Bigger, prettier, and more insane than ever. I can't imagine any gamer not enjoying SR3. Every single second is a blast.
The game starts out at 100 mph. In fact you are doing a crazy and very extensive bank heist mission before you even design your character. The first thing that I noticed was how good the game looks. The wonderfully designed city, the slick looking cars, highly detailed npc's, the well executed animations, smooth textures, and the steady frame rate all come together to make Saints Row 3 a gorgeous game to look at. Even during busy battles and chases sequences the frame rate never drops and always looks smooth. This makes the gun play especially fun and satisfying and it is a tremendous improvement over the gun play in SR2. There are some quick time events during hand to hand combat that can be kind of abrupt and almost interrupt the flow of combat but they do add an element of cool to the unarmed combat that I haven't seen in an open world game before.
The weapons themselves are a variety of insane implements of destruction. You can call in a UAV drone to guide missiles into your enemies if you want, or you can just wrack them with a **** All the machine guns and grenades are there as well. It is up to you! Volition has added a few RPG elements to the series that are not too ambitious but work well in the frame work of the series and most are implemented successfully. You can upgrade your characters combat abilities with certain types of weapons and purchase upgrades to your weapons. Customization is pretty much what makes SR such a good series and sets it apart from GTA, and all of the great customization options in character creation, cars, and properties is still in tact from SR2 and improved in most cases.
The missions in this game are just plain insane and Volition took every opportunity to push these scenarios to their absolute limits and what you get are missions that become so absurd you will find yourself laughing throughout. IMO SR3 has set piece moments that rival many of the masters of the canned sequence like your Uncharted's and COD's of the world. Trust me, you will have plenty of stuff to reminisce about with your buddies when you are done playing this game. BTW, There are no small gun fights in SR3. When you get attacked by a rival gang or the police, expect a MASSIVE gun fight involving dozens of opponents. Another area the game really shines is the menu, map, and inventory system which is all managed through a well designed smart phone interface. It works perfectly and it makes setting way points and sorting through missions a breeze. Here you will find even more ways to customize your SR3 experience because you can set up your own "mix tape" playlist from the total SR3 soundtrack, that is if you don't care to listen to the dozen radio stations while driving.
Co-Op Campaign remains and works as easy as ever. You can still take the character you were using in single player and continue where you were right in Co-Op if you want and the progress links together between single and co-op mode. I think this is such a great mode and I have no idea why more open world games don't embrace this method of creating a simple co-op that allows two buddies to run through the same campaign missions and share in all those water cooler moments together as they happen instead of creating tacked on "special" co-op content.
Saints Row 3 is not high art and it working hard not to be. If you are looking for a convoluted story and a set of complex characters with really polished writing you will not find it here but for me that is part of what makes SR so good. Saints Row 3 is about as corny and campy as it gets but it is done in such a sarcastic and yet loving way that you can't help but enjoy every minute of the absurdity. It is similar to an 80's action movie like Total Recall or the Running Man. Yeah it is corny but I would be lying if I didn't enjoy every second of it.
This is one of the best money values of the year. There is at the very least 25 hours of fun to be had here and you can do it all with a buddy if you want and I will be doing it at least twice. The customization options are deep and they set SR3 apart from similar open world games because you can truly make these characters and the cars they drive your own style. IMO GTA could use a little dose of SR3 next time around and that is about the best compliment someone can pay this game.
SR3 is the pinnacle of an underrated franchise. Awesome, insanely fun game.
9.0 / 10