Should you lead the Saints for a third time?
The Saints Row games have been crazy with a capital C, doing things that GTA wouldn’t dream of like throwing yourself in front of vehicles for insurance fraud; causing multiple amounts of damage and of course, whacking someone to death with a gigantic purple dildo. Saints Row the Third brings all these things back and more for what is easily the best game so far, but is it starting to get a little dated?
The story takes place several years after Saints Row 2 and the Third Street Saints have become a worldwide brand, raking in the cash with energy drinks and other merchandise, but the game starts as you try to heist a bank belonging to an organisation called The Syndicate who want to rub the Saints out of town, but they aren’t the only force you’ll have to deal with as the war between the two group escalates and so does the retaliation. I can’t go into too much detail, but it’s pretty funny stuff…albeit a bit on the crazy side.
If you’ve ever played Saints Row before, don’t expect things to change that much. You get missions scattered all across Steelport, as well as activities like the ones mentioned before and some new ones like a Tron-style racing game set inside virtual reality, a game show where you need to shoot your way through targets for high scores while not shooting pandas and avoiding flames. There are a good variety of things to do, but most of them we’ve already played before in Saints Row 1 & 2.
Saints Row The Third takes the crazy to a whole new level though as you can jump through car windshields and passenger windows Dukes of Hazzard style, which never stops being amusing. You can also do a variety of attacks just by running and tapping a button towards a person like smacking their face on the pavement, my favourite has to be where you can actually kill someone by hitting them right in their love department and on-screen it pops up as “Testicular Manslaughter”.
Ok so it might be immature, but what’s new when it comes to Saints Row? It’s the small attention to detail that makes me laugh during each game and The Third definitely has the best combination so far. Driving controls are nice and tight, plus the GPS is very handy…shooting isn’t the greatest due to the lack of a cover system yet again, but luckily the game isn’t too challenging unless you come across some of the latter enemies in the game, which are shall I say…big.
There are a nice mixture of weapons, some standards like pistols, SMG’s and shotguns but some new ones like the RC remote which lets you shoot a bug onto a vehicle and then control it manually, which is hilarious for one mission where you have to cause crashes with passengers inside, cruel…but priceless. The visuals are looking a little dated and the framerate does dip a bit at times, but it still looks pretty good. Voice-acting is funny and the soundtrack is a good combo of classic/modern/rock/pop and metal tunes.
The Veridct
Saints Row The Third is a great sandbox game and with no GTA competition till maybe next year, it’s a good time for its release. It may be a little too familiar to veterans of Saints Row in terms of activities and mission structure, but it’s still over-the-top, zany and most of all, good fun.
