Quick Look: Saints Row: The Third - The Full Package [Switch]

Jesus, this thing does not hold up in 2019. On top of that, this seems like a shitty port that looks and runs like trash. I wonder what made them put this out.

@doctordonkey: It's a shitty port no doubt, but as far as holding up I dunno. It was a great game at the time that did a lot of things open world games weren't doing. Some games just don't really need to hold up I guess. There are plenty of games I remember fondly but I have no desire to go back to and play today which doesn't invalidate their influence at the time.

Too bad Dan didn't show off more missions. The open-world goofiness is fun, but there is better humor in the missions.

"what do you mean by nitrous?"

Abby sometimes scares me with her questions. Also good at making me feel very old.

Also, this game looks rough. Is it the Switch version or is this the way the game was? Nostalgia is a cruel mistress

Abby, you know who keith david is. If you didn't before the film and 40's, and still don't- you watched him in They Live. I am also still surprised as young film graduate, somehow Keith David isn't immediately recognizeable by voice, name and swagger. And one hell of a voice. Commercials, movies, games, game trailers, voice work all the damn over the place, you name it.

Anyway, painting a target on my back with this heresay,but have some more. Saints Row 2 was a good balance between absurd and GTA, where you actually had so, so many more options for things, including stuff with car and character customization that 3 did not, and I remember being dissappoitned by how far removed they went. In SR2, gameplay was tigter and more grounded, and this is opinion and taste, but I disagree with the staff on the 'tone' of the games being a linear improvement over gameplay complexity, Wacky doesn't mean substantive and 'lots of stuff' at the loss of certain gameplay fidelity had me actually pretty bored with 3's nonstop joke chatter even if I enjoyed a lot of it. A lot more than any borderlands brand of obnoxious silly. In short, SR2 had a lot of intentionally stupid in it, with a lot of small but fun details like walking around and drinking a 40 whenever you wanted. The cars wre better in 2 as far as driving, and overall, the humor in 2 actually worked better for me playing up the stupid in a context still somewhat realism based. That is what makes slapstick work best, when normal situation disrupted by unexpected gratuity- this is a subtlety that 3 did not have and instead went full on obnoxious all the time and ditched the idea of your input having any negative consequence. I totally get why that's fun for people. but I liked SR2's balance between real world and adult-swim world.

Now that I think about it, I remember groaning every time my friend wanted to play 3, after we both loved 2 so much, and it always came down to how long could I play before getting bored of lack of challnge in favor of jokes that sometimes work, sometimes don't. And that is the stoy of why SR2 is my favorite, the end. Also this port looks bad but whatever if this is the only GTA game set you get for switch, hell, take what you can get right?

@ybbaaabby If you're interested in listening to the Skyrim Vs. Saint's Row GOTY discussion, it starts around 3 hours & 2 minutes in: https://www.giantbomb.com/shows/giant-bombs-goty-2011-deliberations-day-five/2970-17391

Don't really mind how poor of a job Dan did running this QL cause it seems like the port is also utterly not good.

3 is easily my least favorite of the games in the series I've played (2, 3, 4). 2>4>3 imo.

And Saints Row 3 totally is lolsorandumb humor, thats why it was so disappointing compared to 2.

(BTW Yakuza 4 is way better than Skyrim or this)

"Björk's Faygo"

Thanks, Dan.

I enjoyed the base game of SR3. My problem with it now is my problem with SR4. They went so hard on DLC and just threw a billion wacky things into it and turned all the sliders way up that it stops being fun for me. It does veer strongly into the dumbshit internet meme "zomg so randum xD" performance and that's all Dan showed in this QL. When you've got all the DLC and cheats unlocked, nothing matters and you're just overwhelmed with nonsense. Everything clashes super hard. Sure, some of it is still funny, but it just becomes hard to appreciate the game because it suddenly had severe ADHD. SR4 was worse because it starts at 11 which meant it got boring a lot sooner.

Also, never cared for the Professor Genki shit. It's very much a South Park style "haha Japanese TV shows are kuh-raaayzee" kind of joke that isn't actually clever or funny at all but instead just makes me constantly ask myself "is this racist?"

@garwalk: it's stupid but it's not racist lmao what the fuck

That looks fucking awwwwful. Was this optimized on a potato? I think this might look better on the PS3 wtf

@stanleypain: what? I feel like he 100% admits that he just also has fucked up admiration for it and will continue to support it in spite of that

Not even that big an SR3 fan and I know it should have beaten the bad Elder Scrolls game.

"Don't look up Plane Ride From Hell" - Dan

30 minutes later...

Hey I kind of like Brock Lesnar, seems like a normal dude.

The fact that this and Skyrim had such a contentious showdown will always baffle me. The disclaimer here is that this site has always been personality driven, and to that point I'm all for whatever happens because I truly enjoy the staff and the unique take they bring to GOTY whether or not I agree. I've never cared much for the Saints Row series, though I've played enough of them all to agree with the majority on which ones seems to be better than others and that 'Gat out of Hell' is essentially a criminal offense, but they've always been "shittier GTA" after I'd already grown tired of Rockstar's sense of humor and gameplay. I enjoy the genre enough to give them a go each time (typically if a friend buys them or when they're on PS+ or GWG), but what Skyrim was to me personally, and even considering the impact it's had on the industry in general, I'll never be able to actually understand the argument here.

2011's actual game of the year!

The base game (without all the extras) is on Xbox Game Pass. I downloaded it because this made me a bit nostalgic and I wanted to see if it ran this badly. It does not run this badly. Not even close. This Switch version is a travesty.

Anyway, the game is still pretty fun. Some of the jokes are still good and some are not. You know, like you'd expect.

This! I tried watching this video from the mindset of someone who has no idea what Saints Row is and it was impossible to follow :p

Is it just me but this looks ugly and like it runs bad, yet they did not really mention this. weird

@ybbaaabby HAS to play this game... SR3 does comedy better than any game I've ever played while also being the most fun.

This is an old game, I'm sure the Switch can deliver better looks than this.

Because this looks pretty bad.

i think if they really wanted to sell abby on this they should have shown her the opening, where you rob the bank and then ride the safe through town, or the second mission with the free-falling firefights and the part where he jumps into the plane and shoots everyone as he's freefalling through it

The campaign for this game is A+. They know what they're going for and they absolutely nail it.

Wait, they're asking how many dollaroos for this? hahaha!

@dasakamov: She did an interview with The Nerdist years ago and was really interesting. Was promoting her novel.

The first game was good at the time but SR2 is when it become great and 3 is the peak. I loooooooooooved SR3. I never liked SR4 though. I would like them to make something like a mix of SR2 and 3 in tone. SR4 is a super hero game rather than a gangster game. I might be alone in this but SR is much better than GTA. GTA is so boring. Even GTA5 felt like it was made in a pre SR era. It felt like playing a PS2 game or a game made in a world where SR never existed.

It's definitely pretty rough when you see the Switch ports of Dragons Dogma, Skyrim, Dark Souls etc. Reminds me of PS2 versions of early PS3 games.

All these things and this crap seem very much like publishers rushing to put something on the Switch. And for some reason they don't care enough to at least make it look better than it did on those consoles from a decade and a half ago

Keith David was in Saints Row 4. I feel like the GB crew tends to associate a lot of the good things from SR4 with SR3.

I didn't much care for SR3, it was like a giant downgrade from SR2 imo with way fewer things to do and forcing you to do side activities to get through the story basically.

@stanleypain: Oh that's sad to hear. :(

Unpopular opinion:

I like Saints Row more than GTA.

Also i Hope they make a new one or a Otter Game like SR3

@barrock: I didn't know that, thanks! I'll definitely look up Sasha Grey's Nerdist article when I get the chance.

Imagine how cool would it be if they remastered the first SR's (the second one is my favourite: https://rawg.io/games/saints-row-2) for the Switch?

SR3 is great and everyone whining about it in the comments is wrong. Also SR3 > SR2, and the Saints Row series > GTA. :)

As for this port, it does seem pretty poor, but patches should smooth some of it out. Probably won't ever have consistent FPS, but it's the only portable SR3.

Also, while SR3 was my personal GOTY of 2011, I'm not upset about it not being Giant Bomb's 2011 GOTY. I get the argument for Skyrim.

I'm one of those people that LOVED SR2 and lost interest in the series with 3. The goofiness is well appreciated but I found them not fun to play anymore. Would be cool if they had done a full collection remaster. I think the world wasn't ready for SR2 at the time so it went under the radar. Doesn't help the PC port is garbage. Would love to be able to replay on current systems.