This is what happens when a popular franchise tries WAY too hard to be edgy

User Rating: 7.5 | Saints Row: The Third PC
By Deltaforce2665 | Review Date:
I would like to start this review by saying that Saint's Row is one of my favourite series and have always gotten the games the day they were released. SRTT is no exception although it wasn't what I was expecting... or wanted. SRTT is obviously the third game in the Saint's Row trilogy (so far a trilogy) and takes place right after SR2. The Saint's are on top of their game and nothing can stop them... and that's about where they stay. You start in a new city with the idea to take it over for the Saint's. The problem with this is that it's missing something the other games had... pacing. In SR and SR2 you started off with nothing and had some low grade weaponry and you made your way up the ladder getting more guns and more control over the city, so pretty much start off in the slums then work up into that really cool penthouse. In SRTT you get that penthouse, all the guns and a seemingly infinite supply of helicopters at your disposal in the first few missions of that game. Subtlety is not in this game's vocabulary obviously.

One thing that the game had as a selling point was the ridiculousness of it and how you can "do anything you want". Who knew that this would be a detriment to the game? Well here's how and why it is. The fact that the ridiculousness being based off of everything you do thus making the ridiculous parts seem less special. In SR2 while kinda silly was still grounded in reality and it seemed like you were trying to be the straight man in a city full of crazy people. The silliness in SRTT is ramped to the max making the parts that are ridiculous mundane and samey. This game is really quite a disappointment and overall the game (while fun) isn't the best Saint's Row. Worst thing about it is that the previous game's setup where you had 3 gangs to take down and 3 mission sets is gone now in favour of a linear structure which ends up making the 3 gangs feel like 1.

It also doesn't help that the activities in this game aren't as fun as the ones in SR2. Where SR2 had sewage avenger, Fight club, crowd control and the police impostor activities (some of my favourites) they are removed from SRTT. Instead they are replaced with boring ones like tank mayhem (which while sounds fun, again if it is a mini-game instead of something you just do because you have a tank it loses its special-ness) Guardian angel (a glorified escort mission) and the only new good one Prof. Genky's Super ethical reality climax. These new one's aren't as good, if they had these but didn't remove the ones from SR2 I wouldn't mind but they did remove the SR2 ones.

Finally it is also the shortest of all the SR games only clocking in (if you rush through the story) about 15 hours. You couldn't rush them in SR1&2 due to some of the side activities being required to get respect. Oh and one new feature which is alright if not incredibly unbalanced, is the new level up system where you spend money to get upgrades like damage resistances, faster reload and notoriety dampeners. The reason why these are unbalanced is because later on you can take no damage, infinite ammo and instant reload... the game becomes really boring then cause there is NO challenge.

SRTT is still a good game don't get me wrong but I don't have the desire to go back to Steelport as I did with Stillwater in SR1&2. When I got 100% in both SR1&2 and I don't even bother with 100% in SRTT something is wrong. In fact just writing this review I have the urge to go play SR2 again. In my opinion I saw to go buy SR2 if you haven't yet then wait for SRTT to drop in price to 20-30$.

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