After seeing how bad Saints Row 2 was, I wasn't exactly the most excited to play this one. I will admit that. But seeing how much all my friends have loved this game, I did have some hope for it, so when the dice picked it, I shrugged and installed it... kinda. You see, I've been sitting on this version of the game for a long time, but a lot more recently Epic had given away the remastered version for free and I picked it up as a free upgrade. I had tried to play that version first, which turned out to be a disastrous mistake since that version would freeze solid every 20 minutes, forcing me to completely reset the PC. After doing this twice before I even reached the city, I gave up, uninstalled that version and began the download of the original release. I don't think I missed out on much, however, based on what I had seen. I still had an absolute blast.
Story: It's the big-time, baby! The Saints are back and they are the rock-stars of the gangster world! Fame, money, groupies, hell even a movie in the works, the world knows and loves them! But that does not mean they have left their criminal ways behind. Quite the contrary, the two have just sort of meshed together as they are taking a method actor set to play in that movie with them on what should have been a routine bank robbery. Armed for bear and dressed in your best "bobble-head-like" costumes of Johnny Gat (who's previous crimes have made him the face of the gang), you march in like you own the place, even signing an autograph or two before the action begins.
But what should have been a routine snatch and grab (with a little extra flash) turns ugly both due to the actor messing up and this particular bank belonging to "The Syndicate," a large criminal organization with the money to spend on security teams that would make SWAT jealous. The end result: you are all jailed, at least for a while. However, the efforts in the heist clearly left a real impression as the one to bail you out is the head of the Syndicate himself, and he has plans for you and your gang. He wishes to have you join up and turn in the majority of your income. Of course you can refuse, but doing so means you are not going to leave that room alive. Suffice it to say, negotiations break down and after a harrowing escape, you are back on the streets, but not unscathed.
You have nothing anymore outside of your good names as the Syndicate has moved to freeze all your assets. You are in enemy territory as the city of Steelport you managed to escape to is under their control. But the absolute worst part of it all is Gat... in order to let you escape, he sacrificed himself. His death must be avenged. Go into Steelport and show them what makes you Saints!
After playing through this intro, the game opens up in about every way you can think of, from becoming open world (more on that later) to the sheer insanity that is going to happen in your quest for revenge/taking over the city from the rival gangs. The story itself is fairly straight-forward and offers little in the way of grand twists, but the moment-to-moment story-line is pretty madcap. If you can imagine it happening, it likely will in some form before you are done. And while I do not want to give anything major away, you will find the events pitting you against everything from armies of luchadores to furry mascots... and the events of the world being insane enough to make this seem normal.
In short, there is not a lot of meat on the plot-line bones of this game. What is here is simple, but is clearly on something, however, and you get to enjoy the trip. So sit back, relax, turn your brain off, laugh a bit, and have fun.
7/10
Graphics: Saint's Row: The Third is a game from a decade ago, and graphically it does show as the characters that populate the world do look dated. They don't look bad, but you notice in things like the hair and the coloring used on some of them which stick out immediately compared to the games of today. But it doesn't take long for these details to fade into the world as you absorb the city itself which actually looks really good! The art is fairly clean and while the style is realistic for it's time, it really stands out with the absolutely absurd parts of the city like where the major ammo stores alway have fire shooting out of the roof or the more obscene buildings for strip clubs that even the excess of the 80s would have blushed at. The whole city just oozes it's own character and if you are the kind who likes to take it in, you will enjoy what is here.
The only thing that you never really get over is the frame rate. While the game itself ran at a perfect 60 FPS for me the entire time without breaking a sweat (my monitor maxes out at this so that's what I run things at), the video cutscenes ran a a capped 30 FPS, making them rather jarring every time they play, which is rather weird considering the tech involved. If these were simple cut-scene videos, I could understand. After all, the vids are pre-recorded at a specific frame-rate and the game was made to run n consoles of the time, so 30 FPS would make sense. But the sheer volume of customization for your character all but ensures these videos have to be in-engine like the rest of the game to accommodate for this. I can not for the life of me understand why at such a setup they would put this limit on them.
And can we take a second to appreciate just how much custom work goes into this game? You expect an open world to have some room to change how you appear in the form of your armor or weapons and the like, but this game lets you do it all. There is nothing you can have in this game that you can not truly make your own, be it your cars, your weapons (via upgrades), what crew members you have, and even your clothing and details about your own character. It's all up to you with many options available right away and building more of a library as you take over the town... and every one of those details fits the world magnificently.
Yes, as I've said before it has aged, but this much customization fitting and working well together is fantastic in it's own right and should be noted.
8/10
Sound: But the real star here is the sound. Sound effects are descent but nothing that's going to stick with you, so don't look there to see why. The voice work fares much better here and much like the custom work of the graphics, I have to give special props here well. This game is fully voiced, right down to the small background details of the world. This includes your own character who has several possible voices which can easily effect how they interact with everyone else. And yet when your in a conversation with anyone else everything flows together better then more recent games without voice acting at all, AMAZING job!
But even this is outdone within the game, and that is by the sound track. Simply put this is not something you are going to see often as the publisher put up the money for a LOT of licensed music. Most people will remember specific moments like when early in the game your character and one of your buddies drive around town singing (badly) to "Lovin is What I Got" or parachuting into the headquarters of a gang to "Power" by Kayne West for as long as they continue the hobby. Hell, even I have a moment like this in this game that finally puts competition with Jhonny-5 in Short Circuit 2 as to who truly owns the song "Holding Out For a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler.
But for how much these moments are loved by me or others, the game's true strength is shown here in the radio of the various cars you drive. At first it looks reasonable, giving you several channels you can pick between and covering a variety of tastes (and kinda amusing that there is one just for Adult Swim music), but there are additional hidden ones you will find when you steal specific cars. These are not available for you to pick and just exist to add additional character to that vehicle, and it works flavoring the world that much more. Between volume of music and where it's used this is an absolute masterpiece of DJ work for the ears. Enjoy this!
9/10
Gameplay: Saints Row: the Third, much like the games before it, is an open world game in which you play a member of the gang the The Third Street Saints as they gain power and slowly take over the city you find yourself in. In this case, you will find yourself playing the current leader, often nicknamed "Boss" by the others, with the goal of establishing your band of merry mayhem makers where the competition for territory is already fierce and hotly contended. Add to that that the gangs have been told to take you out specifically when given the chance and that you have to start from scratch and this will be no small feat.
As such you will need a way to organize your adventure and keep track of your actions. Enter your cellphone. This thing has everything from tracking the challenges you have completed, tabs of people you can be hired to kill or cars to steal, to a list of current missions you can select to start up if you feel you are ready to move the story along, even channels you can change the availability of when you are in your car. This thing has everything and every function will come in handy in the adventure to follow. If this sounds intimidating, don't worry about it. The game's natural flow will lead you to try out everything you need to play as you play the opening levels. However, if you want to explore all it has to offer, it's all at your pace, so feel free to take your time and explore or plunge right in.
Still that phone is only supporting the meat and potatoes of the game: those story missions. When you select one you will be given a location to reach on the map while you talk to another gang member on the phone, either called up to go meet them or you initiating the contact. Get some wheels and make your way along the city, pulling stunts like driving on the wrong side of the road or dodging cars (or trying to wreck them if you desire) for a little extra reputation points before you reach the mission. Then it's off to do whatever crazy mission you have to do, and that will vary heavily. Anything from stealing a supercomputer to driving as fast as you can with a tiger sitting in the passenger side of the car, to "playing in traffic" to toughen up. (No, I am not kidding about any of these, they are all direct missions you will play before you roll credits... and they are not the wildest you will play by a longshot.) And once you finish, you will be rewarded with a cutscene to progress the story, potential rewards (especially at the end of each act), cash and leveling bonuses.
I would not normally focus so much on the respect level, but the Saints handle this right this time. Unlike the previous game, it is actually a level point now, and not even one that will stop you from going to the next story mission if it isn't high enough. Rather, this instead unlocks access to special perks and abilities you can buy to enhance your prowess in the street which you will want to do. Things like more life, ammo, and damage reduction are yours for the taking provided you have the cash, bought the previous level of it, and have earned enough reputation to unlock it, letting you build your character as you like.
But if you rely only on the story missions to earn the resources you need to do it you will not be getting anywhere near the max of your build of choice, so expect to work on your side-hustle. How do you do that? Well there are a few ways. When you ruin the lives of other gangs, it will earn you some cash and respect, but until later on going on a rampage at a whim can be a very dangerous decision. And those road stunts will get you a little pocket change, but you are not going to be doing much for a while if that's what you rely on. Rather there are many varied side missions that will unlock for you as you explore the city and play. Things ranging from driving around the city on fire, streaking through the streets, or even the ever popular Professor Genki arenas where you are put through labyrinth of mascots to have a fire-fight for the entertainment of a live studio audience and to win fabulous prizes! It's all here, and you will likely find something you enjoy to sink some extra time in to.
In addition every once in a while you will get phone calls from locals who need help and arriving where you are called will start a hoard-mission where waves of an enemy will breath down your neck and you have to kill them all before leaving with all the notoriety this earned you (as well as the extra respect). And we do need to talk about that notoriety, as this is effectively the way the game decides how high on any faction's wanted list you are.... the higher, the more and the higher end enemies that group will sick on you. Plan where it happens right and you can REALLY orchestrate some chaos.
On top of this, the game offers a passive way to earn money as well in the form of property purchases. Like the side missions, the more you buy the more territory you control... it will not earn you respect, but every hour you will be given a salary, letting you build up even faster in the background while you actually play. It doesn't do anything that stops you from having to play through it all yourself, but it does make the grind easier, which you will appreciate in the late-game.
7/10
Bugs: While this game ran very well, it did not run flawlessly. In fact two major issues came up that need to be addressed.
- Crashes: These happened rarely. In fact over my 30 hours or so playing, it happened only twice. In both cases, I was in the heat of battle when the screen would go completely black before returning me to the desktop. I do not know the rhyme or reason as to why they happened but outside combat going on like the rest of the game, there seemed to be no connecting issue. Overall the game is VERY stable, but it's been a while since I've experienced a game crashing, and it's a first for this machine I just built.
- The AI gets stupid: And I don't mean the usual game-character dumb. This only happened once, but I had one of my allies straight up forget what she was doing and just stand there. This may not have even been a big issue, if not for the fact that the mission had a time-limit and I needed her to get in the chopper so I could fly us to the destination. Ultimately she was stuck between either killing one last guy on the roof with us or taking my entry to the vehicle as a hint like they usually do. It's EXEEDINGLY rare, but since the game does not keep saves mid-mission and checkpoints are not always great, this can ruin an evening when it does.
- Why won't you stay fullscreen? This is a much more odd issue, but whenever I fired up this game for the night, I could count on having to go to the settings and change the settings back from windowed to fullscreen. I have no idea why it wouldn't stay a full-screen game and I've never seen ANY other game do this, but here we are. Bizarre, but ultimately a mild annoyance.
Score: A solid game wrapped in over-the-top insanity. This is a combination where the elements are a lot harder to come by in the modern day, much less as one cohesive unit, but this game comes through! From a killer soundtrack expertly used, absolutely insane events (in game and in story) and as fully customizable as any game this side of slider-bars and meshing faces (even as in many cases, those are only skin deep), this is the kind of experience you just don't see too often anymore: a truly open world that is entertaining from start to finish. I honestly enjoyed just about every second playing this one, and as long as you can handle the humor without being offended, you will too.
8/10
System Requirements:
- 2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 2X
- 2 GB RAM
- NVidia GeForce 8800 or ATi Radeon HD3800 (320 MB VRAM)
- Please note: For multiplayer the GeForce card needs 640 MB of VRAM and the Radeon needs 1 GB)
- 10 GB hard drive space
- Windows XP
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
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