Activities & Diversions
Activities & Diversions
To earn respect for storyline missions, you need to do activities. You get cash rewards for them, as well as perks if you clear a high enough level.
For our purposes, there are three types of these mini-games. Standard activities are the main respect gainers, and should be what you concentrate on if you're trying to blitz through the game. Collection activities are activities with multiple parts, those that gain a lot of respect and cash but you have to really work on them. Finally, the diversions don't earn you any direct respect, but are quick-hit games for cash.
Each standard activity has six levels. Clearing level 3 and level 6 at each activity location earns you a special reward. For example, in Fight Club, clearing level 3 will gain you a 15% damage boost on your melee attacks, and clearing level 6 will get you 30% damage boost.
Also note that you can stop an activity any time, and come back to it on the same level. For example, if you clear levels 1 through 5 for an Escort and want to take a break, you can come back later and be right at level 6. If you ever need an immediate break from an activity, just press down on the D-pad twice.
We'll make a note at each activity telling you what type it is, as well as strategies to beating them and their rewards for doing so. Note that you can do any activity as many times as you want. Clearing it the first time nets you respect, but you can do it as many times as you want for cash. When cleared, the icon for the activity turns gray on the radar, giving you a chance to see which ones you need to do.
Ambulance EMT
Grab an ambulance and activate this diversion to try saving lives rather than taking them. Ten levels are available here, and you'll get a nice health reward for winning. If you get the itch to do this one and there's no ambulance in sight, just dial 911 on your phone, and one should arrive shortly.
Chop Shop
Chop Shop is a collection activity that tasks you to get certain models of cars. From the pause menu, you can bring up a list of cars not yet collected, and put one model in focus. This puts a little window in the top-left corner of the screen that gives you a picture of the car and its location.
Placing a vehicle in focus also> gives your radar a new perk. If you are near a vehicle that is in focus, it will appear on the radar as a little yellow taxi cab-looking icon. Just head over to it, jack it, and you're good to go. The icon does not appear if there are no vehicles in focus, even if the vehicle is otherwise on your list; the radar might get a little cluttered otherwise.
Once you hop into any car that is on a list, regardless of whether it's in focus, the game will draw a GPS line to the appropriate chop shop. You can ignore this of course if you have something more pressing to do, but it's usually best to just get it out of the way when you see it.
Note that you can use a car you already possess to fulfill a chop shop request, but if you turn it in, there is no way to retrieve it. You may want to stash a car you don't have time to deliver, but don't cash in a car you've customized "just so" because you'll never see it again.
Crowd Control
You take the role of a bodyguard trying to keep a celebrity safe from harm by crazy fans before he gets annoyed. Your job is to earn a target amount of money by eliminating the fans in creative ways. Beating them up is okay, but the real money is grabbing a guy and throwing him into the environment. It's easy to find the various hotspots in a given setting, but the trick is trying to deal with the dozens of fans that strike toward the later levels.
This one is easy to understand and hard to master. The only tip we can really provide is that a quick grab-and-throw is a good way to keep a mass of people under control. Then, when most are trying to get back to their feet, pull one fan off your celebrity and chuck him into a hotspot. The fewer you have to deal at once, in other words, the better.
Demolition Derby
Demolition Derby puts you in an arena, and you're tasked to cause a certain amount of damage to other cars before exploding yourself. You can upgrade your stock car with Derby Points earned in the process.
There's no real strategy to this one, other than to just drive well. You cause more damage by traveling at a fast speed (helped out by activating your nitro by clicking the left stick) and slamming into other cars: can't get simpler than that.
Clearing it will earn you a discount at all mechanic shops. This discount can stack with you owning one, so you can save a lot of money this way.
Drug Trafficking
Drug Trafficking turns Saints Row 2 into a rail shooter, not that that's a bad thing. You'll be driven around in a van as a dealer pushes his product on customers. Meanwhile, you'll be contending with the cops and other gangs, who are trying to stop the deal from going down. Stick your head out of the window and do what you do best: splatter some brain matter all over Stilwater.
Escort
Escort missions are driving missions that are basically like tag on wheels. Using a predetermined car, you go pick up a john and a hooker for him. Then, you drive around like a maniac trying to avoid the paparazzi as they take pictures.
Two meters are up in the top-left corner during these missions: one is a pleasure meter, one is a footage meter. The pleasure meter usually constantly goes up as you're driving, though sometimes the john will request to go to a certain area of the city. If he does so, the pleasure meter will completely stop until you get there meaning you'll have to hurry to that spot.
The footage meter is more direct: it goes up if you're within the radius of a news vehicle; the radius is displayed on the radar when a vehicle is close by. If you are within multiple radii, the meter does not seem to go up any faster. Still, whether in one radius or ten, you'll want to get out as quickly as possible.
Your goal, as you may infer, is to have the pleasure meter top off before the footage meter does. If it does, you can move on to the next level once you drop off the john. Don't worry about being caught here: once the john has had his fun, the news vans lose interest.
Speed is not necessarily your friend here. Fast driving will help keep you out of the radii of the vans, but you'll need to take multiple sharp turns and drive through alleys as well to get them away from you. You can also blow the vans with SMG rounds, but the vans constantly respawn, so it's not the most reliable method. Use smart driving techniques, and you should be okay.
Clearing these missions will make wanted levels against gangs drop faster, giving you a bit of a break especially for their upper missions.