Saint's Row: the Third

This week, I thought I was going to review The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but it turns out that Skyrim is HUGE. And I also got sidetracked playing another fantastic game; Saint's Row: The Third. So here's a review of that instead!

STORY
Saint's Row: The Third follows the story of Saint's Row 2 (Duh), where we find the heroes from the previous installment as worldwide celbrities, with a brand that spans clothing, movies and energy drinks.
After robbing a bank owned by Steelport's "The Syndicate", the gang begin to question whether they've lost thier edge or not; while they fight for control against the 3 gangs that make up the Syndicate, for control of thier new stomping ground.

The game is surprisingly well written, with interesting characters and over the top, crazy story events. You could be having a mid air shootout, then flying a tank then driving a car with a tiger in the passenger seat, all in the same hour.
The only problem I've seen with the SR3 story is that it occasionally skips entirely past certain plot points. Also, you may find that it moves very quickly, with big moments being completely rushed over.

PRESENTATION
After only a few minutes of playing Saints Row: The Third, I could easily tell that there had been significant graphical improvements over Saint's Row 2. Animations look alot more fluid, and the entire world looks more detailed. The only downside to this is that the world seems a whole lot smaller than Stillwater in the previous games.

The voice acting in the game is generally pretty good, however characters that we kn ow and love, Shaundi in particular, don't look, feel or sound the same. It feels very alien. Daniel Dae Kim reprises his role as Johnny Gat, while Hulk Hogan and Sasha Grey have cameos as main characters; all of whom play their roles very well.

The game as a whole feels much more cinematic, with huge set pieces and self contained missions. Helping this are the scripted soundtrack moments where licensed tracks play in sync suitable story moments. They're some of the best uses of licensed music I've seen since Red Dead Redemption (beating Gears 3 if only due to it happening more than once). The radio stations also have a wide range of music, from Latino, to Rap, to Heavy Metal; and everything in between.

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay in Saints Row: The Third is more solid than ever, with vehicle and shooting gameplay being refined to a near artform. There's a wide variety of cars and other vehicles to choose from, all of which handle as well as one could imagine, as well as looking visually distinct.

There's also a wide variety of weaponry, ranging from Rifles and Handguns, to Rocket Launchers and giant purple dildo clubs. What elevates the weaponry over what SR2 achieved, is the large amount of customization options available to players.

Speaking of customization, the character creator has kept it's status as one of the best character creators in the industry. There are an uncanny amount of facial feature sliders, as well as thousands of different clothing combinations for you to really make your own Saint. The customization also carries over to your gang, weapons (as mentioned above) and cars.

The over the top-ness of this game is most certainly a selling point, if only because you'll be hard pressed to find a point in which you're actually bored. And if you find yourself with very few story missions to do, then theres a whole bunch of over the top diversions to accomplish.

The addition of the Awesome Button spices certain mundane tasks (melee attacks, carjacking) up, but the awesome animations tend to get a bit overused by the end.

REPLAYABILITY
Saint's Row: The Third is one of those games that will always be fun to play, no matter how far through the story your are, no matter how many actual missions you have to do. However, on top of this already versatile game is a new Whored Mode, which pits you and a mate up against wave upon wave of enemies, with increasingly crazy stipulations.

Add to that the large amount of collectibles and side missions, and you'll be set for quite some time.

OVERVIEW
With the immense customization options available as well as a crazy open world to cause havoc in, Saint's Row the Third is the gaming definition of Freedom. On top of the craziness, the gameplay and story are both surprisingly solid. This is a game that doesn't take itself seriously, but can quite easily stand up to the mega blockbusters of this gaming season.

Next week is most definitely Skyrim. Or maybe Assassin's Creed: Revelations. See you next time!