Saints Row: The Third - The Full Package

In Saints Row: The Third, you play the (male or female) boss of an alleged crime gang named The Saints in the fictional city of Stillwater. It is an open-world sandbox action game with RPG elements, essentially a shameless clone of the Grand Theft Auto series. Whereas GTA takes the narrative in a serious dramatic direction, Saints Row goes the opposite way towards the satirical and whimsical; a mix of hilarious over-the-top action, political incorrectness, obligatory zombies, outlandish aliens, and a large dose of ribald humour. When this game was first released, it received a considerable amount of malign coverage from well-intentioned social media for its use of excessive and gratuitous violence. It was even listed as one of the most violent games of 2013 by website commonsensemedia.org which had the following to say about the game: "Saints Row: The Third: This story about rival gangs revels in actions both depraved and violent. In an attempt to push the M-rating envelope, the game encourages players to go out and do bad things to innocents. They can take chainsaws to enemies, resulting in tons of blood and chunky flesh. They can drive into people with vehicles and use weapons including pistols, shotguns, grenades, rockets, and swords to destroy both enemies and innocent civilians. Players can also kill police. Plus the game boasts sexual imagery, drugs, and profanity." Given this glowing endorsement, gamers worried that this game is nothing more than a simple misogynistic murder simulator can rest easy. Saints Row: Third Third is really a sophisticated equal-opportunity murder simulator with multiple amusing methods to commit non-discriminatory murder and mayhem. There's sure to be something for everyone and fun for all the family. Although a console port, it is a competent one. In particular, mouse+keyboard works really well without the need for the modding or config file hacking that is endemic to bad console ports. Even for the driving/flying parts of the game, mouse+keyboard controls are responsive and precise. There are lots of vehicles and weapons to unlock, but some of the later unlocks such as Infinite Ammo and Invincibility can make the game too easy. Stillwater itself is large and fun to explore. Numerous side-quests, challenges, and opportunities for random violence provide plenty of entertainment in between main campaign missions. Sure the plot is stupid and nonsensical, but at least it doesn't go full-retard like the average Presidential campaign. Overall, Saints Row: The Third is funny, irreverant, and a great game. Which is fortunate, otherwise it would be called Saints Row: The Turd. An iconoclastic work of art, and a worthy purchase for anarchistic misanthropes everwhere.

Saints Row 3 tried to be better than 2...but failed miserably. When ownership and programmers change hands, it's the games that suffer. Somewhere along the lines, someone new to Saints development heard that they use dirty words and immature humour in the Saints Row games, so they turned 3 into a fart joke of a game. Swinging dildos at each other and running around collecting blow up dolls while giggling at swear words...In a series that once saw its heroes raising themselves up from nothing and overcoming the trials and losses of gang warfare. The story was weak for sure...BUT the gameplay was a brilliant escalation of the formula from 2. Faster and fancier cars, bigger and more devastating weaponry and maintaining 2 player cooperative play were all ingredients for another knock out sequel. Unfortunately, unmemorable missions and misuse of iconic characters began what was the first in a very steep downward trend for the Saints games... Enjoy SR3 for the gameplay only, definitely not the story...and don't hope for a redemption to the series from SR4. (The reason there wasn't a SR5!)

This is a really cool GTA parody with a nice comic style and good and fluent graphics. I found this game much better than the GTA titles I tested, because I always had technical problems with GTA titles and never couldn't play them to the end. Everything is included in this game: sex, drugs, rock n and roll, aliens, zombies and of course a princess to be rescued. The game is easy to play with mouse and keyboard. I also tried saints row 2, but stopped it soon due to bad button presetting. I think, saints row 2 is for gamepad artists. There is nice music in the game like broadcast station krhyme with good rap songs. Take a jet glider from your appartment on top of a scyscraper to your next mission. It's amazing. The difficulty of the missions is perfectly balanced and they varify in their arcade action. There is a wide range of weapons available. The funniest element in the game I found was a short old school dos text adventure in one of the mission about a unicorn. There is really a lot to be liked in this fun game.

This game is over the top and crazy, which is really quite fun, but the zaniness get bogged down by repetitive and, ultimately, unexciting game play. The story missions seem unique from each other, but the missions themselves are boring. A basic mission runs like this: Kill a bunch of stuff, drive/super-speed-run to the other side of town, kill a bunch of stuff. Killing stuff and driving around should be fun, but in this game it's just all filler. Enemies come in wave after wave after wave after wave after wave after wave after wave after wave (get it?) and it's just plain monotonous. Driving is fun, but in missions there are no obstacles from waypoint to waypoint which can take five minutes to get to, if not longer. So you're just driving, which is what you do most the time anyway. The following is an example from a real mission. You are shooting a movie (unique and fun idea). You jump into a humvee with an actress and she drives around while you shoot aliens out of the sky. Then she drives around while you shoot aliens out of the sky. Then she drives around while you shoot aliens out of the sky. Then she drives around while you shoot aliens out of the sky. Then she drives around while you shoot aliens out of the sky. Then, for a change of pace you have to make a jump across a river which you fail to do (funny!). The director yells cut and you do it again, but your character says something like, "I have a better idea," in which THE ACTRESS DRIVES AROUND AND YOU SHOOT ALIENS OUT OF THE SKY!!!!! That's my experience with Saints Row the Third. Now I've put maybe only five hours in, so maybe later on in the game it gets better, but I doubt I'll get much further when there are many more enjoyable game to finish in my queue. It's probably worth to pick it up on a sale, like I did, but in my opinion, there are better ways to spend your cash.

Here's all you really need to know: in one mission you have to save a captured friend to an endless loop of Holding Out for a Hero. You will not fail that mission. Bonnie Tyler will not let you. That's not enough? How about fighting gangs of luchadors and cyberpunk ninjas? Doing a job for Mayor Burt Friggin' Reynolds? Meeting a cast of interesting, quirky characters who don't blink an eye at taking orders from a huge crossdressing monster in clown makeup or a fairytale princess? How about a game that remembers that games are, first and foremost, supposed to be fun? If none of that interests you, then I don't know what to tell you.