[REVIEW] Saints Row: The Third

Sean Saffari
(PlayStation 3 [Reviewed], Xbox 360, PC)

Do you ever wish you could live in world that encouraged you to be politically incorrect? A world where black was white and up was down, but in an endearingly perverse way? Well, Volition has done a fantastic job realizing my latter statements in Saints Row: The Third, the special, controversial twin of the much-esteemed grandfather of sand-box video games. The newest entry in the Saints Row series is the trilogy counterpart to The Godfather, but on acid, while channeling Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It’s basically a world I want to call home.

Back when the first Saints Row was announced, we were shown what looked to be just another Grand Theft Auto clone, an opinion negated once the full game was released. I remember being pleasantly surprised every time the game’s story delved deeper into serious gangster fiction, mixing a Tarantino-like cheekiness with a serious tonal quality, which made the player feel at home knowing who ever wrote the characters and story wasn’t just phoning it in, but genuinely working hard to deliver us something refreshing.

Saints Row: The Third carries on that tradition proudly; it takes characters we know and love from the first two installments and plunges them into mind-bendingly bizarre situations that manage to be exhilarating to play. In gaming’s biggest season, its particularly easy to get lost in the hype surrounding the Call of Duties and Skyrims of the world, but don’t be fooled by this game’s reliance on naughty humor because it has a genuine heart and solid gameplay mechanics to keep your valuable time well spent.

Not your typical first date…

At the core of this title are some very pleasurable gameplay mechanics. Outer aesthetics don’t carry much weight in life unless they’re backed up with genuine backbone of substance, a paradigm Volition knows well. The shooting is solid and addictive, the driving is reminiscent to arcade racers in the best of ways, and the story is well-written. The story missions were so engaging and unique, I found myself focusing on the game’s bountiful offering of distractions to keep myself from beating the main storyline too quickly.

There’s an RPG-like system built into the game which revolves around leveling your character up with respect. Respect was a mechanic which, in the past games, was used to unlock story missions, but now grants you access to upgrades like dual-wielding, having anything from your garage delivered to you, new abilities and outfits for your crew, and other random goodies. There’s also an economic system built in, receiving hourly payments depending on the amount of properties you own in Steelport.

If leveling your character or playing story missions aren’t on your mind, there’s a slew of activities spread around town to earn you some money and generally keep your cheeks sore from smiling. Maybe you’re more in the mood to catsit a tiger, give your cohort backup on drug deliveries or accomplish a morbidly amusing running-man style Japanese game show where you mow down furries? Not to fret, there’s plenty of messed up stuff littered around this game’s world.

Speaking of the game world, it’s rather empty when you put the other aspects of the game aside. Sure it’s pretty when you’re flying through the neon-lit city at night, or playing along with one of the main missions, but when you’re generally exploring the city streets, things become somewhat anemic. It’s a minor gripe, but worth mentioning after Grand Theft Auto IV did such a convincing job bringing its breathing world to life more than three years ago.

Who would look at an explosion with her around?

The games engine has been finely tuned as well as the character and car models are all looking respectable. There were a few glitches, however, that really bothered me. Glitches aren’t a big deal if they’re relegated to visual hiccups like the occasional pop in or quirky character animation, but when it actively interferes with the gameplay, it’s hard to forgive. Running around in search of a checkpoint for over half-an-hour to realize the game had actually glitched, rendering the player unable to complete the mission, is unforgivable.

Minor grievances aside, I’m happy to report that my favorite part of the Saints Row series, the story missions, are back and better than before. You start off breaking into a bank, a young actor shadowing your crew in hopes to pull of his part in the upcoming Third Street Saints film more authentically, and soon after are free-falling out of an airplane while engaged in a firefight. Things only get crazier from there when you’re parachuting from a helicopter with your crew (Kanye West’s ‘Power’ playing in the background) as you descend upon a rival’s penthouse party and open fire on anything that moves. One sequence that had my jaw on the floor was a gimp-drawn carriage street chase I was thrown into after raiding an underground BDSM club to find a chained-up pimp who only spoke in auto-tune.

Yeah, it’s safe to say you won’t experience the furry slaughtering, cop killing, naked-parachuting goodness Saints Row: The Third offers in competing game releases this season and that’s a good thing. This game knows what it’s doing. It takes it’s place in the game world seriously by delivering the exact opposite levels of gravity in its core gameplay and narrative. Any time a game can pull off these kind of low-brow hi-jinks sincerely and have me anticipating my next playthrough deserves some serious respect.