I like games that are crazy and unlike any other, but a game can only do so much crazyiness until it doesn't take itself seriously and is only desperate to stand out. Saints Row 3 didn't meet my expectations. I really don't like the presentation. The oversaturation of purple and other dark colours make the world seem gloomy all the time. Additionally, the game's dubstep soundtrack rubs me the wrong way. After finishing the story, I wasn't engaged enough to keep playing and participate in activities. Not that they were bad; the presentation of the world itself made me want to not be in it anymore. I think the characters and humor are the best parts of the game. The choice of radio songs are good too. Other than that, I despise the direction the franchise took with this game, artstyle and timeline wise. Tone it down. Craziness is fine, but sci-fi's where I draw the line.
The game was more advanced than I thought. I was expecting an arcade trucking game where you run away from cops, which the game technically features but not as you'd expect. They will almost instantly intercept you by placing barely visible spike strips. So it's not a lengthy hot pursuit or anything like that. The game lacks too many basic features, like seeing your progress and balance, so you don't know whether you're ready to buy. And the opponents are very difficult to beat, especially when it's essential to get first place in the beginning so you can begin to hire other drivers. Speaking of hiring, this is one of those games that just place you in the world without a tutorial, leaving you to refer to their instruction book. The driving feels good, but the presentation is so awful and puts me off.
I'm not a fan of vehicular combat racing games where cars use weapons; I prefer driving into my opponents. It turns out the game offers both kinds of gameplay and actually makes the vehicular combat part enjoyable for me. Not only because most of the weapons have silly names, but they are silly themselves. From making your car fart to vacuuming car parts from your opponents, it just didn't take itself seriously and that suited the game in my opinion. This is one of the few racing games where there are many pedestrians walking around that are interactible. You can destroy them as part of your mission goals, or just let them walk around and make them dance with one of your weapons. This seemingly small thing is pretty significant to me because it stops the worlds from looking like a ghost town that I'm driving in, and I think it's an underrated feature. There are a good number of unique vehicles that range from a minibus to a police tank, though you can only choose from two drivers. I'd prefer if you can also choose your opponents as your drivers. At first, I hated the handling as I slipped way too often. It was then until I realised this game's driving was different to that of other racing games. You'd think letting go off the gas would let you drive more pricesely, but actually, you'll spin out. It's pressing down on the gas that makes your car drive stable for some reason. So it turns out I got used to the handling and slipped way less frequently. And I also didn't like that other opponents were way more endurable than I was, even will all the upgrades. And they were heavier, so they had no problem pushing me into walls and wrecking me. I also want to add a critical bug that triggers the game to crash after chossing to restart an event. After doing research, it looks like the game has memory management issues with redoing an event. So going back to the menu and starting the same event from scratch will prevent the crash.
One of the best gang and open world games I've played so far. I can't complain about the good story, but what I like the most are the many fun side activities that are random and silly, and add a ton of personality to the world. That, and the silly physics that send people flying when you don't expect them to overreact to collision. What I don't like is that the PC version is messy and could use mods to stabilise the experience more.
