Saints Row: The Third

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get hype

http://images.vg247.com/current//2011/05/SaintsRow-WinARimJob.jpg

Apparently, their promo event at E3 was a bikini car wash, which seems funny in other contexts but just skeevy here.

anyone tried the character creator? looks quite cool.

Been playing a lot of this. The cartoonish playground aspect of it is great. The writing is funny, but the characters don't matter shit.

Also, playing thru this, I cant escape this feeling that despite the fact that several characters are deliberately sexualized, theres not that weird misogynist/sexist vibe to the female characters that Arkham City had.

Yeah there's strippers and prostitutes in the game, but there's a heightened unreality to it all where that vibe doesn't jar as much as to what they had done to established characters in AC.

strangely, i agree. the game is so patently absurd you can't really take it seriously, while Batman has this deathly serious vibe to it (and well, they actually do try to have some character development, just not with any of the women)

this game was pretty awesome btw. not as fresh at SR2 felt, but i was still pretty impressed that they kept the craziness factor up throughout the entire main storyline, when these games tend to peter out before the halfway mark. I totally forgot about this thread, but dumped in like 20 or 30 hours? haven't really touched it since, though hopefully the DLC goes on sale later this year

kind of a letdown for me but I put it on hold until my pc can handle it better. thought the zero punct review nailed it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5056-Saints-Row-The-Third

not a bad point about there being too much wackiness (though come on, Genki was hilarious. do i really care that there's no backstory to it? does anyone?) and how that waters down the overall effect a bit, but i didn't really miss the "serious" moments from SR2, just some of the minigames that got chopped out were better than the ones that replaced them. (I really missed VIP protection)

there are plenty of games - in the GTA open world genre alone - that go down this dramatic, cinematic route, how can you blame Volition for completely embracing what gives Saints Row it's identity now? quite the opposite, there was no other direction to go in...

Yeah there's strippers and prostitutes in the game, but there's a heightened unreality to it all where that vibe doesn't jar as much as to what they had done to established characters in AC.

after a while i felt REALLY awkward about spending so much time shooting women dressed like hookers. bits of it were fun, but like SR2 it feels really cheap and hurried. burt reynolds cameo was a goofy touch, but i don't know... it feels like if family guy did a gta parody or something.

Yeah, just played the Murderbrawl mission. There is _NO_ way that'd ever show up in a GTA game, but the mission is so hyper-accurate it's hilarious, to the point where I could even name the moves used. This was probably my favorite mission of the entire game so far.

I wish the announcers would have the correct gender, tho. I'm playing a chick thru this game.

i am really starting to love this game - i dig srs game is srs business as much as the next dude but this is just so much more fun than skyrim and so on. is it ultimately going to be a quote unquote rewarding experience to think about well shit no but thats cool w/me

bulldog it, bro

gaming pc is down, can't play more sr2 right now, dammit.

this game is bonkers yall

DLC goes on sale on XBox Live tomorrow. Worth bothering?

the story stuff, sure.

hay i'm playing this!

my take is kinda counter to the general tenor of the thread, yeah it's 'Cr4zY', which usually rubs me the wrong way, but it's like it doesn't even matter. the pulpy nuttiness just reads like window dressing, and i can ignore it and just enjoy the gameplay, which is pretty good! whereas GTA (4 anyway) tried for something and kind of blew it.

let my try to say this another way: SR is a wholesale GTA ripoff, and the pitch is that it's more lurid, more violent, sexier, etc. but that's not the real meat, imo. there's just a shitload more to do! i kind of read the whole thing as a criticism of GTA: your game was boring! so, have more upgrades, more grinds, more side missions, more detail. gangs, territories, properties, hits, thefts, paintjobs, clothes, games, items. more more more.

fuck if i'm wearing purple tho.

i'm an inveterate grinder tho, so i see a map and a phone unfolding with all of this undone stuff and i'm just like yesss. who needs a 'main storyline'!

haha! this is true, all that stuff is pretty addictive. if you get really into this, you might even want to go back and play SR2, which had a totally different storyline, some different activities, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaBMty_YbSI

august.

judging from the superheroics, techno/decker's dive stuff, and glitched video at the end, I'm guessing the scuttlebutt that the Enter the Dominatrix DLC for SR3 being expanded to a full game was true.

this game is ass

apparently the protagonist has in this game been elected president? saints row 3 was amazing and i'm hype for this even if it is just overgrown dlc.

kinda psyched? it still looks like a themed expansion rather than a full-blown sequel

http://store.steampowered.com/app/206420?snr=1_41_4__42

pre-sale up. 10% off for SR3 owners, which is like $10 til Monday.

I'm not buying since I never pre-order(except for BLOOD DRAGON, which was WORTH IT), but there you go.

also, new trailer, which is described by Jeff Gerstmann as follows:

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/this-saints-row-iv-trailer-contains-a-vital-piece-/2300-7455/

This Saints Row IV Trailer Contains a Vital Piece of Info

Posted by Jeff Gerstmann | Jun. 6, 2013 8:19am

Meet your running mate in Volition's positively presidential alien cyberspace action... thriller? Let's go with thriller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQTt6bUZrSU

This looks so perfectly dumb

starring Keith David as himself/the vice president

Will somebody update the name of this thread or give me the mod powers to do so? I can't even edit a thread title on my own subboard

http://i.imgur.com/iLTfr5H.png

classic saints row. i love keith david's facial expression there

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I admit, I was curious how much each of those individual things would cost. Thanks for doing the research, Kyle!
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/08/do-not-buy-the-1000000-saints-row-iv-bundle/

i was pretty effusive up there but i eventually found myself having more fun putting clothes on my person than doing anything else

after a while you really need good mission design. it doesn't seem that hard and nobody does it very well anymore! it's messed.

You should go back and play SR2, the clothing customization was much better in that one, and the mission design and storyline were a tad more serious. Sadly I think they're going to stick with the more rigid clothing options/suits they had in SR3, but I get it, they wanted to have fewer, more complete and polished costumes at the expense of having a million little bits and bobs to push around.

oh word? seemed like a million little bits in SR3 to me!

it was even crazier in SR2, I was actually slightly disappointed by SR3s (comparitively) limited clothing choices. but like you say, SR3 STILL had a ton of junk!

p.s. avoid the PC port if you can help it. i played it and had fun but by most accounts it's much better on console due to bugginess/poor performance

Do you mean SR2? I'd heard the PC port of that one was a total disaster, but I thought SR3 was supposed to be ok?

that's right - Volition outsourced the SR2 port, and as a result of their not-so-great work they did SR3/4 themselves, by most accounts their PC ports are good

GBQL is out:

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-saints-row-iv/2300-7806/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDlCc6MSmC8

Been playing IV a ton and it really is hitting the spot! Can't say I care much for the story or characters but damn this game looks good and is fun to play. I've been playing on PC and while it's glitched out once or twice, it wasn't all that bad and in fact it was only after I realized I couldn't move at all that it dawned on me that particular glitch was not supposed to happen! Kind of cool to make a game BE about glitching. I saw some reviews where the critic is talking about bugs and crashes and takes the time to differentiate between purposeful glitches and the regular bad kind. If you're going to get conceptual, you may as well just accept any glitch that happens as an extension of the story.

I must not play enough new games because these graphics are blowing my mind. I'm slightly upset that the sun seems to be slowly coming up the more I play but it still looks great. Just flying around, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, has been an impressive experience. And with the colorful lighting and that just-before-dawn look that this world has going for it, it sort of feels like a very tactile approximation of some of the weirder dreams I've had. Or maybe what I imagine Astral Projection would be like.

I love the dubstep gun so much. It really fits this game. All bright and shiny and electronic and state-of-the-art post-cyberpunk pop art. The way it looks when you are firing at a crowd of people, with those streams of light bouncing like weird laser oscilloscopes or something. Pretty incredible! The DLC includes a heavy metal gun?

The only downside is that it seems like there are far less mini-games and alternate diversions to do here, but I think I'm only halfway done w the game so maybe something new will come up. I guess you can't complain when your idea of tedium is throwing cars at alien invaders with your mind.

Mind Over Murder fuckin sucks I hate you Genki

Hah Genki, those games are tough. I always end up carrying a car and accidentally smashing it into the side of a building and having it explode and wipe me out for a minute.

Biggest pain for me right now is those rift games where they are shooting red/yellow soccer balls at you and you have to throw them back at the targets. No matter what happens, the screen just isn't big enough to see everything at once, and I keep getting killed by things I can't even see.

Played through IV all the way, and now going through it a second time, this time on HARD. I tried playing SR2 but it kept lagging like there was something wrong w the video card, making it impossible to drive and very tough to get around on foot. So weird since IV plays wonderful and looks really great.

new one crashes way too often ime

have you installed Gentlemen of the Row and That Other Thing for SR2? they farmed out the PC port so it's awfully optimized and you sort of need to fuck with it. SR3 and SR4 are extremely well done ports (although, yeah, 4's been rushed and it does have crashing issues--and an additional one where every time I boot it up it replays the last audio log I picked up until I force it through a loading screen)

I just scrolled up and people already said exactly that a few posts ago. my bad

I'm playing The Third now. It's pretty fun. I can see why some people got up in arms about IV just being the same city. But it is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT game. Some of the activities are WAY easier than they are in IV (mostly the mayhem missions), and the super powers in IV really make it something special. It's weird to run into a gang and have them dashing around like they have super powers and think "damn, i wish i could just jump to the roof of that building over there and throw some ice at these guys". IV really is the ultimate wish fulfillment.

Plus it feels like Third has some GTA-style leftover misogynist bent that seems more or less completely removed from IV. It's so cool that in IV you can play as a man or woman (or trans) and none of the dialog changes. You can be a female president of the united states and not once does it even point it out as a thing.

Third is some good times though, lots of great shoot-outs. The on-rails stuff gets a bit old but it's still fun. The gang shootouts seem more intense and long-lasting than they do in IV. Genki sidegames are wonderful, even without superpowers, but the ability to pick people up and throw them w your minds is pretty damn brilliant. Insurance Fraud is there, but the super-powered version in IV is straight-up GENIUS. Perhaps the best part of the whole series, really.

I'm about 40% finished with Third but right now I would have to recommend IV heads and shoulders above the rest of the series. I always heard how zany and crazy this series is. Honestly, it doesn't feel all that different from GTA or other open world games. Drive somewhere and protect a car. Drive somewhere and steal a car. Drive somewhere and shoot a bunch of bad guys. Oh! The bad guys are all dressed in a zany costume! So crazy!

Not so much, really. But a fine game to play nonetheless. And it plays well on my PC, which is more than I can say for 2.

after SR 1 and 2 and GTA4, saints row 3 was revelatory. i agree that 4 gets more stuff right in terms of game and mission design but 3's descent into madness was amazing, though i can see it being kind of dull coming from 4.

still miss the VIP protection and sewage truck activities from SR2, though

but yeah, it's really neat to how the series gets more and more stupid with every entry - even with SR2 there were dramatic moments where one of your homies gets killed and the main character is all angry/sad. that happens in the opening minutes of SR3 and never really goes back there

So I decided to taunt opposing gangs whenever i saw them, and I had just finished a mission which left me in front of a hotel. There were some red dots on the map so I walked up the sidewalk and gave the bird to a guy who whipped out a gun and started shooting. So I ran away trying to find the next one so I could taunt them, and it ended up being a policeman instead of a gangster. The insulted gang member still shooting at me, the cop got caught in the crossfire and started firing back. At this point I was about to bring up the weapons wheel but decided to just watch what happened. The police ended up capping the public nuisance and I actually earned points for it!

So potentially you could play this game without shooting anyone, just going around taunting gang members and having AI's fighting for you!

Started playing this on friday.

Which one, Third?

Feel like I shoulda gone through the story mode first in Third. The story missions are pretty fun (just finished the Tron-like level) but I spent a big chunk of time doing open world sandboxing, buying up properties, completing activities, etc. and now I have $400k+ in the bank and absolutely nothing to spend it on. Best way to play this is probably going through the story missions and then taking time off to sandbox and level up only when it gets hard to finish the missions.

that's how i generally play games in this genre - sandbox modes/activities to break up patches of story missions. usually due to a string of boring story missions, though SR3 did not really have that problem

Just flying around, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, has been an impressive experience. And with the colorful lighting and that just-before-dawn look that this world has going for it, it sort of feels like a very tactile approximation of some of the weirder dreams I've had.

i also love how even within the simulation, things are totally going haywire, everyone's freaking out, there's total chaos everywhere - it feels like a logical extension of the SR3 zombie plotline.

i had so much fun with the SR4 side missions that i wound up completing them all WAY before i was supposed to in storyline, which made some of the late game progress way too quickly. i imagine that after i'm done with GTA5, going back to this/playing around with whatever DLC comes out is gonna be a blast; i really like the crackdown-style physics

also feel like there's a halfway decent thinkpiece somewhere in the character creation/mass effect parody/crew romancing stuff - has a game like this ever treated gender and sexuality so fluidly?

otm. You can be any gender and any race and you are still president of the united states with super powers, I don't think a single word of dialog is changed.

that's good to hear - they went a little backwards from SR2 to SR3 in that regard

in SR2 (and maybe even once or twice in SR4) people call you "him" sometimes :( but I agree that the series is way better about that sort of stuff than GTA, which I feel like openly revels in its (supposedly winking) disdain for women. I noticed playing the first two Saints Row games that blowjobs during cutscenes are shorthand for which characters are villains who you will ultimately kill, and I thought that was sort of interesting

er, that is to say characters who use their money and power as a tool to use women always receive their comeuppance from a Boss who never does the same despite them (the Boss) being an apparent unscrupulous psychopath

Just bought the SR4. SR3 I beat two years ago. SR4 indulges the weird fantasy somebody had of being able to fuck an eyebot from New Vegas

What do you think of SR4?

I finished 3rd with about 25 hours total playing time, which was 10 hours less than I finished 4. Weirdly enough it felt like I traveled less across the game world than in 4 and also spent more time in on-rails sitting-in-a-helicopter missions where half of the time was spent just watching the game world scroll by. It's odd because you would think with the superpowers in 4 that it would make the game overall much shorter but nope. I played a few car stealing and assassination side missions in Third after the story, but I'm not sure I'm going to want to go for 100%. It's very hard to play this game having played 4 - seeing a spot on the map that I need to get to, and just wanting to jump to the top of the building to have a better look.

I like a lot of SR4, but the city itself feels sorta empty. Like I'm the only dude there, but maybe because I haven't progressed enough thru the story yet. However, the ability to just say eff the story and start buzzing thru side-missions to level up my superpowers is great. I enjoy games that let you grind to your hearts content, and where the actual grinding process isn't deplorable.

Even tho you don't really drive anymore, I did enjoy the unlocks from the car-jacking missions. The fact that the custom models were pretty much "Yeah, we're going to load as much Tron-shit into here as we can" was awesome. It makes me want to play a cyberpunk openworld GTA/SR type game. GTA 2040 or something.

All the fanservice indulgence with the weapons and costumes is stellar. "Fuck it, we'll put phasers and han solo's blaster in here and fuggin' pulse rifles. Why not"

and the little-ass really powerful gun from Men in Black

The Singularity Gun is probably the coolest gun I've ever seen in any 3d game. Shoot it at an intersection and it sucks up people, cars, streetlights, etc. The best thing is when cars come flying in from around the corner.

Super-powered Insurance Fraud is just....ah, I'm having trouble describing how fun and bizarre it is. Something like that will exist in the future with VR and we'll be able to indulge in similar Matrix-style absurdist rollercoasters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGyKFJFk1ow

Ok this is awesome! Apparently there's DLC for IV coming tomorrow? Or this week?

been playing SR IV lately & it's very fun & stupid. skipped III but loved II, maybe I'll need to go back and play III afterward?

my latina protagonist can jump over skyscrapers and creates tornados when she runs and WTF was that mission with the giant energy drink named Paul? I don't really know what's going on in this game but it's super fun