Saints Row: The Third

After the heavy shit that was Call of Duty 2 I fancied a bit of rest and relaxation or in other words a completely crazy gaming experience that couldn’t be further from reality. Saints Row: The Third delivers this with aplomb.

Now, I’m not one to play games out of order normally and this is no exception. I just simply haven’t finished the other Saints Rows because they have multiplayer elements that I have not done. Also, Saints Row: The Third was lucky to even make it into the console to start with. As you may have seen, companies that discontinue content that disable achievements are not getting on my Christmas list any time soon. However, Volition and Deep Silver have gone a ways to repairing some of the damage.

There in an achievement called Jumped In which became unobtainable when THQ when under back in 2013. Their website went offline and this was required to get the achievement. Deep Silver spent the best part of a year trying to apply a fix and they finally did it in September 2015. This was the catalyst that made me play the game.

On to the game itself, you play as the leader of the 3^rd Street Saints who looks...exactly how you want him or her to look. I spent the best part of my play time as a girl but more on that later. The story follows the standard story arch of ‘fall from grace.’ The Saints have everything. Then they lose it all because some other crime syndicate tries to take you out. Saint’s Row main stay, Johnny Gat (who looks completely different) gets taken out at the start and the rest of the game is basically about avenging him.

Lots of wacky shit happens along the way which is all in the name of fun... but after a while it starts to wear a little thin. Everything is over the top stupid to the point where the main character can be on TV talking about robbing and murdering like it’s cool and something to aspire to. I’m all for humour, and the first ten hours is pretty funny, but after that it goes too far in what it’s trying to do.

The same can be said of the soundtrack and unfortunately, Grand Theft Auto, has the edge here. There doesn’t appear to be very much in terms of variety either and it’s all very underwhelming and disappointing. It does have the edge over Sleeping Dogs though, as at least the Saints Row radio stations actually play different songs instead of glitching out and playing the same bit over and over.

The gameplay is the main area of excellence. It’s very fluid with combat and driving and they link together well. I don’t recall having any issues with navigation, however the game does suffer from the age old problem of sandboxes where lampposts are made of paper and trees will totally wreck your car.

As you play, you can improve your character with abilities and you can actually do this to the point where you can’t die or run out ammo. I’m not sure how I feel about this as it’s a reward for playing the game but it also removes any challenge from it. I was grateful for this towards the end though, especially when things got totally fucking ridiculous.

Achievements – 1,300 Points – 80 Achievements

There’s nothing I like more than a load of easy achievements that provide fun and variety to obtain. That’s what Saint’s Row the Third offers and it’s also very balanced. There is an achievement for playing for 30 hours and it’s possible to get all of the achievements in roughly this amount of time. No overplaying, no underplaying. This includes the DLC missions as well but more on that later.

The base game has the very standard 50 achievement haul. There are achievements for completing the main story, getting all the collectibles and completing all of the activities spread across the map. The activities are normally the hardest part of the Saints Row single player experience but these seem to have been dumbed down a bit. The hardest one I found was the trailblazing activity which involves racing through checkpoints while on fire (standard) but even the trickier course only took me three attempts once I got used to the direction I needed to go in.

A lot of the achievements rely on you having to get lots of money, for example upgrading all of your weapons, upgrading your stronghold, pimping out vehicles and the like.

Another one of the more bizarre achievements is for playing 2 hours as a male and 2 as a female. Obviously, when I started the game I created a male character and as soon as I realised there was an achievement for playing as both sexes, I went and got a sex change from the plastic surgeon and played the rest of the game as a woman. This also comes with its own issues because there is a limit to how many times I can hear the phrase, ‘I’m always on when it counts.’ Knowing exactly what this is referring to.

There is only really one missable achievement at the end of the first act as there is a multiple choice and an achievement for each option. A strategic save before can allow you to replay the mission to get the alternate achievement but considering it’s earliness in the game, there isn’t a huge time cost for missing it.

The last achievement I unlocked was for completing all the challenges which is a total ballache in reality. One of the challenges is for taking 50 hostages and to do this you need to steal a car with a passenger in it. You have to search the roads looking for these vehicles and 50 is very excessive and repetitive. Another is for destroying 30 Emus which are pieces of shit cars that are also few and far between. I got this one done by grabbing one and storing it in my garage and then continuously blowing it up – boring but the quickest way of doing it.

Downloadable Content

There are three different DLC extensions to the game and in my opinion only one of them is worth getting. I mentioned earlier that after you have played through the game, it starts to feel really silly. The DLCs take this to the next level as well.

Gangsta’s in Space I can only assume is a joke. The Saint’s as gang members gaining celebrity in itself is a ridiculous concept, but to actually have you play out a movie based on the Saints finding an alien and trying to do... something? I don’t know. It was so stupid I stopped paying attention.

 

The Trouble with Clones was equally as dumb. Some idiot supposedly creates a clone of Johnny Gat and you have to track him down and save him or something? Whilst drinking Saint’s Flow, the Saint’s Row custom energy drink. Bizarre and over the top so I didn’t find it at all funny.

 The only one worth playing is Genkibowl VII as it offers some semi-sensible fun, in Saint’s Row terms anyway. You basically have to play through variable instances of Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax from the main game which just so happened to be one of the most fun parts.

So to sum up, Saint’s Row the Third offers 30 hours of play time of which about 15 to 20 will actually be enjoyable. If you are going for all achievements, the DLC will feel a like a poor addition. On the whole, I would say it is a solid seven out of ten and the average gamer will get to the end of the story before get bored/fucked off with the characters.