With two weeks until Saints Row 2 hits store shelves, Volition and THQ held a fabulous press event last week to show off two rarely seen aspects of one of this holiday season’s hottest games: the game’s co-op campaign and online multiplayer. While all the basics that we touched upon two weeks ago still hold true, these two innovative gameplay modes make an already overflowing game absolutely burst at the seams with multiplayer goodness.

When most games talk multiplayer, they’re talking about the usual deathmatch, online competition, and maybe a bit of single-player tagalong. As we learned at the press event, Saints Row 2 is different. Featuring full drop-in, drop-out co-op multiplayer that allows you to pick up and play the game alongside your buddy at any time, along with a chaotic online game with a series of objectives similar to the campaign, it brings the concept of a multiplayer adventure to a whole new level.

My time with the co-op campaign began with a system-linked PS3 and a stranger. After waking up in a jail ward as a balding, large man in a thong, I thought it best to keep my food down and made a generic character akin to a UPS truck driver. Once we decided on our characters, my partner and I dutifully killed everyone in sight in order to make it back to the outside world.

The first thing I noticed when comparing campaigns was that the enemy count seemed slightly raised in co-op multiplayer, so that the experience wasn’t a total cakewalk as some coin-op co-ops are wont to be. We were both able to find enough ammo and objects to keep the party going, and cut scenes were skippable if we both agreed to hop ahead. The game progressed exactly the same as in the single player game, only we were both able to join in on the mayhem exactly as advertised.

Even though my time with the co-op campaign was limited, I could instantly see its potential. I loaded a few different characters present on the memory card, which were at different points in the story, and could take on new challenges and explore new areas. It seems like such a simple concept, but allowing you to play the game with friends over the Internet really opens up new doors for the both the single player and co-op experience.