by Wisdom000 » Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:44 pm
Saints Row: The Third... the best most dissapointing game I ever played...
If you haven't played SR2, and loved it, then SR3 will be the best Sandbox game to come out since GTA: San Andreas, you will love it more than you love your own children, and everytime you boot it up you will have tiny orgasms in your eyes. If you haven't played SR2 and loved it, then don't bother reading the rest of this... go play SR3 and be happy...
If you, like me, did play SR2 and loved it... then read on... the game is still great, but its not as good as it should have been...
I should love SR3, and I do, I really really do... it was almost like certain elements of the game were added specifically for me. The cyberpunk stylings of the game including the hover bike, the VTOL, the futuristic motorcycles, full VR interface, hackers with glowing clothes... these were all things I had dreamed for years about seeing in a Sandbox game, and to have them show up in Saints Row, which had quickly become my favorite (or at least tied with San Andreas) game of all time, was like all my geek fantasies coming true (well, except including cybernetic limbs... but there is always hope). Hell, they even gave me a P-99 with a laser sight as a sidearm. So in the months leading up to SR3's release I was in a state of perpetual orgasm Sure I wasn't happy with the way they kept pushing the sillier aspects, and how the majority of promo seemed to focus entirely on nut shots, didlo bats, and Genki. But it was Saints Row, and I could ignore that for what was surely going to be the best game I ever played in my life... After all it was Saints Row, the game where customization was the key of the franchise, and they had been hyping up customization as well, telling everyone that the options would surpass SR2, and we would have new things to customize, like weapons and the landscape of the map itself... So while I grumbled at the juvenile humor, I literally could not have been more excited about a game unless the box somehow grew a vagina... the hype for this game was massive, and fans were frothing at the mouth to play it...
Unfortunately, in all the hype, in all the anticipation, no one out there could have possibly dreamed that all this was coming at a cost... no one would have ever believed that the Customization, the aspect of the Saints Row series that put them on the map, that set them apart and above all the other sandbox games out there, would have been anything but ten times better. When the Initiation Station hit we got our first glimpse of how foolish we were...
The Clothing Customization was a mere fraction of what it was. Clothing could no longer be layered, instead you had premade ensemble tops and bottoms, and what they gave you was ridiculous... Females had better choices than men, but then female characters always do, as they can wear anything. But overall, for both sexes, it was like the game designers wanted your character to look stupid. The same items are repeated as seperate items to pad out the selection, but then the worst of the items are each unique... there are like ten different animal mascot heads... and they all look stupid... why? Was the Furry Market really something volition wanted to cater too so heavily? We were told that cutting the layers was the price that had to be paid so that breasts could jiggle and coats and hair could move.. which almost would have been fine, excpet they immediately made the whole thing worthless (unless you play a female) by severely limiting the selection of the items that had "flowing" features... the coolest overcoat for example, forces you to wear a corset with it. It made no sense in the context that if we were giving up layers, then why weren't they giving us clothes we would wear? I mean everyone has different tastes and all.. but we could no longer even choose to wear our jackets open or closed... From a grpahics standpoint the clothes look good, really good... but so few of them are anything you would want your character to wear that it seems like wasted effort... again, if you could mix a match, or even if you just had the option to open or close or remove certain items (like the punk leather jacket that for some reason comes with a scarf, or the suits where it seems the only option is to either wear a vest or to have the jacket always be closed?) much of these problems would be solved...
Of course clothing wasn't the only thing that took a major hit... the majority of Tattoos in SR2 looked kind of silly (who the hell gets a tattoo of a wagon wheel?), but there were some cool ones, and there were a ton to choose from. In SR3 there are half the tattoos, and none of the really cool ones from the former games show up, however you can still get wagon wheels and now shark jaws on every part on your body (again... why... dear god why?). Oddly enough, I have seen tattoos on NPC's walking the streets that are not available, including a pretty badass tribal wing design on the chest or back. Similar nerfing has been done to piercings and jewelry, and they look more painted on than before.
While hair has improved graphicly, the options are lackluster, and the hair of the MC from the promo art is not available. So again, whats there looks good graphicly, just none of it is really to my taste... I finally settled in on a fairly normal hairstyle with a cow lick (called rocker or something like that), but I would much rather have had shortish wild or spikey slicked back hair... like the mc in the promo art... There is long hair now... but it looks kinda goofy and doesn't move right, and the hair with bangs and a ponytail pops in and out of the characters forehead...
On the plus side you can now give your guy or gal blue skin, green metallic skin, or whatever and you can make your pixelated junk (again... why) or tits bigger or smaller all by themselves... still no ass slider though. But no matter what, your male character will always have this cartoony bruiser look to him, with linebacker shoulders and muscles, even on the skinniest or fattest, least muscled settings, you always look like you are doing steroids. It doesn't look bad... in fact it looks great, but it doesn't provide for much variety either... the fattest setting is just kinda overweight a little, the skinniest setting and you still look like a superhero...
Dissapointment with customization doesn't end there either. Not only are their fewer vehicles (some of the removed vehicles being fan favorites like Zenith and Superiore) and I believe fewer save slots, (I haven't counted to be sure) but the customization options on them are fewer as well. Most cars you only get one body color option, and the majority of the ones that give you two body color options are still lackluster. Most of the decals have been removed from the game, with the Pheonix being the only sports cars with a decent decal... now decals are listed for many cars, but for most of them its just defrost striping on the back window that becomes nigh invisible once you add tint... and instead of just letting you choose between the colors by picking one, they give you seperate decals for each color. And no, you still can't customize air or watercraft at all (and boats and planes are severely limited in selection). Hydraulics and Spinners have been removed completely, but now you can put underglow on every vehicle. The spinners I don't mind, and the only car in SR3 that would really benefit from the Hydraulics is the Churchill, so I guess its a fair trade...
They introduced an upgrade system for weapons as a means of customization, but once you upgrade a weapon, you can never downgrade it again, so if you don't like the way it looks, too bad for you. You can upgrade cribs as well... but again, once you upgrade, you can never go back... its like this for all upgrades in the game, and there are many... most you won't care about as the upgrade works well and isn't something you would normally want to go back to, but there are plenty of upgrades most people would not want to play with on all the time, if at all... for instance you can choose to duel wield pistols or SMG's, but once you choose too do so you can never single wield again. You can upgrade to make your self immune to fire, bullets, explosions, and falling... but why would you ever want to as doing so pretty much takes every last bit of fun or challenge away from the game... All of this would have been brilliant if they had included a way to turn off the upgrades, but alas, no... and as such the experiment is a fail.
And please, for the love of all that is holy... why are there not optional control schemes...
In short, every single aspect of of Customization in this game has been a dissapointment... every customization feature from the previous games in the franchise has been reduced, in some cases drastically. It looks better, but in my opinion the graphic ugrade was in no way worth such a massive hit to the options... In my opinion, it was always customization that was the core of the Saints Row franchise, and to see it not only not improve, but get worse... makes little sense to me and seems like a kick in the teeth to fans.
Also gone is the ability to replay former missions or even the cut scenes.... another lost feature gone for no discernable reason... it didn't require any noticeable diskspace to add a toggle.. a simple menu screen to access them... but removing it cost the game so much replay value its unfathomable... so whatever you do, don't hit any buttons during the cut scenes or you won't know what is going on... and if you want to replay the mission or watch it again you have to start the game from scratch... yay...
The last gripe I have with the game is the unlockable vehicles... not only can you still not organize your garage (I have begged and begged for this feature to be added, as my OCD goes nuts everytime I open it up as see the jumbled mess that is my garage) but unlocked or DLC vehicles can not be deleted from your garage... at all... to most people this isn't a big deal, but to guys like me, sometimes we just don't want that shit in there... or at the very least if we could organize it we could place it where we wanted, so we didn't have to scroll through it every time just to get to the vehicles we do want... Again, this isn't a hard thing to add, doing so wouldn't take up any significant disk space, but not having just seems lazy. Its the same thing with the upgrades and mission replay.. not having the options for them is just poor game design, there really is no excuse.
Now that the griping is out of the way, I will talk about the positive aspects of the game... of which there are many... I have already stated that parts of the game seemed made specifically for me, and appeal to me in ways no other game can hope to compete with. The new vehicles in the game are bloody awesome... the new hicopters kick ass, the VTOL jet is the single coolest aircraft I have ever flown in any game outside of maybe Ace Combat... and the hoverbike is a close second. But really, my favorite new vehicle in the game is the cop car.. it looks like something from mad max, mean, intimidating, fast as hell, and can take a pounding... unfortunately no matter how dark you paint the car, the police decals are always slightly visible (even on the undercover version) and it could use a spoiler, but its still the baddest car in the game, and I absolutely love driving it. It was the first car I put in my garage, and the one I drive the most often... I steal one every chance I get if I am san wheels...
The city looks phenomenal... its not as big as I would have hoped, but its very dense, and very very busy. I hear a lot of people talk about the scale in comparison to Stilwater from SR2, but the new city seems every bit as large to me... my only complaint about the new city at all is that the waters are dead, as is the airport... boats don't cruise around, planes don't land and take off... its a small thing, but its noticeable... then again, maybe the water is just too cold for water fun time. Actually I have another complate... in that there is no day/night cycle... it just seems wierd. Its a minor thing though.
The city is so dense that its easy to get lost, but thats ok, because the new GPS system is phenomenal... arrows light up at all the side streets to keep you moving in the right direction. It makes driving at high speeds much much easier, as you aren't having to look down at the corner of the screen every few seconds... which always leads to wrecks..
Driving itself has improved... though I would prefer a brake to the "drift" button, as coming to a complete stop can be difficult sometimes... but the new game engine really shows off its muscle here with the driving. Especially the AI... the tether system for people chasing you in SR2 was broken, cars would ram you until you died, or until they themselves blew up, turning every single cop or gangster, or reporter in the city into a kamikaze pilot. In SR3, they still ram you, but usually they just pull in front of you or shoot at you... ramming you from behind and then boxing you in. It feels much more realistic, and much more badass... you can actually lose pursuers by driving well. I don't know if the driving was worth all the losses in options from SR2, but it is much improved and much more fluid.
The new characters are awesome... Kinzie especially... everyone wanted the boss to hook up with Shaundie after SR2.. but Kinzie is so much cuter, so much more endearing... so much less disease ridden (I love Shaundie, I truly truly do, she was my single favorite secondary character in SR2, and my third favorite in SR3.. but I wouldn't go near her hoohoo with a hazmat suit). In my head, the Boss and Kinzie Hook up... besides, in my head Shaundie and Pierce are a thing... but I am crazy and make up my own stories and I am digressing... Oleg is my second favorite in this game, I love hanging out with that guy, especially if I can make him fight other brutes.. its awesome to sit back and watch as the Hulk and the Thing go at each other... Pierce in this game is likable and funny, much better than he was in the second game where I really just kinda wanted him to die...Zimos the pimp is hilarious, and his interactions with the MC over each others real names had me rolling... The villians are ok, but the shining stars on the villians side are Kiki and Viola and Matt Miller.. Killbane and Angel don't do anything for me because they are wrestlers and can't take them seriously, even in the context of Saints Row... and Philipe Loren is just kind of meh... which was sad because he looked like a proper badass crime boss... no spoilers given, but if you have played the game you know he is really just kind of a punk...
The plot of the game was fantastic... but the story was a tad weak... if that makes any sense. The major deaths both to heroes and villians all take place off screen or are otherwise extremly anti-climactic, leading many to think, nay pray, that there is more going on and that those characters are actually still alive. Not to spoil anything, but even the ending leaves this very ambiguous... I am one of the ones who prays that the deaths of certain people did not actually happen, at least not in the manner in which we are shown, or not shown. Its not only the death scenes... the cinematic cutscenes have a very disjoined feel to them, and following whats going on can get difficult. In the end it almost feels like we are missing half the story, and the whole thing unfortunately comes across as rushed and incomplete.
The gangs kick ass... While I really miss the individual style of the Ronin, Samedi, and Brotherhood (especially their vehicle decals) the gangs in SR3 are bloody deadly... The Morningstar are the easiest to deal with, and grabbing their oppressors and Tornados is grand fun. The Luchadores are better than I expected (it helps if you think of them as paramilitary mercs and not wrestlers) and aggravatingly difficult, but the Deckers are by far the most dangerous... neither the Luchadores or Deckers have air support, but they don't really need it... and the Deckers are so awesome to watch as they come in all glowing blue that getting your sss handed to you by them is almost as enjoyable... until you get your hands on one of their rocket hammer thingies... then oh man is payback beautiful...
The game allows for some choices, and this at first had me very excited, as I was hoping it would mean I would have the choice to play the boss as less of a sociopath than in SR2. Sadly this was not the case, but the choices are still interesting, though I think most people will tend to make the same choices... get crib or get money, the answer is always crib. Money is never an issue really, I had a couple of million before I had reached the halfway point in the game and had spent far more than that on customization, ammo and upgrades.
While fighting styles are gone, and I was initially hesitant about all the nut punching and wrestling moves... I gotta admit... that shit is a blast... the only move I don't care for is the one where the MC poses afterwards, but the rest are pure awesome and really lend a cinematic feel to the fighting experience. I took out a biker gang in survival mode at first with nothing but hand to hand then switching it up to a baseball bat with nails driven through it... and it was bloody AWESOME!. I am not a proponent of the dildo bat, but I gotta say, if it were black or grey, and not veiny with a cock head and testes, I don't know if I would ever put it down... smacking people with it just feels... righteous! The floopy physics have me in quite a tasteful quandry... I want to hate it, I really do... and I try to think of it as anything else... but hitting people with it is so much fun I want to wet myself...
The activites are generally more fun this time around as well. I really miss fuzz, the races, and fightclub... but I most certainly do not miss towing or septic avenger or firefighting. The activities that remain are fun and challenging, without being mind numbingly difficult... Trailblazing and Heli Assault on SR2 were so mind blowingly difficult and frustrating on S2 that I wanted to pull out my hair and nearly broke my controller in half... in SR3 the difficulty has been toned down just enough so that they are enjoyable and not "find a programmer and kill them out of spite" hard. If you want to kick it up a notch play on difficult. Most of the diversions are pretty fun as well, with my favorite being vehicular torpedo... nothing like setting the cruise control on a trash truck and sending it barrelling into a police barricade....
In the end, as I said in the beginning, Saints Row: The Third is at once one of the best games I have ever played, and one of the most dissapointing... Only in the sense that it could have been so much more if they had not removed so much. The fan backlash for Grand Theft Auto 4 should have been ample warning that you do not remove content in a follow up release. I mean, losing the map size of San Andreas was bad enough, but with everything else GTA4 left out, its only saiving grace was it had the best story of any game I have ever played. So while the scale didn't exaclty balance and replayability was pretty much shot, it still left me with a pleasant memory.
SR3 isn't as much of a let down as GTA4 was, but the dissapointment is still obvious and heavy. The one saving grace is that we are told to expect 40 weeks of DLC, so hopefully most of these issues (mission replay, garage organization, dowgrading) will be fixed in a patch. Hopefully in the future when they release DLC, it will actually feature what people want from it (ie actually getting the nightblade outfit in the nightblade dlc). I mean I don't expect Fallout quality DLC (larger/new maps), but fixing the problems and giving us the rest of the story would be awesome, as well as of course new items, gear, and vehicles...
Regardless, SR3 is still immense fun, and while its not everything I hoped it would be, it is still an amazing game, and still tons of fun... with a few fixes it could live up to the potential and the hype. Play the game, buy the DLC, enjoy..
Oh... and please... add cybernetic limbs to one of the upcoming DLC packages... and a sleeveless version of the leather jacket (mad max/fist of the northstar style).... pretty please...
Anti-Organized Religion, Pro-Choice, Pro-Gun Rights with limits, Pro-Legalization of Drugs-Prostitution-Assisted Suicide, Pro-Gay Marriage,
is so fucking awesome. At one point they give you SUPERPOWERS! Super speed, indestructibility, super-strength and fireballs. I am cheating a little bit in that I am running around town finding all the gang locations and busting them up using my SUPERPOWERS! 
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