Fun as Saints Row 2 is with its balls-to-the-wall mission design (and comparatively more forgiving than its predecessor), some missions will definitely frustrate you quite a bit. Especially those involving helicopters.
The Brotherhood
- "Reunion Tour", at least on the PC version simply for being absurdly broken. You have to escort Donnie to different trucks and stand next to him so that he will be intimidated in to planting bombs on them. The problem is, Donnie's AI breaks CONSTANTLY and there is no way to fix it without killing him. Unfortunately, his death fails the mission unless you have a mod that allows you to revive him like an ally, and he tends to get himself killed a lot anyway. Made worse by the fact that the whole reason you're doing this (to blow up Brotherhood cars) could all be done yourself. This is all made even more stupid because you end up having to destroy the hundreds of Brotherhood trucks that try to interfere with Donnie blowing up only a handful.
- "Bank Error In Your Favor". You have to take Jessica hostage and deactivate the bank alarm, while shooting security guards and SWAT strike teams and making sure they don't get on your back. Then you have to drive her to Stilwater University's stadium about 15 blocks away as the cops chase you. Its easy for Jessica to get killed by cops or gang members in the crossfire or for the car to get totaled, which restarts the mission at the bank door. There's also a rare assassination target that has a habit of showing up during the chase, and stopping the car to take him down will get it totaled.
- Thankfully, a later patch made the mission much more bearable. Once inside the bank and holding your target hostage, security guards, cops, and even SWAT won't fire at you even if you open fire. Killing the guards/cops inside the bank makes sure you won't have to worry about them when you're in the parking lot. And driving away from the bank to your destination isn't that hard, either. You're given a reasonably fast car, there are only a handful of SWAT blockades along the way, and except for the first quarter or so of the journey, you're driving on a practically straight four-lane road where it's easy to bypass said blockades and having enough room to not worry about the traffic. And the whole mission, including the two cutscenes at the start and end, including getting to the bank (assuming you're driving there and not walking) takes just a little over five minutes (played on normal difficulty).
The Ronin
- Any mission in the Ronin storyline that requires sword fighting a boss. Mostly because it's tricky to determine the exact move and timing to actually attack the enemy and not get thrown to the ground, and attacking often ends badly for you. Made egregious by the fact you have all of your weapons but are not allowed to use them, and no reason is ever given. It's not like the boss believes in playing fair.
- "One Man's Junk..." You are forced to fight the timer for the entire mission to get to a junk at the marina where a swordfight is occurring. Despite the fact you can drive over there quickly enough from where you start, you are forced to go to a nearby dock and drive a jetski over there, which cues the respawning attack helicopter with depth charges to murder your ass. Once you get to shore you have to run through a maze of ronin and flaming boats to reach the boss fight(again on a time limit), and if you fall off the boats, you might as well restart from the checkpoint because there's no way to easily get back on the boats. Finally, once you get to the fight, your friend is defeated anyway and you HAVE to sword fight the boss, despite still having all your weapons. This is made worse by the fact the sword fighting in SR2 is very unforgiving and relies on precise timing.
Sons of Samedi
- "Assault on Precinct 31". Between the ridiculously uncooperative helicopter controls and the police copters spamming homing rockets, have fun.
- This level has since been patched so you don't have to take the chopper and can leave via the front door. From there, you can steal an FBI van (or, better yet, a Bear) from the first wave of cops that come after you and drive (very, very quickly, if you couldn't get a Bear) to the nearest Forgive and Forget. If you can make it there without being blown up, you could walk the rest of the way to the mission marker and not have to worry.
Ultor/Epilogue & DLC
- "Salting the Earth...Again" from the Ultor side. You have to drive a car to a dock to pick up a boat to drive it to a yacht. Not too difficult? Once you get in the boat (which is a little speedboat), Ultor sends an attack helicopter with homing missiles after you. There's no way to make it through there and you just have to get lucky and hope his missiles miss, which is very unlikely. Sometimes, the copter will send the missiles early to taunt you. Worse when you die anywhere in the mission, it sends you back to the Saints Hideout, meaning you have to start EVERYTHING again.
- Though it gets easier if you go on land again after manning the boat and shoot down the helicopter, before racing to the yacht. You'll still need some good steering and luck if another helicopter arrives on the seen.
- The final mission, "...And a Better Life." Specifically, the part where you have to get in an attack helicopter and blast four targets you can barely see on the side of a building while avoiding getting blown out a sky by the other attack helicopters, which have guided missiles that can take out your helicopter in two hits (and which you also can't see). And naturally, as a nice kick in the gut, dying at any point during this segment of the mission will send your right back to the beginning of said segment.
- From the Corporate Warfare DLC, there's "Corporate Meltdown," specifically the second half. You need to protect 3 trucks in a row by using an attack chopper. It is basically the same as Heli Assault (see below), but Heli Assault at least has the benefit of being optional. The helicopter has horrible controls, and can easily get stuck on the environment. While it looks like the trucks have a large health bar, all the enemies use rockets that eat through the trucks like starved lions. The enemy vans won't spawn until the truck gets close enough, and you can't stray too far away from the trucks either, so don't think you can take out the threats before the trucks are vulnerable. Sometimes the trucks will suddenly take huge chunks of damage, often enough to destroy them, even if there are no more enemies. Lastly, while there is a checkpoint after the first truck reaches its destination, failing to protect the third truck will send you back to the second.
- Return to the main YMMV page here.
