As you destroy your gang competition you're rewarded with cash and neighborhoods which in turn, generate more cash for you on a daily basis. You also get access to new gang vehicles, custom cars in your garage, special weapons and the ability to take on the melee fighting style, taunts and congratulatory gestures of your defeated foes. As you progress through the main story your main crib, a dingy old church, will steadily turn into an upscale club/gang hideout called Purgatory. It's a nice touch, and one that makes you feel like the town of Stilwater is slowly becoming all yours.

To wreak all of this havoc you have a wide variety of weapons available. As you smoke fools, you can swap weapons with whatever is lying around, however the old weapon is always available at your crib's weapon stash should you make a poor firearm decision. Similarly, any car stolen can be driven to your crib and stored in the garage as well as customized to your liking. Combat is fast paced with extra respect points going towards head and groin shots. New to the game is the ability to take people as human shields and then chuck them once you're done with them earning you even more respect. Cars all handle differently based on the type of car you're driving; however it all has a uniformly floaty feel to it, as if the cars don't have a lot of weight to them. It takes some getting used to but once you do, it's easy enough to powerslide your way around every corner.

On the other side of the story missions are all of the activities, of which there are many. Performing activities nets you cash, but more importantly, it gets you respect and unlockables. Respect is the fuel that keeps your engine of destruction running in that you can't take on story missions unless you have enough respect. Luckily with all of the aforementioned diversions, and the fact that many story missions involve killing gang members, which grants you respect, the need to take time away from the narrative to do activities is minimal.

That being said, you will absolutely want to do the various activities for two reasons. One, they are fun as hell and two, you get some pretty cool stuff for your efforts. Take for example, the Fuzz activity. In this activity, you dress up as a police officer and then break up various crimes with a cameraman from the TV show "Fuzz" in tow. The goal is to get as much footage as possible within the time limit. Oh sure, beating down a protestor with your baton makes for some good footage, but using the chainsaw provided by the cameraman nets you even more footage. Do this for three levels and you get the Cobra, one of the best pistols in the game. Do it for six levels and you get unlimited pistol ammo.

This is but one example of the sense of humor found in the activities and the benefits bestowed. In Septic Avenger you drive a sewage truck around, spraying human waste on buildings and people to net a certain dollar amount in property damage. In Heli Assault you pilot an attack chopper to keep enemies off of a gang member delivering drugs. In Snatch you're stealing prostitutes from rival pimps. This is still just a small sample of the activities in store to say nothing for all of the races to run, the cars to steal, the hitman targets to eliminate and the buildings to tag with the Saints' gang logo. All of these activities give respect and cash as well as bonuses such as unlimited ammo, unlimited sprint, clothing discounts, more melee damage, less damage from bullets, faster health regeneration and so on. The best part is that all activities are unlocked from the minute you break out of jail; you just have to use the map to set a waypoint and head over to it. Speaking of the map, did I mention that taking shortcuts and fully exploring neighborhoods not only gives a small respect boost but also lets your GPS calculate shortcuts and more direct routes? No? Well it does, and it’s very slick.

If all that there is to do in the single player mode seems daunting, don't worry as the game supports full drop-in and drop-out cooperative play. For the purpose of this review, approximately 85% of the single player game was played over co-op, with the rest done in single player, and not only does it work beautifully, but it is incredibly fun. All of the mission and activity progress, including bestowed abilities, cash and respect come with you when you exit your partner's session meaning that you never have to forego progress to play with another person. The missions scale upwards in terms of enemy count and enemy AI to account for having a partner and the activities are slightly different with two people but nothing is lost by having another person with you, and in many cases, things are easier. If you'd rather your partner be a target instead of a helping hand, simply drop into one of the two co-op diversions and blast the crap out of each other until you tire of it and drop back into the main game.