Saints Row: The Third

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