Truly Unlimited Freedom
The Saints Row franchise has always inspired to create an open-world sandbox that truly gives the player unlimited freedom. Saints Row: The Third could be the closest Volition has gotten to reaching this goal. Putting absurdity and mayhem as the selling point, Saints Row: The Third, while not a game without its flaws, should be praised for giving an satisfying experience to the player, filling them with laughs and glee until the end.
The story is just what you’d expect if you played any game in the franchise, but this time, instead of working your way from the ground up, you work your way through the top. The Saints have reached international stardom, and a bank robbery gone wrong creates an all-out war between other warring gangs, forcing the Saints to take out these factions in order to save their face. These factions involve some ludicrous premises, involving a gang of all luchadores, and a gang of hackers who dress not unlike those in a Tron movie. It is worth mentioning that the story is probably one of the weakest elements in the game. The dialogue you get in the cutscenes can be very vague, leaving the player to put the story in the back of his mind. They make up for this with the dialogue and conversation outside of the cutscenes. Drives to the mission involve memorable banter between your fellow gang members, even singing along with the radio one or two times. These specific spots of writing may make you forget the mediocrity of the story.
The gameplay is what steals the spotlight for this game, and is what most players will focus on. During the beginning of the game, you are thrown into the character creator, and is to me one of the most versatile and customizable character creators I have seen in a long time. The body proportions and palettes are changeable in a seemingly unlimited ways, allowing you to make any hero or abomination your have in mind. You are able to upload your creation to the Saints Row website for anyone to download, which is a nice touch, as I spent a ridiculous amount of time downloading and trying out several characters, ranging from celebrities, comic book villains, and the just plain weird.
After you made your character, you’ll find that the world has does not apply the rules of a standard sandbox game. Early on you’ll easily begin unlocking high powered weapons and vehicles, like UAV drones similar to the predator missiles in Call of Duty, military air crafts, pixelated tanks, and Mega-Man like blasters. Missions sacrifice difficulty for wacky premises. The missions will involve going inside VR computers, wrestling matches, taking over BDSM clubs, and more of this level. You won’t really care what the story is talking about when easily distracted by every mission’s unique and insane premise. It’s just a shame that there’s no option in the game that will allow you to replay this missions, because they would be completely worth replaying.
Completing these missions will earn you respect, which you can use to upgrade your character through damage resistance, more ammo, stronger gangs, and another endless list of options to long for this review. By endgame, you’ll be completely overpowered, leaving you more time to goof around than worry about dying.
Side activities will also have some lifespan, involving the player in destroying property with a tank, Jappanese game shows, and escorting tigers. It is a little disappointing, however, to see some of the side activities from previous Saints Row games not make an appearance a third time around, but it’s forgivable for what activities they were replaced with. Taking over gang strongholds is also back this time around, but in a weaker state. Unlike previous releases in the franchise that involved you taking over complex forts and areas, you are greeted with taking over small patch of land where a well-placed a grenade can take out 80% of the resistance. Most of these will last less than a minute, and could have had a little more variety in them considering the unique locations included in the game.
If there is one other thing to criticize of the gameplay, it’s this. Without stating any spoilers, there are situations in the game where you have to make certain decisions that will affect the story. Each choice comes with perks and items that will make the game progression easier, but in turn locking you out of other potential items, leaving you unable to access these items without resorting to cheat codes. It’s a little odd that this speed bump exists, considering that the rest of the game does not restrict you like this. If you don’t mind looking up some cheat codes though, this will not be a problem.
Volition makes well use of its licenced soundtrack, allowing itself to use songs at the most opportune times that will create some pretty terrific scenes in the game. I’m not going the spoil these, because they will put a smile on your face when you play through these parts. Out of missions, the radio station playlists are pretty good, leaving in enough variety that will make most people happy, and will include the option to make your own radio playlist with the given songs.
Overall Saints Row: The Third will provide a fun and enjoyable experience for anyone looking for something with no strings attached. There are a few misteps that the developers could have addressed, but it is hard to complain when faced with the wave of creative situations and missions the game can put you through. If you have liked a Saints Row game before, you can be sure that you’ll love this addition to the franchise. If you have no played this franchise yet, it would not hurt to consider a rental at the very least, as these kinds of games do not come very often.
