusion and misconceptions could easily be answered before the question ever comes up, by something so simple as read at least one halfway decent preview.

As to your question, this time out, the main characters, is a fully fleshed out character with his own story to tell and a tons of voice acted dialog to tell that story. Got that bit of info months ago in the very first preview published on Saints Row 2.It's the chosen art style for the entire series. The publishers touched on this in the first game. They wanted not just an art style, but the style of the whole game would reflect more over the top, hyper realistic, technicolor lifestyle. So all the characters are bigger than life, all the hookers/strippers are hot, have big asses and no STDs, and all the character models are of the Barbie & Ken, Abercrombie & Fitch variety. And if the first game as well as any of the trailers for SR2 are anything to go by, it does look very good in motion.Why should Johnny Gat being in any of the screens be any problem at all? From the very first SR2 teaser trailer that came out months ago, it was mentioned that Johnny Gat would be a central part of this game - in the teaser, he was being sentenced to death row on multiple homicide charges. From the very beginning, it became clear to anyone who played the first game and saw the teaser, that springing Johnny Gat from prison would be top priority somewhere in SR2. And sure enough in the most recent trailer, they come right out and show that you get to spring Gat - no surprises there, and no doubt why you see Johnny in several of the screen grabs, because he is in the game - and from the looks of things, you get to spring him pretty early in the game.

But Johnny Gat is not the only returning character in SR2. You still have to get your revenge against Julius for trying to kill you - but I suspect you will be teaming up with him despite the fact the main character has no love for him any longer. Aisha, Johnny Gat's girlfriend makes a return to SR2. As well as that undercover snitch Troy makes a return as well, now having been promoted to the chief of police in the years the main character has been in a coma.

A lot characters from SR1 are making an appearance in SR2, so seeing any of them in screen shots should not come in the least bit a surprise to anyone.

Mehh, still don't know if I'll buy this one. The first game just seemed to "flat" to me, never really got into it and I was relieved when I finished it. And yeah, pretty much a big "WTF?" seeing Johnny again. Cerntainly not a surprise anymore...

wait can someone clear this up for me? what exactly happen to johnny that makes everyone surprised to see him?

*SPOILER AHEAD*

is it because he was a cop and he is back in a gang? or was it someone else who was the cop? i don't know i only completed the game once and that was a year ago so i'm kinda unsure what is happening

Troy was implied to be the undercover cop, and that's confirmed in the second game. Johnny did nothing that would prevent him from being in this one, besides seemingly sit by while Juilias had you killed.

Like was pointed out, after the first game, Johnny is apparantly arrested and sentenced to death, one of the first missions involves rescuing him.