This Ho Be A Pimpin' Review
-Using the Apoca-fists to bash buildings, sending them hurtling into the space or crashing into the ground, or even crack up a street and let the broken gravel, some electricity, and demons from hell whack all peds unlucky enough to be standing nearby while a mushroom cloud grows in the middle of the street
-Play as a superhero- the world's horniest superhero, or superheroine- and use your mighty superpowers to pwn everything in sight- the horny way
-Crashing and compacting 100 cars into each other until you created your own mech, which you could take for a sadistic stroll around town
-Blow up your boobs, pecs, or butt until it was pretty much your body, which you could use to crush and suffocate your victims
-Fly around in a UFO, pwning all aircraft and feeble police and gang vehicles
-Shoot an 80-barrel gun at 100,000 rounds per minute.
-Fart an atomic explosion or at least a firestorm that ignites the street
-Dress up like Osama Bin Laden and go fly some planes into a skyscraper, skydiving out at the last second
-Dress up like a goth and go crazy with a flamethrower and molotov and a chainsaw
Now I knew this game couldn't possibly satisfy all those dark, creepy desires, but just how few it actually did, I find discouraging. It begins with the fact that an enemy's aim is dead on, even up to 2 miles away, and goes on with the fact that a rain cheat makes it rain it pure sunshine for no reason save the rushed nature of the game. Where I'm going with this is that, maybe I had expectations set too high, but Saints Row the Third isn't as fun as some people claim it is. It isn't very spontaneous, and the sexual humor is grating after 20-30 odd levels with no story development. Don't get me wrong- the graphics and gameplay are great, top notch even. But, like this whole gamer generation, sex, gangstas, and graphics seem to be all this game is about. The "fun" element doesn't even really start until you're sneaking around on a STAG ship later in the game (after a sex change) or if you're battling zombies in the suburbs (or by way of cheat codes), at which point the game finally begins to really pick up and make a name for itself. Too bad that, when you're on the STAG ship, it means you're nearly finished with the campaign... Although there's no way to redo any of the main missions outside of saving after each one, there are still a boatload of ridiculous side missions to do. Like Insurance Fraud, my personal favorite. The last time I had so much fun playing with ragdoll physics was back in 2005 when I first popped DESTROY ALL HUMANS! in my Xbox.
It's not exactly the over-the-top antics reviewers keep harping it is, although there's some craziness to be had at times. It's a much better-than-decent sandbox game that you should be abe to get about 35-40 hours of gameplay out of until you realize San Andreas might be better than this. At least you could stab somebody in and tea-bag them. A lot of elements of SR:3rd are lacking in other ways. I'm not boobs up about size of the map- I'd rather big and detailed over massive and bland. San Andreas was massive, but kinda bland. Good for its day, mind you. Panau from Just Cause 2 was really massive, but also kind of bland. Good to look at from afar and send to your grandparents and laugh as they think it's a real photo- but really bland at the ends, full of repetitious copy-and-paste environments at the smaller level.
Saints Row the Third is big and very detailed. Very detailed. Listen to the right downer-outer urban instrumental hip hop/street nu-jazz, and you can really feel the attitude in the streets. The city has character, at the very least. But an underwhelming choice of weapons- which maybe one sixth of them are really outstanding- and clothing apparel- one of the big things I thought was going to be wacky, but turned out to be extremely lackluster save one or two stores- can leave you wanting more until realizing.... there IS no more.
I appreciated the emo-ish themes of the game (most evident in the cybergoth gang the Deckers (whom, especially thanks to their specialist, look like they'd fit right in Jet Set Radio Future), "Nobody Loves Me", and the chat speak) and the gangsta culture theme as well. (No hope for '70s stoner/rocker culture, though... RIP, Led Zep. ...What... the hell... am I talking about...) But that's the beginning of 'it.' The theme, the detail, the quality of the game mechanics itsef, and just a few other things are really the best aspects. For the most part, it seemed like the developers knew exactly what they were doing, but still decided to stop short just to get people to be hyped about the next game, like what Apple does with the iPhone.
The cheats for the game, as well as other quirks, also didn't help too much. They were lacking every which way. The funnest were all grouped under "World", and even then, it really could have been fleshed out to a greater degree. Maybe ultra-fast sprinting? Super high jumping? Super speed? Everyone farts every two seconds? Everybody was KUNG-FU-FIGH-TIIING.... Everyone's turned into ****? Everyone's a gimp? Everyone and everything's on fire? Snow's coming down and sadistic snowmen are killing people? Rocks are raining from the sky? Bullets, grenades, rockets are raining from the sky? Call in the aliens? And like I said, the "Weather" cheats are just an inch past functional. It rains, but that's about it. No clouds necessary. Cool, the first two times it happens. Boring, the next 20 times. Irking, all the following times. As aforementioned, the clothing options also feel starkly limited. If anything, especially for this game as it had been advertised, "Let's Pretend", one of maybe 2 (OK, actually four) stores in the game, should have had the widest range of options, rather than the most pathetic, followed by "Leather and Lace." Really, I see a promo on TV and nod my head. I buy the game and almost immediately find and go into "Let's Pretend" and am giddy about how wacky the store looks. Then I have my character go into the menu for buying clothes and start looking around- cue exasperated gasp, there's barely anything here!! What a freakin' rip! I didn't have preferences, but it which direction the game was going at when it came to attire is one I'm still scratching my head to. For a zany, over the top, gangsta/emo/hipster game, I feel more like I was dressing up for a late '90s post-grunger or to go on a dinner date on Saturday with my fiancee. The only saving throw is the fact that you can customize individual pieces of clothing down to some individual colors, but let's face it- we've been able to do that for nearly a decade now. The fact there's only three theme stores, sometimes featuring overlapping styles, while "Planet Saints" dominates everywhere else, is what kept the whole range so limited. It's not the variety of stores, really. It's just that there are somewhere around ten Planet Saints, so the most I'd have to ask is "at least have different clothes at different stores?" Maybe a few accessories? It just feels weird that they'd advertise the game as having such awesome threads, then give you 90% Gap/traces of Hot Topic apparel.
I feel that the game royally screwed a potentially great freerunning mechanic. I saw traces of it getting in there, but it sorely lacked. Freerunning is one the coolest things to do, and is a major trend in games today.
The overall theme in the background is interesting, but wasted. It's a down-and-out, pleasure obsessed American city that has fallen on hard industrial times and, thus, must turn to sex, drugs, and rap n' roll to keep it alive. A nice premise. Definitely a better attribute of the game, although at no point is this theme (save the sex, the drugs, and the rap n' roll) actually used as part of the game's pointlessly rushed story. For most of the campaign, you just do random sex related stuff (it always tries to find a way to push "Ho" or "Whore" into the mission title, so that actually was a bit of an uplifter) that's basically- whack somebody, fend off against some gangbangers or police, and/or piss people off. I just saved you 10 to 15 hours of gameplay. Really, for a good 75% of the campaign, that's all you do is obscene side-quests-relagated-to-main-quests. I might as well have just played Grand Theft Auto, right? It would've been a wee bit different if SR3rd had wackier, more ridiculous gameplay. There's one where you get a tiger in your car. Awesome right? Well that's the most awesome it gets until the game picks up over halfway to the end. Let's see a 40 story tall tiger, or being chased by some psychopathic beach ball. A car race where you race backwards the whole time?? Back to the Future cars, maybe? Zany possibilities left closed.
I also ran into problems with how rushed it was in presentation of gameplay. As a whole, it looks like it's extremely well polished, but when you really take a closer look, you see mishaps everywhere. In one case, enemies have just about average accuracy at close ranges. Go past about 500 feet, and their bullets always seem to connect. Maybe it's not true, and most bullets actually miss. It's just a bit hard to tell.
As for customizing your character... well, I felt like the team who programmed this part did about 60% of the whole thing, then stopped short. Most of the character customization is of the face and nothing else, and there's not too much to do after that make-up or individual wise. I was OK with hair-choices (although, IMO, 'anime' should've been like Cloud or Super Saiyan Goku or something, not that breathtakingly stupid whatever it was /anime wopchongo) but it lacked on other things- the ability to overdo your face is one. Let's see some mammoth tusks through your nose or horns on your head. Like Darth Maul.
I'm not referring to the voices- actually, although there are only 7 voices to choose from, the game actually goes far enough to use these VAs over the course of the game, rather than just letting you choose from a wide range of voices only to hear most of the acting in the form of "Ugh! and "Ouch!" or "Alright!" like some games. No, many quirks feel too shortly done, and others feel like the developers acknowledged the ability to make it, but left it alone after just one or two applications.
Because the progress of AI has been lackluster in open world games, I can't criticize this either. All I can say is that it is impossible to sneak by nearby enemies and they (enemies) always try to shoot you first- if a police dude or Luchadore sees you standing 100 feet away, they'll entirely ignore your fellow shotgun weilding Saint, each other, or a ravenous, necrosadistic zombie who had been standing 2 inches from them and try to kill you, only finally attacking them after maybe 5 seconds, by which point they're nearly dead. That's probably the only disappointing aspect of the AI, that reactions and responses to threats are plain lazy unless involving you. However, it's always fun to get the maximum alert for police and gangs, then add zombies and your own crew, hide out in a good spot, pop open the Airstrike or Drone, and watch World War III erupt.
The vehicles are pretty well crafted. I ran into no problems with them. Maybe just an overexcess of normality (but you get a freaking hover bike). What I've been trying to say involving the 'normal vs. fun' argument is that, for the next game, maybe instead of taking out all the normality, the developers could add about an equal amount of craziness. Note, at no point in this review have I said this is a bad game. There are many good aspects about this game. One of my favourite little quirks of all is that you have fanboys and fangirls who want your autograph. It's soooo awesome to be chased by fangirls. But no, it's just the fact that there's 90% normality, 5% ultraweird fun, and 5% sex jokes (rather than 90% normality and 90% ultraweird fun and 20% sex jokes) and yet it's that 5% ultraweird fun that gets so blown up in the press about the game that kind of grated. I've been dying for an open world game that's just over the top cartoon crazy without taking itself too seriously but also let you play-act a twisted, realistic life of murder and mayhem as well. Saints Row the Third acted upon this, but, in my eyes, decided to crunch and limit the craziness.
Had my expectations been lower, I would've thought this was a pretty enjoyable and remarkably fun game, and I have to say that my expectations were set frighteningly high, far far higher than most other gamers only because I had heard from many colleagues about how crazy and fun this game really was. However, since I can't be the super saiyan working class tank-throwing, snowball chunking, ultra-hardcore tights-wearing hypervillain, I felt less than pleased, like my colleagues were all paid off to exaggerate how 'fun' the game actually was. (PS- now that I've gotten over the disappointments, I've actually come to refind the game to be quite interesting and fun, although the game's real faults, such as wonky accuracy and unpolished features, still are not getting past my critical eyes) What would I have done differently? Not everything, mind you, but I would have unleashed all inhibitions. Saints Row The Third is simply too restrained a game, and many bizarre, fetish-esque possibilities were left untapped. The game is rushed, that is certain. Even if it didn't dare touch up on any of the stupid ideas I mentioned, that left this game little reason to be as underwhelming as it was.
It really hurt when the game didn't even feature a day-night cycle, something Saints Row 2 did have.
At first, I thought Saints Row the Third would be sickly fun, where I could make it rain bullets from the sky and play-act a sexy Roman princess (can't edit anything but face; no clothing remotely like that in game) with a chainsaw (there is one in the game fortunately) and hockey mask (surprisingly, they don't have any hockey masks!) and a pet rabid three-headed lion while letting loose hell with Carzilla (perhaps going too far, but it shouldn't have been too out there for Saints Row, right?). Saints Row the Third is nothing like that. More than anything, it's Adult Swim in a limited Grand Theft Auto form, and that fusion turned out nowhere near as fun as it ought to have been. Nope, no Peter Griffin, no Shake, no Assy Magee for us. Instead, we get dangerously limited options and an underused theme city that contains this generation's tired and sad idea of what 'funny' is- bland and overdone sex jokes every ten seconds with GTA-esque action just without much polish.
Maybe with Saints Row 4/the Fourth, the developers will actually spend more time making the gameplay balls-out ridiculous rather than simply balls-out.
7.75/10 (Arguing with myself if this should be 8, since 7.5 felt too low. At the same time, 8 felt too high. I eventually compromised. The rated score given above is a tad lower)
EDIT: WHAT. THE. F---.
DID... DID THE DESIGNERS OF SAINTS ROW 4 READ THIS VERY REVIEW OR SOMETHING? I'm freakin' serious. I'm looking at this review, and then the previews of Saints Row IV. Holy. Holy. Crap. Compare them! I tell you- compare this review to what we've learned from Saints Row 4- it's shocking how similar they are... And I wrote this back in February of 2012, before we even knew there would be a Saints Row 4!