Disclaimer: Saints Row The Third is the only game in the franchise I have played, aside from like fifteen minutes of Saints Row 2, which sadly did not enthrall me into playing it further. Please keep in mind this post is going to be EXTREMELY biased and will most likely not provide any insights into the game from a critical point of view, nor con anybody into anything they don't yet know. Otherwise please enjoy.
Quite honestly, I have never been too hooked on the idea of open world gangster games. I remember playing the first two GTA games on my PS1 and just feeling awkward about getting paid for running over pedestrians and spreading havoc for no clear reasons. Which bothered me even further as the years went on and I had to listen to my friends, drooling at the very mention of every next Grand Theft Auto game that was to come. There was just something that didn't quite click for me about these games and I couldn't just exactly make out what that was.
To not overburden you guys with my backstory, I'm going to be as short and sweet about how I came to the point of playing Saints Row The Third. Now thanks to an amazing video game history related class I took during the past term, I had to ditch my bad habit of bitching about contemporary video game industry without actually throwing myself into it. I zoomed through several top whatever lists of the best video games of all time and it appears as though there can never be a complete list without at least one GTA title. I thought if that was the case, then perhaps I must have been terribly misguided by whatever lens I had looked through those games in the past. I picked up a copy of San Andreas, launched it on my barely brand new GTX 750 and... yeah, I thought it was an okay game, with Samuel L. Jackson's voice acting blowing me off the rails.
But... that was quite it. I thought it was an alright game and I perfectly understood the boner that millions of players around the world had for this game. It's just somehow I felt like I was becoming too old for video games -- I simply couldn't find any fun in them anymore, nor could I appreciate the production value as much as I should, or could have in the past. It's as if ever since I graduated from high school, I could no longer force myself into actively "wasting" time playing video games; like everything I have always loved about them, somehow drifted away and was no longer made manifest in the games I laid my hands on. I felt as if there was me; and in front of me, an ocean of amazing ten outta ten's that I had no interest in.
Every time someone mentioned a game they played for an awesome story, I just thought of a good movie I could watch instead. Every time someone mentioned astounding graphics, I would just think of digital artists that I look up to and attempt to replicate during hours of anatomy studies. And when someone mentioned remarkable gameplay, I just couldn't shake off the feeling that everything I craved for in video games was already done somewhere. Even to this day I've got a soft spot for many old school Play Station 1 games; and replaying them over and over again is my dirty little guilty pleasure.
One evening I thought it would be cool to look up video games that allow you to create your own character, since that it is something that can at least spark a tint of creativity; and tickle you in many interesting ways, seeing as to whatever you can do as this creation that came from under your fingertips. With this in mind, and a deeply enroot indifference towards the franchise, I bought Saints Row The Third on GOG and set off to see what it can offer...
I have to admit, the starting section of the game left me quite confused. It was hilarious listening to the cops talking about the autographs and I already had an impression of how tongue in cheek the game would in overall be. Which was for the better; I loathe games that try to make you care for something way too badly as I'm usually very hard to impress. I also thought the overall presentation was a bit confusing but I was perfectly willing to look past it.
Then, the character creation.
Holy. Fucking. Shit. So many options. It was almost hilarious to think anyone would use a template in a game that allows you to mangle your character's appearance in so many over the top ways. It was a little bit disappointing to have only three voice presets for each sex, but I stayed with the Female 1, and as it would turn out, Laura Beiley's voice talent would become the perfect possible fit for the character I've envisioned.
Then the first cutscene with my heroine already starring in it. I almost fell off my chair, listening to the dialogue and looking at the characters interacting with each other. Of course this was just a start, but a really well executed start none the less, and already hyped me for more action to come; the plane section left me completely out of breath, but that was in the developers' minds to achieve. A ton of production value was put into it, so that we would be excited to carry on with the story. I finally got to dress my character as I saw fit, even though the daze that the abundance of clothing options left me with is a story for an another paragraph.
I think where the game really bought me was during the attack on the Syndicate Tower. When that Hybrid's song Dogstar started playing in the background, it was like a dream that came true, and despite the negative reviews out there, claiming the game doesn't hold up after these first two hours or so, I actually liked the game more as I kept playing on. Watching the very character I had created and adjusted with tons of custom clothing, doing tons of batshit crazy things alongside fantastically written characters was breathtaking; and truly inspiring at that.
You know all these 4chan discussions about anime or movies, with people constantly 'discussing' whose character is the most awesome, the most sexy, all that crap. I love doing that; deliberating over fictional characters in parallel to reality is like my favorite hobby. And I feel almost odd feeling that the character I love the most in Saints Row The Third is... the Boss, the character I have envisioned on my own. The way that Saints Row accomplishes the task of making your hero the badass of the story is truly remarkable and enticed me beyond my acknowledgement.
This is, of course, a very subjective POV. Obviously a value of this sort would not be enough to carry an otherwise broken and poorly designed game, and I believe for whomever this isn't the main source of attraction, Saints Row The Third would feel like an average game. People love to draw these parallels between this franchise and GTA. And honestly, as much as I would like to actually enjoy the other series, I just cannot make myself do it. The genius game design that allows you to write your own story of badassitude, challenges you to role play and think beyond just the mere scope of the video game. The voiced character easily becomes a part of the story and holds up to what you would expect from them. There is always something crazy going on and you are more than willing to jump onto the wagon of the Saints' adventure in Steelport.
But goodness me, I haven't even talked about everything else this game excels at.
Overall, the aesthetics of the game are perfect for the kind of gameplay the staff at Volition conceived. It's no mystery that Saints Row The Third does not take itself overly seriously, and this is how the game manages to get away with what would otherwise feel dated in 2017. I just cannot stand it when a reviewer bitches about "graphics that look like PS2" or whatever. Yes, this might not be Resident Evil 7 or Witcher 3, but I don't believe it was ever supposed to be. The world of SRTT is bright, colorful, it almost has this candy, comic-esque touch to it. And it delivers with flying colors at that! It is not supposed to be your new go-to, triple A gangster drama, but rather -- a softly-hearted superhero fantasy, with a little bit of insanity put for good measure. The graphics are so much more than the digit on your VGA, and unless we understand it, we are going to have a hard time noticing the effort put by artists working at the gamedev studios. And while we're at that, I have to give some credit to the animation department. Even looking at my character standing still, rolling her eyeballs, slowly tilting the head around the vicinity, is entertaining on a certain level.
However, you might be like, "duh, of course this game is awesome, what's the point of you gushing about it". The reason why Saints Row The Third succeeds, for me at least, is because of how well it tackles the idea of making you the hero (or the character you are role playing as). And I am pointing this out, because to me, no other game has ever succeeded at it that badly, even games with extremely extensive role play values like Fallout: New Vegas or The Elder Scrolls series. While you could argue that there is no real choice and the actions you are taking have no serious implications, it's hard to deny the story campaign -- while not remarkably long -- is where the game shines more than any other ridiculously extensive open world game does. Most open world games are kinda like a pretending game; let's pretend that you are the fearsome hero everybody recognize and cherish. That is simply not the case in the smaller, but well thought out world of Steelport, where your badassitude manifests directly through your explicit actions. You can compliment whoever you want; you can insult whoever you want, and the repercussions for this are going to be apparent right away. It's this very inviting and plug and play nature of this game that really threw me back to the past, where I could just sit back and love the game first, and only then seek to learn more about its lore, if I only pleased to do so.
This is where I also have to address some of the gameplay features that drew my attention. First off, the controls are extraordinarily tight and satisfying. I even remember the first time my character climbed over a fence and how awesome it felt. I wasn't even trying to figure out what I can or can't do, I just naturally sprinted towards a wall, expecting to jump over it, just because of how immersive the game was, and I did! How satisfying is that? Landing softly from greater heights by doing this sideway roll can be particularly joyous, because it more feels like something you've pulled off on your own (kinda like this soft landing in Mirror's Edge where you press shift right before you hit the ground). Quick-time events work quite well in this game; the beatdown can be especially gratifying!
Now, this post is getting a little bit out of hand and it probably looks like I'm trying to write a review more than an analysis. But to be honest, this isn't neither; I have obviously not played enough games in my life to give Saints Row a legit and thought-out analysis, nor I have enough experience to compare it to other titles in the series. Please do not think I am trying to trash talk any other game I have mentioned here, especially the GTA series. The Grand Theft Auto franchise is always going to stay on the top and there will always be tons of players, willing to purchase these games at their release prices. However, it feels like there is something much more creative and tantalizing about Saints Row than what you would expect from "a game about purple dildos". This is a work of fiction, with your very own artistic creation taking up most of the screen time, allowing you to have the game played the way you see fit. None of the side missions or challenges are obligatory; it's up to you whether you want to be a classy assassin with a tuxedo, who kills nobody except for the opposing gangs, or maybe a fursuit-wearing sympathizer of professor Genki, killing everybody in sight with your trusty annihilator and slapping pedestrians with a giant rubber shark. What makes Saints Row awesome is it invites for both of these types of players; whether you prefer it wacky or serious, pervy or restrained, one deagle or dual wielded -- it's all. Up. To you.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my little rant!
(No, I do not hate on GTA, The Elder Scrolls, or Fallout).
Quite honestly, I have never been too hooked on the idea of open world gangster games. I remember playing the first two GTA games on my PS1 and just feeling awkward about getting paid for running over pedestrians and spreading havoc for no clear reasons. Which bothered me even further as the years went on and I had to listen to my friends, drooling at the very mention of every next Grand Theft Auto game that was to come. There was just something that didn't quite click for me about these games and I couldn't just exactly make out what that was.
To not overburden you guys with my backstory, I'm going to be as short and sweet about how I came to the point of playing Saints Row The Third. Now thanks to an amazing video game history related class I took during the past term, I had to ditch my bad habit of bitching about contemporary video game industry without actually throwing myself into it. I zoomed through several top whatever lists of the best video games of all time and it appears as though there can never be a complete list without at least one GTA title. I thought if that was the case, then perhaps I must have been terribly misguided by whatever lens I had looked through those games in the past. I picked up a copy of San Andreas, launched it on my barely brand new GTX 750 and... yeah, I thought it was an okay game, with Samuel L. Jackson's voice acting blowing me off the rails.
But... that was quite it. I thought it was an alright game and I perfectly understood the boner that millions of players around the world had for this game. It's just somehow I felt like I was becoming too old for video games -- I simply couldn't find any fun in them anymore, nor could I appreciate the production value as much as I should, or could have in the past. It's as if ever since I graduated from high school, I could no longer force myself into actively "wasting" time playing video games; like everything I have always loved about them, somehow drifted away and was no longer made manifest in the games I laid my hands on. I felt as if there was me; and in front of me, an ocean of amazing ten outta ten's that I had no interest in.
Every time someone mentioned a game they played for an awesome story, I just thought of a good movie I could watch instead. Every time someone mentioned astounding graphics, I would just think of digital artists that I look up to and attempt to replicate during hours of anatomy studies. And when someone mentioned remarkable gameplay, I just couldn't shake off the feeling that everything I craved for in video games was already done somewhere. Even to this day I've got a soft spot for many old school Play Station 1 games; and replaying them over and over again is my dirty little guilty pleasure.
One evening I thought it would be cool to look up video games that allow you to create your own character, since that it is something that can at least spark a tint of creativity; and tickle you in many interesting ways, seeing as to whatever you can do as this creation that came from under your fingertips. With this in mind, and a deeply enroot indifference towards the franchise, I bought Saints Row The Third on GOG and set off to see what it can offer...
I have to admit, the starting section of the game left me quite confused. It was hilarious listening to the cops talking about the autographs and I already had an impression of how tongue in cheek the game would in overall be. Which was for the better; I loathe games that try to make you care for something way too badly as I'm usually very hard to impress. I also thought the overall presentation was a bit confusing but I was perfectly willing to look past it.
Then, the character creation.
Holy. Fucking. Shit. So many options. It was almost hilarious to think anyone would use a template in a game that allows you to mangle your character's appearance in so many over the top ways. It was a little bit disappointing to have only three voice presets for each sex, but I stayed with the Female 1, and as it would turn out, Laura Beiley's voice talent would become the perfect possible fit for the character I've envisioned.
Then the first cutscene with my heroine already starring in it. I almost fell off my chair, listening to the dialogue and looking at the characters interacting with each other. Of course this was just a start, but a really well executed start none the less, and already hyped me for more action to come; the plane section left me completely out of breath, but that was in the developers' minds to achieve. A ton of production value was put into it, so that we would be excited to carry on with the story. I finally got to dress my character as I saw fit, even though the daze that the abundance of clothing options left me with is a story for an another paragraph.
I think where the game really bought me was during the attack on the Syndicate Tower. When that Hybrid's song Dogstar started playing in the background, it was like a dream that came true, and despite the negative reviews out there, claiming the game doesn't hold up after these first two hours or so, I actually liked the game more as I kept playing on. Watching the very character I had created and adjusted with tons of custom clothing, doing tons of batshit crazy things alongside fantastically written characters was breathtaking; and truly inspiring at that.
You know all these 4chan discussions about anime or movies, with people constantly 'discussing' whose character is the most awesome, the most sexy, all that crap. I love doing that; deliberating over fictional characters in parallel to reality is like my favorite hobby. And I feel almost odd feeling that the character I love the most in Saints Row The Third is... the Boss, the character I have envisioned on my own. The way that Saints Row accomplishes the task of making your hero the badass of the story is truly remarkable and enticed me beyond my acknowledgement.
This is, of course, a very subjective POV. Obviously a value of this sort would not be enough to carry an otherwise broken and poorly designed game, and I believe for whomever this isn't the main source of attraction, Saints Row The Third would feel like an average game. People love to draw these parallels between this franchise and GTA. And honestly, as much as I would like to actually enjoy the other series, I just cannot make myself do it. The genius game design that allows you to write your own story of badassitude, challenges you to role play and think beyond just the mere scope of the video game. The voiced character easily becomes a part of the story and holds up to what you would expect from them. There is always something crazy going on and you are more than willing to jump onto the wagon of the Saints' adventure in Steelport.
But goodness me, I haven't even talked about everything else this game excels at.
Overall, the aesthetics of the game are perfect for the kind of gameplay the staff at Volition conceived. It's no mystery that Saints Row The Third does not take itself overly seriously, and this is how the game manages to get away with what would otherwise feel dated in 2017. I just cannot stand it when a reviewer bitches about "graphics that look like PS2" or whatever. Yes, this might not be Resident Evil 7 or Witcher 3, but I don't believe it was ever supposed to be. The world of SRTT is bright, colorful, it almost has this candy, comic-esque touch to it. And it delivers with flying colors at that! It is not supposed to be your new go-to, triple A gangster drama, but rather -- a softly-hearted superhero fantasy, with a little bit of insanity put for good measure. The graphics are so much more than the digit on your VGA, and unless we understand it, we are going to have a hard time noticing the effort put by artists working at the gamedev studios. And while we're at that, I have to give some credit to the animation department. Even looking at my character standing still, rolling her eyeballs, slowly tilting the head around the vicinity, is entertaining on a certain level.
However, you might be like, "duh, of course this game is awesome, what's the point of you gushing about it". The reason why Saints Row The Third succeeds, for me at least, is because of how well it tackles the idea of making you the hero (or the character you are role playing as). And I am pointing this out, because to me, no other game has ever succeeded at it that badly, even games with extremely extensive role play values like Fallout: New Vegas or The Elder Scrolls series. While you could argue that there is no real choice and the actions you are taking have no serious implications, it's hard to deny the story campaign -- while not remarkably long -- is where the game shines more than any other ridiculously extensive open world game does. Most open world games are kinda like a pretending game; let's pretend that you are the fearsome hero everybody recognize and cherish. That is simply not the case in the smaller, but well thought out world of Steelport, where your badassitude manifests directly through your explicit actions. You can compliment whoever you want; you can insult whoever you want, and the repercussions for this are going to be apparent right away. It's this very inviting and plug and play nature of this game that really threw me back to the past, where I could just sit back and love the game first, and only then seek to learn more about its lore, if I only pleased to do so.
This is where I also have to address some of the gameplay features that drew my attention. First off, the controls are extraordinarily tight and satisfying. I even remember the first time my character climbed over a fence and how awesome it felt. I wasn't even trying to figure out what I can or can't do, I just naturally sprinted towards a wall, expecting to jump over it, just because of how immersive the game was, and I did! How satisfying is that? Landing softly from greater heights by doing this sideway roll can be particularly joyous, because it more feels like something you've pulled off on your own (kinda like this soft landing in Mirror's Edge where you press shift right before you hit the ground). Quick-time events work quite well in this game; the beatdown can be especially gratifying!
Now, this post is getting a little bit out of hand and it probably looks like I'm trying to write a review more than an analysis. But to be honest, this isn't neither; I have obviously not played enough games in my life to give Saints Row a legit and thought-out analysis, nor I have enough experience to compare it to other titles in the series. Please do not think I am trying to trash talk any other game I have mentioned here, especially the GTA series. The Grand Theft Auto franchise is always going to stay on the top and there will always be tons of players, willing to purchase these games at their release prices. However, it feels like there is something much more creative and tantalizing about Saints Row than what you would expect from "a game about purple dildos". This is a work of fiction, with your very own artistic creation taking up most of the screen time, allowing you to have the game played the way you see fit. None of the side missions or challenges are obligatory; it's up to you whether you want to be a classy assassin with a tuxedo, who kills nobody except for the opposing gangs, or maybe a fursuit-wearing sympathizer of professor Genki, killing everybody in sight with your trusty annihilator and slapping pedestrians with a giant rubber shark. What makes Saints Row awesome is it invites for both of these types of players; whether you prefer it wacky or serious, pervy or restrained, one deagle or dual wielded -- it's all. Up. To you.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my little rant!
(No, I do not hate on GTA, The Elder Scrolls, or Fallout).
