Silly and childish, Saint's Row: The Third is a great Game
Sometimes absurdity is a welcome distraction. Saint's Row: The Third is extremely absurd. From the look of the various gangs around Steelport to the activities from the opening bank robbery to the end decision and how it's handled, this is an absurd game. Saints Row has always been absurd though. Even with the mostly straight forward first game in the series there were still crazy activities like picking up hos from abusive pimps and delivering them into the assumed friendlier arms of the Third Street Saints where the hos would continue hoing. Taking Saints Row: The Third serious is a dangerous decision seeing how seriously the game takes itself. That is to say you throw jars of fart gas to immobilize assailants and club them to death with a giant dildo bat.
The story is loose to say the least. New city, new gangs to fight, zombie uprising, a paramilitary organization sent to clean the streets who look suspiciously like the EDF from Volition's Red Faction: Guerrilla, a senator obsessed with looking good, and a bunch of other nonsense. It's really just a pretext for the action and jokes though. There's some characterization, but it's mostly minimal. These aren't real characters like something out of GTA 5. These are a five year old's idea of what gangsters are like. There is a gang of computer hackers able to do anything regardless of sense like shutting off a helicopter through hacking magic. A pimp named Zimos who speaks entirely in auto-tune and talks about 'bitches' at all times. It's goofy and that's totally fine. Mostly successful jokes fill the writing and the situations inherently silly enough that, well, playing as a toilet in a virtual reality sim is something to behold.
The meat and potatoes of the game remains shooting loads of rival gangsters, cops, furries, and a myriad of others intent on stopping the Saint's seizure of Steeelport. The shooting is fun throughout with accurate enemies that can keep you on the move trying to find cover through ducking and diving. Frustrating is that specialist enemies will often blitz with grenades or a heavy melee attack that will take off half your health and send you scurrying for new cover only to be gunned down by his cronies. To have this happen with regularity on some missions is more aggravating than fun. When the right balance is struck, however, and it often is, the combat is invigorating. Headshots and nutshots are rewarded with respect that levels up your character and unlocks bonuses that, when bought, confer bonuses like taking reduced damage from bullets, falls, explosions or sprinting forever. The driving is often imprecise and crashes happen no matter how short the drive. Cars are plentiful and extremely easy to steal as holding the sprint button and hijacking a car sends your character feet first through the window kicking the previous occupant out. Again, just absurd.
The various activities around Steelport are mostly rehashes of previous activities from the previous games in the series with a few new ones thrown in. There's the Running Man esque Professor Genki's gameshow that pits contestants against armed furries in a mad sprint to the end collecting rewards along the way. The commentary is what makes this however with the two hosts completely indifferent to the murder on screen making comments about how a shotgun may not be right for one of the hosts. Amusingly, Genki's gameshow always takes place in a dilapidated warehouse. It was easy to disregard the rest of the activities late in the game as money kept rolling in from buying proprieties to taking over territory from rival gangs by, of course, slaughtering their henchmen in special locations throughout the city.
For those looking for a good distraction from serious games, Saint's Row: The Third is a great sell. It's fun, irrelevant, you jump from a plane while Power is playing, there's a radio station of just Adult Swim music and Hulk Hogan is a phone call away. Plus you can play as a toilet.
