Saints Row: The Third

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