Now for the review of the last packaged game in Saints Row month, only now do I realize that I have 5 slots and only 4 pieces. So enjoy this rant and see me next week for the overall DLC review.
Saints Row The Third Review
release date: 15/11/2011
Platform: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC
Price I Paid: $69.99 (Because of the season pass)
The
game begins with the notion that the once obscure street gang, The
Third Street Saints, have made it big and became pop icons thanks to the
multibillion dollar clothing company they took over in Saints Row 2.
You are then sent into a bank heist where the main character from the
previous two games, who I’ll refer to as the Protagonist, two of your
allies from the previous game, and a newcomer actor who plans on being
in a movie about The Saints, try to not only steal all the money, but
the entire vault as well. Now, I really like this, it shows how far the
protagonists have come during the time between this and the prior game,
but also shows how out of touch the saints are with their gang roots,
they are ripping out a bank vault for crying out loud.
Sadly,
things do not go according to plan and the Protagonist is captured by a
group of gangs who also grew in power, called the Syndicate. They
demand that you hand over 66% of your earnings and join their
organizations, or you’ll be whipped off the face of the earth. The
Protagonists are having none of this, and it causes an amazingly well
done plane chase and free-fall sequence. But it results in the death of
the only character who is featured throughout the series as a main
character as a main character, other than the Protagonist, Johnny Gat.
Admittedly, they handle his death with care during the main story, with
the character, Shaundi, pissed off at his death, that still doesn’t
excuse the sequence where he dies. He gets stabbed through the chest,
and considering how nutty this game is suppose to be, it’s absurd to
think that a flesh wound would kill any main character.
Note:
I do realize that he was cloned in the Problem With Clones DLC pack,
but this was a ripe example of the writers being lazy or not
understanding the first two games, which I noted at the end. Really, I just wrote this yonks ago, and as you can clearly see, I hate revising.
I
would also like to complain about the leader of the antagonist group
from the first act, The Morning Star, namely how underdeveloped he is.
After his death, which is just a giant ball crushing him, no final
encounter or anything, he had absolutely no development and we barely
even knew the guy. Compare this to even the first Saints Row
game, after nearly every mission you saw the antagonist’s reaction, saw
and learned about their character. Whereas this guy probably didn’t
even have 50 lines. His lack of development is most likely due to the
fact that most of the first act is doing activities that are disguised
as missions. But, I’d like to finish my pages of story gripes before I
get to the gameplay and its structural missteps.
After
you take out the Morning Star’s underdeveloped leader, you are properly
introduced to the other two gangs, the Deckers and Luchadores. They
are lead by two unique antagonists, but the Decker leader also feels
very underdeveloped, and Killbane, a fairly well done masked wrestler
who tries to serve as the game’s main antagonist, but it doesn’t work
nearly as well as it should. I felt very little to no threat from the
other gangs, and the leaders apply as well, perhaps that’s because I
managed to capture the majority of Steelport before the halfway mark and
they are only threatening in large numbers, but then just summon a tank
or call in an air strike. Perhaps it’s also the lack of characters in
the gangs besides the leaders. In both of the prior games, every gang
had about 3 core members in it, they were eliminated as the plot
progressed and led to an encounter with the leader. But only one of the
gangs has extra characters, the Morning Star. However, they pull the
twin card and don’t really give them distinctive personalities, so I
felt nothing when one of them died.
Yet,
it can be argued that are representative of a single group, so they
don’t need more than one character per gang, or that they aren’t the
main antagonist, but those decisions are still just bad. You are
limiting the characterization of our enemy and removing the main reason
for a trinity of gangs if they are all connected, rather than focusing
on keeping their turf away from you. And if they are a trinity, why
does the Morning Star control half of the city of Steelport? I didn’t
even properly explore all of their territory before I completed their
section of the main story.
By
the main antagonists I was referring to STAG, a military group that
seems bland despite their sonic boom cannons and laser helicopter-jets
from the year 2080. They appear right in the middle of the game and
derail the pot from the Syndicate, only to wrap that plot up, move back
to the Syndicate, and end up taking turns until you decide in the final
mission. It reminds me of how comic book movies try to add more
villains per movie in an attempt to raise the stakes. But even those
don’t wait until the one hour mark for the film’s real antagonist to
appear, focus on them for half an hour, finish up the old villain's plot
line, and then return to the newer villain. I do admit that it’s fun
to play with the STAG’s toys. They break the flow and it does seem
insane that a government, or any kind of authority, would spend about
800 billion dollars trying to get rid of some gangs. You are pop icons
with a very negative message, I can understand how them having an urban
war can be considered a problem, but you don’t make flying battleships
to take care of them.
Yet, I’m still not at my biggest gripe with the narrative, the ending, or should I say endings.
This game is the first Saints Row
title with some form of narrative control, it mostly results in
monetary and Respect bonuses, but occasionally changes the plot.
partway through the second to final mission, you are given a choice
whether you want to let Killbane live to fight another day, save two of
your allies, star in a poorly done parody of 1950’s B-movies, and become
heroes in the public’s eyes. Or kill two of your allies, kill
Killbane, become terrorists in the public’s eyes, create a city-state,
and kill Burt Reynolds. The first seems more plausible, although maybe
not given my description thus far, but the later one is done far more
like the canonical ending, which would be stupid. How can you run a
city-state and maintain the feeling of a sandbox? You end up with the
schematics of an airborne battleship, which doesn’t seem like a wacky
thing to do at all.
I
believe this was done to give the game a more logical sense of
progression, allow me to elaborate. In the first two games, you gained
districts of the city by progressing the story, but now you can own most
of the city by buying stores, completing activities, and going to
optional strongholds. However, before the end of the first act, you can
own the majority of all of Steelport, the new and smaller city. I lack
any data to back me up, but Steelport just feels smaller, and like
there is a lot less to do, boat are basically useless, the areas are
less memorable, and the game gives you Helicopters very early on in the
game, making the world feel a lot less like grounds for exploration, and
more of a hub for your destinations.
Unlike in Saints Row 2,
you don’t need to play activities to unlock buffs for your character,
which you’ll need, considering that you feel significantly weaker than
you felt in Saints Row 2.
This causes the game to feel shorter than it actually is, since you no
longer need to do an activity every time you want to do a mission. I
can see how people would not like that, but the activities were, and
still are far from a chore.
Although,
maybe it’s to distract us from the removal of several activities.
There is no more Fuzz, Septic Avenger, Demolition Derby, or Fight Club.
Now I can understand why Fight Club was removed, the melee system has
become a simple, press right stick to hit the dude’s crotch, but why
would you remove genuinely fun activities that would greatly advertise
this game’s insanity? They even mentioned Septic Avenger in the only
brand new, and very fun, activity, Professor Genki’s Super Ethical
Reality Climax, a Japanese gameshow where you shoot targets and mascots
with laser guns in order to obtain cash prizes and time bonuses.
Although, there are some other ‘new’ activities, but they’re just
slightly modified versions of others. A new addition of Escot, an
activity where you hide a whore and their customer from suicidal news
reporters, except now you're driving around with a tiger. Mayhem, where
you blow up cars and fences for combos, now has an absurdly easy
version where you are driving a tank, but you could do that in normal
Mayhem, so what’s the point? There is a new version of Trailblazing,
where you are riding a tron motorcycle and crashing into cyber-tanks,
which is obviously better than setting a university on fire whilst in a
buggy. And they modified Helicopter Assault to include sniping
sections, only gave it two instances, and called it Guardian Angel.
They are all fun and I appreciate their inclusion, but they feel like
they were made instead of bringing over other activities. Although, I
think my main gripe might be that every activity now only has 6
instances, as apposed to 12.
I also believe the character customization to be very limited in comparison to Saints Row 2,
the character builds are designed to look a lot more attractive than
the 70-450 pound monstrosities that you could create in the previous
game, with about 300 pounds being the new maximum, this also reflects in
the wardrobe. For the most part it seems more like an expanded Jack’s
Tread catalog, with the exception of the furry suits that you can get
from the costume emporium, which felt lacking, probably since a lot of
it is reserved for DLC packs. It feels very limited, since you no
longer have 3 upper body pieces, socks, and can not tilt hats or
zip/unzip jackets. Although, you can make pink haired sexual deviants
made out of crystal, so it’s not all that bad. Although, I do really
like the colorful art style, it’s very reminiscent of the first one, but
with graphical aspects far better than the second one. Except there
are some manga based influences in the overall art direction, which
makes the game look good despite character models that have fairly low
quality textures. Although, it’s not all good from a technical aspect,
namely how I often encountered vehicles, mostly tanks, that spawned in
less than 100 meters in front of the Protagonist, which is surprising
considering how smoothly the rest of the game runs.
To
shift topics, I feel like the game is hard early on, and for all the
wrong reasons. Based on the two introductory missions, I was assuming
that I’d be kicking ass and taking names, sadly that is not the reality.
The game just feels hard for the wrong reasons, I can’t do enough
damage, I die easier than I should, and these mini-bosses know as Brutes
are a pain. They can toss over cars and take 40 maximum level pistol
headshots to bring down. However, in an attempt to balance this, they
allow you to buy upgrades based on your Respect level and to buy
upgrades for your weapons, the main way to get money in the game is by
completing activities, missions, and buying proprietary to get ‘hourly’
income. Which I would not mind, except for the ability to become immune
to bullets and explosions, which breaks gameplay faster than one can
say, “What’s not fun about permanent god mode?”
The
system itself is very exploitable, but that’s not what annoys me, it’s
that these upgrades are required if you want to live. Perhaps I was
just annoying the new and well done ability to grab human shields and
develop new strategies, but using them is only smart when you don’t have
vehicles trying to run you over, or everyone all around you, which is
all the time. I am impressed by a game showing 50 enemies on screen,
but without a Gatling gun or laser cannon, there is nothing I can do but
hide behind an invincible concrete wall and let my health regenerate.
That’s
not to say that the gameplay is bad, it can be very intense at some
parts and completely awesome at others, namely the https://deckers.die
and Murderbrawl XXXI, which were some of the most insane and overall
best missions I’ve played in the past three years and refuse to talk
about them in fear of those who didn’t get to play them yet receiving
spoilers. And the driving of both the aircrafts and cars if improved to
a level I thought impossible, I never had any trouble controlling my
car unless it was a street sweeper or something, same goes with
aircrafts, which were actually good enough to make me, someone who
loathed inverted controls, enjoy them.
The
audio aspects are also improved, the soundtrack is a respectable mix of
tunes, although I believe that The Mix is notably lower in quality, but
that’s just me being the kind of guy who learned to appreciate music by
playing these games. However, I do believe that the music is used
better, with Kanye West’s Power playing as you capture a penthouse, A sing-a-long to Sublime’s What I Got while you’re getting used to the city of Stillwater and buying some knickers with your friend Pierce. And I Need A Hero playing during the frantic climax of the game. They are all songs that enhance the mood and really got my blood pumping.
Despite my endless story centered gripes, I do enjoy Saints Row: The Third, while there are many, many missteps, and the game just feel like it has less content than Saints Row 2,
which took me 35 hours to get 91%, whereas this game took me less than
25 hours to get “100%”. The storyline feeling jumbled and poorly
planned, compared to the competently done storylines of the first two
titles in the series. The characters also seem to be added in waves, so
there is a lack of development for most of them. But that doesn’t stop
the game from being a lot of fun. This is the kind of game where you
can beat up Furries with a dildo bat, while you are dressed up like a
sex doll. Hell, there is an entire multiplayer activity devoted to just
that. It may just be my fandom getting in the way, yet Saints Row: The Third, feels like an even better version of Saints Row 2,
but with a boatload of stripped away content, and a story that was
either thought up at the last minute. The peaks of this game are the
highest in the series, but the dips are also the lowest. I can
recommend Saints Row: The Third,
but for only less than $40. I was very excited for the DLC, but I was
more than a little bit disappointed by the final products. I’ll get to
them in 3 mini-review next week, but for now, I’m off to work on the Xenoblade and FEZ reviews.
30/40
Good
There are evident flaws, but the game still manages to remain fun and the game is competent in its execution.
NOTE: I found out after writing this review that only 20% of the staff of Saints Row: The Third worked on a Saints Row
title before this one. The 80% who were new to this series needed
heavy direction and had to be told over and over again that a far in a
jar is a-okay. There was also a Parkour system which I would have loved
to death, but it was removed due to processing limitations. Either
way, I’m still psyched for the possibilities of Saints Row: To the Fourth Powah!
