Quick Look: Saints Row The Third: Remastered

It is nice to see the GB 2011 GOTY get some remastering love.

@jeff The Xbox One X version can run at 60fps if you unlock the frame rate in the options according to Digital Foundry. The PS4 Pro only hits 47-55 fps though when it's unlocked.

Watching the first half of this was weirdly cathartic for me. I never fully understood the appeal of this series just by looking at it, and wasn't a GB listener back in 2011 so I only came to the GotY debate years later and with a bemused smirk (I also missed and came late to Skyrim, which I immediately bounced off of after just a few combat encounters). This game always struck me as this weird sort of time and place thing where the humor just clicked with people in a way that let people overlook all the ways it felt bad to play and was kind of weirdly try hard in its comedy and scenarios.

Obviously I want people to like what they like, but the multiple times Jeff would mutter to himself, "...and maybe that's what this game always was..." felt like lifting a minor, minor, minor weight I've been carrying all these years listening to Giant Bomb thinking this is one of the most mediocre games with big ideas I've ever played. I can't weigh in on whether the remaster itself is any good or not, but seeing Jeff be so dour about the end product saved me some money because I know in these uncertain times I'd have totally thrown some money at this to see if I could finally prove myself wrong.

First Quick Look that truly influenced a purchasing decision in a while.

Saints Row 2 is still impossible to play apparently on a modern day PC judging from a cursory google search so once again why Saint's Row 3, the least needing a remaster in the first place?

"It looks alright, I dunno"

Very insightful there for an actually amazing looking remaster after so long Jeffo

I bought this back in the day because of the Bombcast and had an absolutely lovely time with it. Excited to see if it can pass the test of time.

Best garage music in any game ever.

Skyrim is one of most influential games of its generation... This.... isn't.

Skyrim aged better than this game to be honest.

I mean we don't have to put Skyrim down for not being as good a game as Saints Row the Third. Many games aren't, it's a fine crowd to be in.

@xdeser2i whole heartedly agree. Skyrim pushed an old engine to it's limits, Fallout 4 should have been the beginning of a new era for Bethesda games with a new engine. In many ways it was a new era, just not for the better. I guess we just have less of a tolerance for glitches nowadays, because I remember when skyrim came out everyone just laughed off all the goofy stuff that happened.

@steveurkel said:

Because Saint's Row 3 sold about a zillion times better than 2.

@steveurkel: So which thing are you wrong about? That Outer Wilds is a boring game or that Jeff has Outer Worlds on his PS4 screen

They turned CheapyD into Charles Barkley in this game.

Digital Foundry can inexplicably fawn over this thing as much as they want, but I don't get it. With exception to Loren and his sidekicks, I'd say the character models look artistically worse across the board. And who gives a fuck about modern post-processing effects and asset updates if a last-gen game isn't running at a steady 60 FPS? On a fucking PS4 Pro! Come on. Putting forth that every remaster should take note from this one when it doesn't even run well is insane to me.

@steveurkel: Saint's Row 2 on PC is currently being worked on by around two people at Volition. They decided to do this after finding the source code. I know it's not a full-on remaster, but they promised that it's coming as an update the current PC version. I know it's annoying to see this come first, though.

I thought this was a Switch version you were playing, but PS4/PS4 pro/Xbox One X and PC are the ones to get. I hear this is a wonderful almost-remake of the original, visually anyway.

Isn't there an option to unlock the frame rate? I saw the Digital Foundry video and it showed 40-60 fps on the PS4/PS4 pro/Xbox one X. Edit: Yep, you found it.

Seriously WTF? I don't really like Skyrim, but calling Skyrim a bad game is an awful take.

Was that the year of the DOTA tantrum? He has had so many over the years, the worst being over Destiny and bullying it to GOTY

Can you name a single open world game that runs at 60FPS on a PS4 Pro? Last gen or otherwise? I think you may be overestimating what that box is capable of..

@xbob42: I agree that the combat is terrible in Oblivion and not much better in Skyrim, but something about their world building (Morrowind in particular but Oblivions the one that took a thousand hours from me) is the real draw for me. Living in that world always felt great, even if the combat was truly broken. Thats something that has gotten worse with Skyrim and waaaay worse with FO4.

I've just completed the remaster because I've always loved the characters. If you turn off vsync in-game and force it using the Nvidia/AMD control panel, it mitigates the camera stutter enough to be playable. The game is still very glitchy (I came across a few gang operations that were not possible to clear out permanently) and the lip sync for the characters comes off unfinished (think animatronic robot jaw movements). Your homies often get in your way (there's a mission where you have to shoot out the tires of a car but not destroy it and Pierce will shoot at/through the car itself with a secondary weapon, likely screwing you; and another where your homie will shoot at enemies crowding you with their incendiary rounds, constantly setting you on fire). And any mission that involves protecting vehicles (even ones you're in) is destined to be terrible since vehicles aren't at all durable. Pro tip: If you have an RPG, don't shoot anything right next to the vehicle you're protecting because it takes splash damage.

FTFY

Sublime with British Male Boss is the best