At this point in time, developer Rock Star Games pretty much not only had the market cornered, but had a precedent on vehicular crime sandbox games. Back then, their game "Grand Theft Auto" was kind of the "end all' with outrageous. Run around, pay a hooker, then kill them for your money back while you make off in your stolen car. It Really wasn't till a splinter company named Volition showed us a few boundaries that not even GTA had crossed. However, because of the history of GTA (that is, it came first), you can only really compare the beginnings of the Saint's with it's rival for perspective.
Saints Row
It was brash, in your face, and I loved every moment of it. Where GTA was confined to making games a little more realistic, Saint's was a bit in the opposite. The quests, the people, the weapons, the story, all of it was over the top. There were many facets of hidden amusement, it's really hard to talk about with giving away major spoilers.
Like GTA the game had quite a few of the same notions. An in game cell phone was how you communicated with quests. Gang wars in the streets and you capture zones. Cheat codes could manipulate the environment in which the game operated. You join a gang, you go and do gang stuffs. And then there's zombies, military, crazy bosses, and all sorts of wackiness.
But Saint's Row really raised the bar on how much a video game could get away with (much to the same effect as Conker's Bad Fur Day for the N64). There was, however, the downfall of the ending. It was pretty awful. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't Mass Effect 3 bad. It was expected, but fairly bad none the less. It also had issues with game mechanics as well. UI and character controls were clunky and some of the chase scenes were really difficult because of it.
Saints Row 2
To be honest, I couldn't make it all the way through Saints Row 2. It was a tough chew. The difference was that it took itself way, WAY, too seriously. It turned into a GTA clone more than anything else with nothing very surprising about it. Everything was droll and realistic and wasn't what I was expecting. It's only saving grace was that there were no limits on character creations. So having a girl with a giant Mohawk and a British rugby thug voice was pretty hilarious. Who ever did that particular voice was wonderful.
Saints Row 3
Developer: Volition Inc.
Console: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC, F-Yeah!
This. OMG this. Shake off the shackles of boring realistic gaming. This is just epicness. Saints Row 3 was just a sick secret pleasure to play. The shear numbers of customization with outfits (including the pretty funny fursuiting mascot options...still need tails but a minor want....) are awesome. Volition really didn't worry about keeping it too "real", which is exactly why this game is hot.
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| I like using "a different" melee weapon... |
The quests are crazy. There's so much insanity in this game it's hard to spoil any one thing. One point I love talking about is sky diving. There's this scene where you fall from an aircraft...and then you fall from a 2nd aircraft...and this time....in a tank. You skydive with a tank. A tank. With sky diving. A sky diving tank. There's throwbacks to pop culture like Tron. Weapons like the "Fart in a Jar". Hover bikes. Murder Bowl. So much stuff.
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| Typical firefight |
And something that is kind of amazing about it all is that the story stayed consistent throughout all the "over the topness". The conveyance of Saints Row 3 is smooth and nice while all the shit goes down around you. There was plenty to do and plenty to see. And topping this title is going to be very difficult in the future.
One of the major problems I had with the game was that I wanted more. Much like in Crackdown, they automatically limit themselves with declaring factions. There's 3 factions and thus 3 bosses. Game, Set, Match. I really felt that there should have been a bit more in length. It really wouldn't have suffered story wise to have a few more mini-sub bosses and quests along the way. The side quests were nice, but more story would have been absolutely wonderful.
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| Skydiving with class |
Something that I kind of would have liked to see, would be some sort of limitation on skills and abilities. By having it "open" it puts an artificial "end" to the game. What I mean by this is that the "end" of the game comes when the player has all skills. There's no real point in deciding which to get when or something. You get infinite ammo to all weapons, you can't be hurt by anything save for physics, all the gangs and cops love you. Game Over. Not literally but there's no expanding beyond that, it just "is" and you get kind of stuck with it. The character can't move forward as there's nothing to move too. There's a few options out there to alleviate this problem. One that is most commonly used is to introduce a skill tree. By selecting an option it blocks the selection of another. By adding a limit like this, it expands future playability. The player is able to replay the game over and over changing their options around to see how their character develops through specialization and such. Another option is to make the list incredibly expansive. There's a lot there, but a lot more extraneous things (like for instance a moon jump and many other aesthetic options as well). It's not a major issue, however.
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| Hey...hey...hey you!....Ba---BOOOM! |
Co-op was beautiful. To often is co-op handled poorly. Limiting players in game mechanics like camera or distance limitations from each other. This game, you join and do what ever you want. There were quite a few missions that were fun to be flying air support in a missile loaded helicopter while my buddy finishes objectives. That's pretty much it. This game is was just pretty amazing and fun to play.
Saints Row 3
Developer: Volition Inc.
Console: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC, F-Yeah!
Rating: 9 Bitches
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| F da po-lice with Kung fu. |
