Saints Row: The Third review.
Okay, now I've played through the main storyline twice, seen both endings and done most of the structured activities in the game. I still have at least a hundred hours of gameplay ahead of me since there's the random sandbox fun part of the game that there's just no conceivable way to 'finish' and I still want to do the storyline with more characters looking rather different. Still, I think I'm in a position where a review won't be unfair in either the OMGAWESOME or Eeeeh directions.
Let me start by saying that I will be comparing this game to the baseline of two other games. Saints Row 2 is the most applicable baseline, and the GTA games, 4 in particular is the other less comparable baseline I'll be referencing. So, let's start ripping into it. First category, graphics.
Graphics:
Eeeh. I've seen a lot better. This is not to say that it's in any way bad. It's just far from the current cutting edge. I can understand that, though, since a huge sandbox game where you -can- cross the entire city with ridiculous speeds at ranges where everything gets rendered well (just try flying an assault jet five meters off the ground through the entire city) would be instantly crippled when your graphics card explodes from the strain. There's simply limitations to how awesome it can look when the game mechanics allow for these kinds of things. Skyrim being a much better looking game is primarily because you'll never cross the Skyrim continent in five minutes, forcing the engine to render the entire continent that fast. It's got TIME to render all the shit you want to see being pretty.
Now, as screenshots above shows, it's far from a bad looking game, though. I've yet to see something in that game I'd call Ugly by any stretch of the word. The animation is good, the textures are good and everything is... well, good. It's a good looking game, as far as the genre is concerned. Just don't go into it expecting the visual glory of (insert latest graphics whoring AAA title out there.).
8/10, allowing for the genre's limitations. If not allowing for that, 5.5/10 due to high performance requirements compared to visual output.
Now, let's see if we can't talk Story.
Storyline/Presentation:
So, can I just say 'batshit insane' and leave it at that? No? Okay. This game does not in any way, shape or form even bother trying to be realistic in any way, shape or form. Consistency, realism and political correctness is thrown out of the window. For that matter, so is the RP element of writing your own story. You're the head of a streetgang that back in SR2 fought off a bunch of rival streetgangs and a giant corporation named Ultor. You are now major celebrities and the Third Street Saints basically owns all of Stilwater and the law is their bitch.
The SR3 story begins when you and your boys (and a dipshit actor. Yeah, just go with it.) hit a bank expecting the same reaction as you normally get. I.E. the entire staff brownnosing the celebrities. What you didn't expect was that the staff would break out military grade hardware and fight back. After a great introductory mission fighting off them, SWAT and a heavily armored assault helicopter while dangling from a vault which is in turn dangling from a helicopter, you find yourself thrown in jail rather mystified because you paid up this month. Someone else paid more.
Enter the Syndicate, another criminal organization from a different city, trying to muscle in on Stilwater. After rejecting their offer that cannot be refused, there's one of gaming history's most badass skydiving/gunfight moments and you and Shaundi lands in Steelport with your funds frozen and have to begin from scratch again.
From this point on, it's basically Saints Row 2 all over again. The plotline is almost completely copypasted. You build up power, you recruit new homies, you fight the streetgangs and instead of the Ultor corporation you find yourself in all out open warfare with the Special Tactical Anti Gang initiative, STAG. Who by the way have tanks, VTOL Jets with Microwave lasers, aircraft carriers and depending on your chosen ending a giant fucking SHIELD aircarrier. On the way there's all kinds of hijinx and the entire game just goes off the bloody chain from the get-go.
This might sound fairly straight forwards, but the game's missions utterly refuse to stop throwing you curveballs. While the objectives are always fairly straightforwards (find and obtain a resource, or destroy the assets of your hostiles) the choices in HOW to achieve this is always a hilarious testament to the game devs' utterly insane imaginations. Your main character and supporting cast are in a word insane. It's not enough to achieve something, it has to be fun at the same time. Fun being defined either as complete mayhem and insanity, or as something so utterly ludicrous that it HAS to work.
The thing that keeps it all together is the characters who are amazingly voice acted and have a fantastic chemistry. When they act as if it's all perfectly normal and expected behaviour, -you- believe it's perfectly normal and expected behaviour. By the way, this is not an RPG. Your own actions, speech and so on are scripted ahead of time, which helps make everything somewhat believable. The only choices you really have are in the beginning and at the end when you make some fairly game-defining choices. Your appearance, which is then used in every cutscene thereafter, only modified by the clothes you buy and wear during the game, and most importantly... your voice.
When you choose your voice, you have seven to choose from. Three male, three female and... well, Zombie. I'll get back to the latter. While you -can- choose a female voice for a male toon and the other way around, I'm not entirely sure my own brain would be able to stay together during gameplay. I'd spend the entire time giggling inanely at the screen. However, even sticking within your character's chosen gender, your choice have fairly major impact, since they change the very tone of the game. My first playthrough was with Mizhara, caucasian woman choosing the normal caucasian voice. The tone of the game, through both the looks (which you can see in the first post) and the voice became rather... insane. Funny insane. Supervillain insane, as it were. Likable, funny, tough as nails and not too srsfaes.
The second playthrough was with a male using the British dialect, reminiscent of Jason Statham for instance. The tone of the game changed immensely. Going from funninsane supervillain to badass british gangster (who is still somewhat over the top) changed the entire experience by quite a bit. The gameplay is the same, but you see the entire game slightly differently. There'll also be somewhat different interactions between your character and the rest of your homies, even though the main gist remains the same. Amazingly, the chemistry between the characters remain, even with different voice actors and somewhat different lines.
Is the storyline good? Well, if you've played SR2 then the PLOT is exactly the same. The storyline itself is different, of course, but follows the same general plotline. Is it better than SR2? I wouldn't say that, no. The individual missions and representation of them are better in SR3, once you get past the initial introductory missions to the out-of-storyline activities you can shoose from, but the overall storyline is not as good as it was in SR2. SR2 simply gave a deeper experience with greater highs and greater lows, and more emotionally powerful scenes. I will still rate it as massively superior to GTA3, expansions and GTA4, though simply because it's so much better acted and told. Timing, humor and representation is vastly superior in SR3 than the GTA games, even though it just can't beat SR2.
Another 8/10 with points subtracted only because it's an overall step back from the previous installment in the series.
Gameplay:
Well... if you're familiar with SR2 and GTA4 (or either of the two) I really can't say much. If you're not familiar with them, I can't really say much either because it'd be rather incomprehensible. Let's just say it's solid as a fucking rock. Everything just works perfectly. Gunplay, driving, shopping, just running around causing mayhem, doing side-activities... everything just WORKS.
There's quicktime events in the game, but they're rather non-intrusive and doesn't -replace- gameplay like in a lot of other titles (CoD/BF3 'bossfights', I'm looking at you here, along with God of War/Gears of War and a fuckton of other game franchises like them) and instead just tries to augment the gameplay. For the very most part, they succeed, and the game doesn't punish you by instakilling you if you fail one. You just have to try again. Bossfights are bossfights in this game, something which I am infinitely grateful for.
The leveling system works great, mostly because unlike games like GTA which punish you for fucking around too much, this game awards you 'respect' (which is basically exp) for EVERYTHING you do. There's pretty much nothing you can conceivably pull off within this sandbox that doesn't give you cash, respect or something else as a reward for doing it.
10/10.
Conclusion:
The game itself isn't quite as good as SR2 was. It's got less bugs, less 'issues' and is generally a more polished affair than it's predecessor, but it also got less content and falls slightly short storywise. It presents the story far better and it's got a ton more spectacular events happening throughout the storyline than SR2, but doesn't give the same overall experience. It's still the best damn 'fun' purchase I've made since I bought SR2 and is a serious contender for Skyrim in the battle for GOTY. I absolutely love and adore this game and will recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind a complete disconnect from realism or a pile of political incorrectness that would reach the moon. It's a solid sandbox game with solid gameplay and the greatest spectacles I have -ever- seen a game character go through.
Play it for the sheer random fun of just creating mayhem in a sandbox. Play it for the story. Play it for the gunplay, driving, outfits, character customization and the rampant violence, humor and political incorrectness. Play it for whatever... but just play it.
I realize I said I was going to get back to the Zombie option, but let's just say that you can play as a zombie and you WILL unleash the zombie apocalypse during the storyline, whether you do or not. The inherent hilarity in this being taken as perfectly understandable and normal by the rest of the crew just cranks the hilarity knob to eleven.
Overall score: 9/10, one point subtracted for just not quite measuring up to SR2.
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