First DLC jitters
Like anyone with a sense of humor and an active pulse, I loved last year's Saint's Row: The Thrid. After playing through the core game ceaselessly over two or three days after its release, I was both satisfied with the delightful absurdity of the Saint's conquest of Steelport and ravenous for more.
On paper, Genkibowl VII-the first piece of single player DLC released for Saint's Row: The Third-should overload my sated craving for craziness while fulfilling that void of more Saint's Row. It does neither.
Now I'm sad panda.
Lasting a mere hour in length and featuring only modified versions of activities already present, Genkibowl VII feels like content cut from the disc release of the core title. The seven dollar DLC add-on nets you eight missions along four different activities types; escort, trail blazing and the Super Reality Climax funhouse turned mascot shooting gallery and a new Katamari Damacy-like giant ball of yarn destruction simulator. A mere new coat of paint (and one large shark) are all the additions to the new two stages of Super Reality Climax. Escort now features the anthropomorphized Professor Genki himself and his flame-throwing murder car, but the object of fulfilling a "pleasure" meter is untouched in any interesting ways. Trail Blazing receives the biggest modification; it's now a skydiving race to the finish with chainsaw murdering to be done. Unfortunately, the two revamped Trail Blazing levels control poorly in the air and lose a lot of luster after the first time you descend upon a roof top full of soft mascot targets for the massacring. The sole new activity, Miss Kitty's Yarngasm, works well and deserves the Katamari Damacy connections it receives, but is the most brief of all the activities. At least you get the looming ball of yarn as an unlock upon completion of the DLC. That's kind of cool.
Two cutscenes bookend the DLC events. These moments capture fleeting handfuls of the absurdist humor of Saint's Row: The Third. A pre-game show at the start of the DLC perfectly mirrors the style (and even sounds) of a NFL broadcast and will elicit a chuckle from most. The podium speech from the player character at the end is also broadly funny, though it is presented with the voice modulation heard very early in the core game; presumably to cut costs of recording multiple takes with different actors. They are the best parts of this package. They last five minutes tops.
I'm not willing to write off the post-release support of Saint's Row: The Third quite yet. The upcoming DLC sounds more promising. If you purchased the season pass (like I did), you might as well play Genkibowl VII. Those contemplating an a la carte purchase of this DLC should pass...unless they absolutely loved the Professor Genki stuff in the original game.
