Review: Saints Row: The Third

It's been a while since I last did a review.  This is partially because of E3 and all the "fun" I had covering it, but it's also partially because so many developers seem so concerned with the amount of content that they have to ram down your throat.  Fair enough though, because I'm about to drop the hammer on one of the most enjoyable open-world experiences I've had the pleasure to playthrough.


Saints Row: The Third (aka Saints Row 3)

I had ignored the Saints Row franchise since its origin on the Xbox 360.  Playing through the demo content showed me that the game was little more than a Grand Theft Auto clone with the mafia and organized crime syndicates replaced by thugs and street gangs.  Russian and Italian stereotypes replaced by "hood" stereotypes didn't do much to entice me, especially since I'm not a fan of Grand Theft Auto to begin with.

Frankly speaking, I'm not a huge fan of most modern open-world games because they place way too big of a focus on being "realistic".  You have to eat food to recover health. You have to pay for that food.  Starting a bar fight or driving drunk will cause the authorities to come after you.  Listen, the reason I play video games is to ESCAPE reality, not be tossed into an alternate one where I'm a Russian gangster or a Nordic dragon slayer. 

However, when I heard that Saints Row 3 was making a drastic move towards something more cartoony and comedic, the game garnered a little bit of my attention.  I still wasn't planning on going out of my way to get it, but it was a fact that stayed in my head until years later when it was released for free as part of the Playstation Plus "Instant Game Collection".

The game opens with a silly Star Wars parody, and then a little bit of background.  The Third Street Saints have become a worldwide phenomenon.  With their own clothing line, energy drinks and assorted paraphernalia, this small time street gang has gone global franchise and their leader, Johnny Gat, has become an international celebrity.  Then, during a bank heist gone wrong, main characters Johnny, Shaundi, and the player-created unnamed protagonist known only as "Boss" get captured by the cops, then hauled off to be confronted by the head of some multinational criminal organization called "The Syndicate".  Johnny gets himself killed, so it's up to Boss and Shaundi to avenge his death in the new city of Steelport.

The stereotypical opening to any GTA style game.  From Riches-to-Rags, and over the course of the game, back to riches again, there's nothing new about this game's story.  But Saints Row is all about being over the top.  Between the bank robbery and the plane sequence, you get to actually create your character.  All the details are here.  Every aspect of face, body type, even "sex appeal" (see: cup size or package size) on characters.  You also get to pick from 7 different voices for your character: 3 male, 3 female and one zombie.  Yes, you can select zombie and every time your protagonist would speak, undead nonsense spews from their mouth, while the rest of the cast seems to understand exactly what was said.

After the absurd action movie sequence which involves your character and Shaundi jumping out of a plane, dodging cargo and bullets while firing at armed gangsters on the way down, crashing through the window of another plane, and eventually reaching the ground, you get yourself set up in Steelport.  The first mission gets you a "crib" (base of operations) and some weapons (through raiding a local armory).  By the end of what's basically the game's tutorial, you have two pistols, a sub-machine gun, a shotgun, a ROCKET LAUNCHER, and an unmanned missile-armed Predator drone.  Straight from the get-go, Saints Row: The Third hands you all the tools you need to go out and cause all sorts of mayhem with hardly any "work".  Fucking brilliant.

In Steelport, the Syndicate is made up of 3 gangs: The Morningstar - who are effectively classy Russian mafia and have the signature color red, The Deckers - these Tron fan-film rejects are the computer geeks of the bunch and are clad in blue, and The Luchadores - big, green, muscle-brained steroid junkies in Mexican wrestling masks.  Over the course of the game, it's up to Boss and her/his comrades to take down the heads of each gang, while trying to avoid fire from Steelport's authorities and its new Special Tactical Anti Gang (STAG) Unit.  Along the way, you'll expand your gang and meet new "Homies" like Angel de la Muerte the wrestler, Kinzie Kensington - Former FBI hacker extraordinaire, Oleg the Russian behemoth, and Zimos - a pimp that talks only in autotune.

As you cruise about from place to place in Steelport you'll find that you fairly constantly rack up Respect.  Everything from completing missions to driving in the oncoming lane makes the little purple meter go up.  This is Saints Row's version of experience as they've incorporated a bizarre form of leveling up into their little Not-Grand-Theft-Auto.  The odd part of this is that leveling up only unlocks new perks, it doesn't just add them to your repertoire.  These perks still have to be purchased with cash.

Par for the course in open-world games, the map has all sorts of hotspots: property for sale that will increase your hourly earnings, shops for every level of customization (cars, clothing, tattoos, even a plastic surgeon who can alter your character's appearance from the beginning of the game - all of which are also for sale), a variety of different side missions that can all be completed for cash and may yield additional rewards for finishing all of a certain type, as well as "gang operations" (gatherings of certain gang members that you can wipe out to earn Respect and increase your control percentage in that area).  There's also a function called the "Saintsbook", which contains Vehicle Theft and Assassination "missions" as well as your progress on various Challenges.  

Controls are pretty standard.  L1/LT aims down the sights, R1/RT fires. X/A jumps and Triangle/Y hijacks cars and motorcycles.  What I noticed fairly early in the game is that, even with my complaints about the over-abundance of cover-based shooters, Saints Row probably could have benefited from some sort of cover system.  This is further amplified by the fact that, even though you have a health meter, spending enough time not being shot at allows your character to regenerate their health.  For the most part, you're forced to resort to clicking down the thumbstick to crouch, position yourself behind a wall, and hope it's a place where you can shoot baddies, but the baddies can't hit you.  You'll also have to deal with Notoriety from both the local gangs as well as police, though the two don't normally intersect.  Usually you can piss off the gang occupants of an area without getting the cops on your tail, but only to a certain extent.  Once the collateral damage extends too far, you'll have to deal with the fuzz too.

Several times over the course of the story, you'll be presented with choices that will allow you to make adjustments to the game based on your play style.  Do you want an increase in respect or cash flow?  Would you prefer a discount on weapons or vehicle upgrades?  Which is better, zombie homies or mayor BURT FUCKING REYNOLDS?  Depending on your preference, you can make your selections based on what benefits you personally, or you can roleplay and pick based on what you think your character would do.  I personally came across a decision in which I chose not the option that would have benefited my character directly, but the one that I felt coincided with the story more.

Overall, while the riches-to-rags-to-riches story might be a little tired at this point, honestly I feel that Saints Row pulls it off by having enjoyable, memorable, ridiculous characters.  Pierce spends most of his non-mission time playing chess with Oleg, and Kinzie's reclusive geek personality was the cause for a lot of laughs from me.  And be honest, a character that can speak only in autotune? Call it an autowin.

There is a Whored (Horde - get it?) Mode where you can take down themed waves of enemies, either by yourself or with friends.  I tried it out and seemed to feel that this was very tacked on, because it's what other studios were doing and, hey, we could do it so why not?

In the end, with it's absurdity and larger than life characters, I ended up feeling like Saints Row 3 would have actually made a really good comic book.  The sad part was that once I reached this conclusion, I also came to the realization that modern media would fuck it up with either a stereotypical black male protagonist or a white male "action hero guy".  Fuck that.  Give me a 300-pound black chick with a bubblegum pink afro and a Russian accent.

Because that's what Saints Row is all about.  Doing the absurd, the ridiculous, the impossible, and making it funny and enjoyable for everyone.