Review: Saints Row the Third

Volition wanted to make the Saints Row series stand out amongst other sandbox games by being the craziest, irreverent guilty-pleasure you ever played. But the problem is that the series was already unique before that and what made the first two games amazing was ignored and pushed aside in this title, Saints Row the Third.


The Good
- Improved gameplay and controls
-Great voice acting
-Hilarious quirks throughout the game
-Some new characters are interesting
-the respect system is very well done
The Bad
-Story is messy, rushed and lacks depth
-Customization and player choice is way limited compared to its predecessors
-Endings are confusing, irrelevant and leaves questions unanswered
-some activities get repetitive and boring (mainly some returning ones)
-buying landmarks are useless and a waste of money
-weapon upgrades are very uncreative and in most cases useless
The Ugly
Most cases I would find one thing that just doesn't work out at all in the game but the worst thing about this title can't be fit into one sentence. Johnny Gat, your character's second in command and most trusted friend has made his mark into the hearts of all fans of this series for his wit, total disregard for human life, blood lust and being a total, unrelenting and fearless bad-ass. Gat truly became the face of the Saints Row series, however lead writer Drew Holmes decided it was a good idea to kill off Johnny. But it's not just him dying that angered me, it was how insignificant his death felt like. We didn't get to see his final moments, his body afterwards, or even his funeral. And they way he died. Gat took a shotgun blast to the leg, was sentenced to death and had a sword shoved through his abdomen and managed to get back on his feet stronger than ever but was killed by a little gun fire. This was a huge misstep for Volition and better plan on fixing this or Saints Row will be dead to me.

R.I.P. Johnny Gat 2006-2011

Story
Saints Row 1 and 2 had a thoroughly enjoyable story. While nothing was too complex the gang-war scene was a nice change of pace and was entertaining. Mainly because the two games had fun and enjoyable characters who you really grew a bond to and learn about them. However this seemed primarily absent in Saints Row the Third. While we got new and colorful characters like Zimos, chain smoking pimp with a voice box that made him always talk in auto tune and Oleg Kirrlov, a gigantic Russian gentleman who is as smart as he is strong, many others were boring and had no motive. Phillipe Loren, for example, was advertised to be your main antagonist throughout the game and was said to be absolutely ruthless, but showed no sense of this so called toughness and you kill him at the end of the first act. And while in the past we saw more backstory of the your enemies to make them seem more interesting and threatening, this game provided no history of them and gave us no motive to hit them where it hurts other than them killing Johnny.

What also made this story a train wreck was how linear it was. In the first two we were given the choice which gang we wanted focus on and had their own story missions making it feel more like our choice and added depth to each gang. In this one the story is all one experience and it gets boring as you don't learn much about each gang, what their specialties are and where they came from. At the end of certain missions we are given a choice on the outcome, none of them affect the outcome of the story except for the final choice which alters then ending. The ending I chose was absolutely stupid as it was nothing more than a filming of a movie called "Gangsters in Space" and the only reason I chose this one is because I did not want to let Shaundi die so it seemed like the lesser of two evils. This ending felt lazily rushed, served no purpose to the story and left some unanswered questions.

Story Grade: F

Graphics

While the first two suffered from poor visuals and awful framerate Saints Row is finally up to par with its graphics department. While they're nothing special, its cartoony look fits into the world of Steelport and feels right. Speaking of Steelport, the city can be sprawling with life and activity but sometimes is just bland. Certain areas of the city can be beautiful at night as neon lights cover the area but some spots feel like they were just copy and pasted in another part of the city. Clothing and Hair has also received their long deserved motion physics, whats even better is that they actually react to exactly how you move instead of just swaying back and forth.

Some items also have these physics...unfortunately...

Whats also interesting is the realistic looks when car crashes. In previous titles driving into a wall would, for some reason, also cause dents into the back of the car. Now bangs and dents in cars look more real truly bend where you hit it, and when you run a tank over the hood of a car, that hood gets squashed like a pancake, a nice visual treat. Saints Row the Third wont win any awards for beauty but its a step up.

However, during cutscenes there were significant graphical problems from your character becoming blurry and pixelated to white outline appearing around the characters, sadly this problem seemed prominent through the entire game.

Graphics Grade: C+

Sound
Music can make a game when it comes to sandbox titles, half of the songs are amazing and the other half I've never heard of and made me go "WTF is this?". People will certainly enjoy hearing your character and Pierce sing along together to Sublime's "What I got" and will feel like a true bad-ass leader when you skydive from a helicopter into a penthouse pool and start shooting all the Syndicate member, interrupting their party when Kanye West's "Power is boosting through your speakers. Previous Saints Row games never put licensed music into their missions so this was a nice and welcome addition.

Voice Acting was very well done in this game. Hulk Hogan and porn star Sasha Grey deliver great performances but no one can beat Burt Reynolds himself making a cameo in this game.

That's Mayor Burt Reynolds to you.

But they aren't the only one who can deliver. My characters British accent was very well done and uses real cockney terms to make it feel authentic.

Sound Effects are also well done. Each weapon has their own unique sound effect and sounds great when you're shooting it, detonating it or even bludgeoning someone to death with it. And every cars motor makes its own sound whether you're hearing the purr of an exotic sports car or the roaring engine of an American muscle car, each one is unique.

Sound Grade: B+

Gameplay

While Volition has improved a lot of gameplay elements, some of the best qualities of previous Saints Row titles suffered for it. The control scheme has drastically changed in this title, however it still feels natural and less arcadey. Whether you're on foot or in a vehicle the controls are nice. While fans of the old game might need a little getting used to, they're still easy to pick up.

Mission are more scripted this time around giving them a little more freedom to throw the crazy at us. While this means we don't have much room for experimentation, they're still pretty action packed. However a good chunk of missions in the main story are just tutorials of the activities.

Just another day in Steelport

While customization is still a large part of this game, it's only a fraction of how in-depth the customization was in Saints Row 2. One of the biggest changes was clothing. In SR2 we can choose multiple layers of clothing from undershirts, overshirts to coats and allowed us to pick each layer. We were also able to choose multiple piercings on each ear, eyebrow and the mouth too. With Character customization the only way to make your person look drastically from the default look is to make them as hideous as possible.

Respect used to be a currency system that allowed you to play missions and the only way to earn respect was to play activities or perform certain things around Stillwater. Now respect is a leveling up system. Respect is experience that you earn by playing missions, activities performing stunts and wreaking havok in the city. This is one of the better additions and is very well thought out. Everytime you level up you unlock certain perks and upgrades from increased ammo capacity, more health, and can even give your crew rocket launchers. However you need money to purchase these upgrade so every penny counts.

Activities return again but are different this time around. Completing each activity gives you control of an area of the city and the harder the difficulty, the more turf you get. Some activities are really fun like Insurance Fraud and Professor Genki's super ethical reality climax but some can get frustrating and repetitive like Drug Trafficking and Escort. And most of the bad ones are returning from SR2 while better ones like fight club and septic avenger were cut.

Shooting furries and mascots shouldn't be this much fun

Gameplay Grade: B

Replay

Saints Row the Third has some things to offer that will keep you playing. If you have yet to control the city there's still activities, gang operations, contracts to do. Or you can jump into co-op with a friend and help him out and there's still just going around killing everyone in your path with your over-the-top weapons, and it's even funner with a buddy. Or you guys can try the new Whored mode, an obvious parody of Gears of War 2's Horde mode where you kill waves of whores, pimps, gimps and mascots with each wave giving you a certain objective or weapons at your disposal. I have yet to try it but it seems crazy enough to give it a whirl.

The main problem is that you are no longer able to replay missions and cutscenes after you have already beaten them, why Volition did that I do not know.

Replay Grade: B-

Despite this games nice visuals and overall madness, It feels like it was only trying to masks the disappointment that was waiting for me in the back. It certainly plays better than the first two but the experience doesn't feel like I'm playing the Saints Row I love. Without Johnny, multiple clothing layers or even the option to change my sideburns to mutton-chops that doesn't counts as facial hair. People new to the series will certainly enjoy the quirks this game has to offer but older fans will be saddened by its disjointed story and unable to do the things we used to do like playing cutscenes and change what we wear under our jacket which will lead them to possibly putting back in their old copy of Saints Row 2 and pretend that Gat's still alive. The Saints feel like they've lost their way with this title but with the fourth game already on the drawing board we can still hope that Volition can fix these problems.

Overall Grade: C+