An ironic and ultimately compromised sequel.
Unlike most games, where you essentially start from the bottom of the barrel and work your way to the top, Saints Row: The Third begins with your gang, The Saints, already being a renowned establishment in the city of Steelport. For the first mission, you and a few other characters take part in a bank robbery that, naturally, gets more hectic than intended. After this, introductions are made to three other gangs in Steelport (just like the last two installments): the Deckers, Luchadores and Morning Star. Your goal throughout the game is to essentially take down these "rival gangs," if you will, and increase your lucrative status.
While there are three gangs to take on in Steelport, their plotlines are woven together a bit so that they don't feel quite as separate. Still, the game mostly unfolds in a linear fashion with the long-term outcomes usually being negligible. Even with a better relationship between the three gangs, Saints Row: The Third actually lacks much of the strive the previous two games had to keep players pushing through. And while the various story arcs are somewhat linked together, it leaves the game feeling less cohesive as a whole.
One of the ironic problems with Saints Row: The Third is that it seems to be satirizing what your character admits to calling "corporate whores," yet this is something both the game and Volition themselves are exhibiting. Between the day-one DLC, charging for content as trivial as a costume and vehicle, the popular Season Pass and other various downloadable features that should've been included on-disc, it seems strange that Volition wouldn't think people would pick up on this.
Gameplay-wise, this is mostly the same Saints Row that fans have become familiar with. The combat is mostly weapon-based with occasional attempts at melee/hand-to-hand attacks. In fact, a number of gameplay variants are tackled, but oftentimes for just one point. For instance, one mission essentially has you take the form of a videogame boss in a Tron-inspired setting. Some of these breaks in the usual mold are interesting inclusions, but the sporadic use makes them feel insignificant which leads to frequent detractions from the overall experience.
Curiously, while the game offers a wide variety of ways to play in small doses, the vast majority of your time will be spent driving from location to location and taking on hordes of enemies. The opponent NPC's seem to spawn almost endlessly in certain scenarios, leading to a sort of "shoot a few and run to the checkpoint" moments. This would be easier to look past if some enemies weren't essentially bullet sponges. Even with the incorporation of character, gang and vehicle upgrades (ranging from faster reloads, increased health and stamina, having more "homies" follow you, etc.), most of the missions in the game can feel like a grinding chore. Because of this prevalence, Saints Row: The Third actually lacks a key part of what made its predecessor(s) so enjoyable in their sheer entertainment value.
In addition, side activities are drastically cut back. While there are still certain side missions like insurance fraud, destruction/mayhem and--for whatever reason--the annoying escort missions, they're all in short supply. Even the first two Saints Row installments didn't have a lot to offer in regards to secondary missions, so it's odd that we have less content to access here. Additionally, certain side mission types are incorporated into your required missions, so you'll get a taste of each about once or twice. Unlike the first two games, where you had the option of which side missions you'd tackle to earn more respect (thereby granting you access to new ones in the story), here everything is far more streamlined.
As a result of this linear approach, the game winds up feeling a bit shorter than other releases. In total, the main story takes up about 60-70 percent of the game's activities, which takes about 10 hours to beat. While this is longer than what most games offer nowadays, it's pretty short for an open-world title. Combine this with hardly any incentive to attempt side missions, another relatively small city to explore, and a reduction of interactivity with the open world, and we have a game that's better suited for a lengthy rental.
Even the presentation seems to be more of the same with slight improvements, at best. Visually, Saints Row: The Third doesn't do much to impress other than running fairly smooth during the hectic moments. Detail is almost painfully low-res and, like its predecessors, does nothing to convince us that it was built with HD in mind. Once again, performance hiccups are in plentiful supply here, with respawn glitches being a primary culprit, more than anything. Overall, however, the game seems to handle chaotic action relatively well for a series known for not being terribly polished. The soundtrack selection is solid and varied overall, holding up better than the visual presentation. While it's a bit odd that we get classical music like Bach in a game where one of your melee weapons is a giant, purple sex toy, it's still nice to get something different and less commercial. Voice acting is hit or miss here, with most of the key characters delivering their lines with enough seriousness, sarcasm or easygoing nature to feel honest and, during certain points, varied. Of course, having to do awful, gimp-rescuing missions (yes, you read that right) for someone who speaks every word in an agonizing, annoying autotune voice isn't exactly pleasing to the ears.
Until this point, the Saints Row franchise established itself as a venerable divergence from what GTA has moved towards. And though this recent installment brings some humorous and overzealous ideas to the table, the themes come off as overdone while the game's actual substance is surprisingly thin. The series seems to have exhausted itself with too many ideas and not enough proper delivery or execution. There's still fun to be had, just don't expect it (or your gaming sessions) to last very long.