Playing as the head of the Third Streets Saints in the Saints Row: The Third , as “boss,” you’ve got an image to keep. Everything can be customized about your appearance. In Saints Row, you can create character like a booking process, it let you choose a starting outfit, face and body molding while the cops are snapping mug shots. The process of creation is detailfully made , covering basics like gender and ethnicity, til the intricacies like the shapes of the ear and facial markings. Fan of pockmarks? Sure, whatever floats your boat.
You can play around with your Saint at any time along the game just by hitting a plastic surgeon. A lot of clinics by the name of “Image as Designed” are found all over Steelport, and they will perform magic with a knife and scalpel as a fee. The tattoo parlors in town offer a limited assortment of ink work, and the clothing stores boast a generous selection of business attire, casual wear, naughty outfits, costumes, and matching accessories. Once you’ve purchased something, that item will be permanently added to your Wardrobe.
Driving is obviously a big part of the Saints Row: The Third game, so it makes sense that cars have to look nice too, or at least suit the driver’s tastes. Garages serve this purpose, though you don’t actually have to head over to a mechanic just to pimp your ride. Like clothing, vehicles can be customized from any Saints base. Change the color of the car, tack on a few body mods, or bump up the performance in any number of ways – reinforced parts for greater durability, even retractable tire blades. Cars driven back to base are stored in your collection, and gang-specific vehicles will be added over time as the story progresses. Planes and water vehicles are also an option, though if your “Cribs” have the proper facilities like a helipad or dock, and they don’t feature the same customization options cars have.
Hostile Takeover
So you look good, but how will you fare in a fight? Probably not too well at first, but that’s easily fixed. Every level gained unlocks a ton of perks in the Upgrade store, and they cover a wide range of gangbanging needs. Provided you have the cash, your Saint can be upgraded to sprint longer, hit harder, and soak up different types of damage. The same goes for weapons, whether you’re looking to dual wield or increase ammo capacity, and upgradable strongholds give useful bonuses. Your gang – the rest of the Saints – can also be outfitted with better weapons and more health.
Just about everything you do in the game awards money and Respect, the Saints’ version of XP. Aside from the story missions, the city is brimming with collectibles and activities, just waiting to be discovered. Some activities are pretty simple, like humoring a Saints fan or pulling stunts with conveniently placed ramps, but others might have you escort an ally around town to make deals or lay siege to a city block in a tank or chopper. Assassinations, Vehicle Thefts, and citywide challenges can be accessed via the Saintsbook app and offer additional means of revenue and respect. Your gang and anonymous callers will also periodically dial in requesting aid or dropping useful tips on a nearby event, usually a survival mission.
These activities vary in appeal, but the game never forces any of them on you. Completing side content has its rewards and helps the Saints gain control of Steelport bit by bit, so there is some incentive to play through these optional distractions. Still, players aren’t punished for doing what they like, and that’s something very few games allow. If you’re like me and just not a fan of Guardian Angel missions, then by all means, skip them and hit up the nearest instance of Tank Mayhem. Hell, you could just fly around in a VTOL and troll for gang operations to take out; Steelport is your oyster.
The story, though straightforward and linear, does work in a few player choices. Midway through the story, quite a few missions will begin offering different choices, allowing the player to pick between two different outcomes. The game thoughtfully shows the reward for each option too, so you’ll never be forced to make blind picks and wind up regretting them later. Earning the good ending – there are two total – is relatively easy, at least, though not everyone might appreciate the absurdity of it. The alternative is the bad ending, considerably less strange but also rather depressing.
Despite its simplicity, the story packs quite a punch thanks to a surprisingly varied cast of characters and progressively outrageous situations. Most of the characters are walking clichés mingled with ridiculous quirks to make them more memorable, like Zimos the Pimp singing all his dialogue in an auto-tuned voice, or Oleg the Russian behemoth, whose hulking exterior hides a sharp, academic mind. Not everyone has a particularly admirable personality, but interactions between these walking caricatures are absolutely priceless. I’ve laughed until I cried over certain conversations.
The situations your Saint winds up in tend to be equally hilarious in their randomness. I couldn’t help but crack up when on mission dropped me in a convertible next to an ornery tiger, and I was tasked with driving as fast as possible to keep the large cat happy, while animal activists chased after us in their vans. Toward the latter half of the story, I was stuck in a Tron-inspired world, bouncing along as a toilet with an arm-cannon not unlike Megaman’s weapon of choice.
The juvenile silliness of dildo bats and gimp outfits is all well and good, but for me, that novelty ran dry after just a few seconds. Instead, the true appeal lay in how much of a badass I felt running around as a Saint dressed like a super secret agent, mowing down competition with double SMGs, and firing rockets at a cluster of STAG APCs. No rules of engagement, no mandatory stealth sequences – play who you want and have as much fun doing it as possible.
On its own, most of the content is too random to be laugh-out-loud funny, not to mention crass and potentially offensive in some cases. Saints Row’s secret lies in its delivery, and context is everything. The game makes no attempt to justify its strangeness, and the characters seem remarkably self-aware, as evidenced by their constant quips and genuine surprise at all the unbelievable goings-on around Steelport.
Saints Row: The Third definitely isn’t lacking in content. The story alone should probably take anywhere between ten to fifteen hours to complete, and completionists can stick another ten hours to that figure, spent running around town mopping up the side missions and activities. The seamless drop-in/drop-out co-op has returned, so if you happen to have a buddy interested in the game, that aspect may be worth exploring. Keep in mind that while free exploration might be more enjoyable with a friend, most of the missions feel closer to a single-player experience.
The new Whored Mode, a Saintly take on horde modes found in most multiplayer-centric games, provides a decent distraction from the campaign, should you ever find yourself craving such a thing. The premise of this mode, as its name suggests, is fighting waves of prostitutes, gimps, and other such characters. It’s a major step up from the half-arsed multiplayer that was squeezed into the previous Saint Row games, but The Third would fare just as well without it.
One thing that’s worth to mention is the pop-in textures and overall mediocre visuals. It’s not mean to say that the game looks bad, but the console versions is absolutely suffering from these unperfect graphical job, which become more noticeable during the cutscenes when there isn’t any action to keep you distracted. But, the PC version – as far as I know – doesn’t suffer any of these problems.
At the last, Saints Row: The Third won’t be the best looking game or even a game with a provocative narration, but it is not just that folks. The game just want to make you enjoy to be “a customizable human” , and everything in the game was designed for this purpose.
