Video Game Review: ‘Saints Row the Third’ Gets By on Gleeful Excess

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CHICAGO – “Saints Row The Third” is to “Grand Theft Auto” as “Machete” is to “No Country For Old Men.” They may feature similar themes but one takes the dramatic edge of the other and turns it into B-movie insanity. And I don’t mean that as a criticism. The third game in the surprisingly robust “Saints Row” franchise is a blast. A goofy, wacky, silly, dumb, crazy blast. It doesn’t take itself seriously enough to garner the high critical acclaim of some of this season’s gaming gems, but it will more likely suck away more of your valuable free time than some of the highest Metacritic scored titles of the year.

Video Game Rating: 4.0/5.0

How over-the-top is “Saints Row the Third”? At one point, you can equip a weapon called “The Penetrator,” which is, well, a giant sex toy that can be used to bludgeon your enemies. And in order to get that weapon you have to finish a mission involving a secret sex club that features enough S&M imagery to earn the game an NC-17 were it a movie. The game opens with a scene in which you fall thousands of feet through the air, shooting enemies as you dodge debris and the missions get more ridiculous from there. It’s not long before you’re destroying helicopters with missile launchers or piloting a jet over the city as you protect a convoy of your homies. On a practical, logical level, “Saints Row the Third” is stupid. And that’s what makes it pretty great.

Saints Row the Third
Photo credit: THQ

Unlike most gang-based games, you’re on top of the world when “Saints Row the Third” opens. It’s not about building power as much as it is keeping it and growing even bigger. The Saints aren’t just a gang, they’re rock stars in the city of Stillwater. There are billboards of them all over town. People stop you on the street for photo opportunities. You can wear t-shirts with the likenesses of your own gang allies. There are energy drinks built around your public persona. The Saints rule. Naturally, with great power comes great responsibility. And great jealousy. Everyone wants to take you down. Everyone wants your turf, your money, and your life.

Saints Row the Third Photo credit: THQ

The story missions of “Saints Row the Third” consist of you trying to expand your empire into the city of Steelport, run by the Deckers, Morningstars, and Luchadores. It plays not unlike a giant game of Whack-a-Mole. Take their cribs, take their weapons, take their homies, and take the entire city. Eventually, even the government will try to take you down. You will kill thousands of people. Tens of thousands. In one day.

The structure of “Saints Row the Third” will be familiar to anyone who’s played an open world city violence game like “GTA.” It’s a combination of open exploration, story missions, and side missions. The side missions in “Saints Row the Third” can help you amass control of the city, which means higher hourly income. Controlling portions of the city can be as simple as buying property or as complex as taking down a gang stronghold. Side missions like “Mayhem” feature, well, mayhem — doing a pre-set amount of property damage within a pre-set amount of time — or insurance fraud as you throw yourself in front of passing vehicles trying to make more money with fake lawsuits. Even the side missions are inspired in their idiocy.

More than most games like this one, I found myself wanting to go back to “Saints Row the Third” to spend time in its wacky world and increase my control of it. I’ll admit to being bored by most side missions. I don’t have time for your silly messenger mission. I usually sample them in games like this one and then get right back to the story. I found myself, surprisingly, wandering the world of “Saints Row the Third,” looking for properties to buy or side missions to complete. It’s a remarkably addictive environment, nowhere as detailed as some of the best of the season (Arkham City, Skyrim) but engaging in its own way. It’s in the details. Why steal a car when you can jump through the window, Bo Duke-style? Why wear a typical game outfit when you can go the costume shop and, well, dress up like a freak? “Saints Row the Third” takes customization to ridiculous levels, as if anything that might have brought up that could have been perceived as “realism” was immediately shot down in development meetings.

Saints Row the Third Photo credit: THQ

Like most modern open-world games, the customization in “Saints Row the Third” is DEEP. You can even pick various outfits for the homies in your gang. More standard customization fare include weapon upgrades (new to the franchise), stronghold customization, and vehicle customization. Pick your favorite weapons (get to love your grenades…they’re key to success), trick out your favorite vehicle, buy a cowgirl outfit, and go blow somebody up. Punch a stranger on the street on your way. Very little is off-limits in Steelport. And you can even do it with a friend with co-op options throughout the game. Or play something called “Whored Mode”. Yes, that’s the first time the word “Whored” has been written on this site, as far as we know.

In the end, it’s the story missions and how they build in lunacy that really separates “Saints Row the Third.” The developers have crafted engaging, well-paced story missions that build organically with your skill level as the game progresses. This not deep storytelling, but when you’re shooting rival gang members off rickshaws being controlled by enemy gimps storytelling falls away. This is the B-movie of open world gaming. And it’s a lot harder to pull of than it looks. The missions may be goofy but they need to be as well-crafter as the “serious” ones in order to be fun (as anyone who played the awful “Duke Nukem Forever,” a game that mistakenly thought humor could replace gameplay). “Saints Row the Third” may seem like the gaming dream of a 13-year-old but it takes serious skill to pull that off on a development level. Excuse me. I have to go back to running my empire. I may have to pull out my Penetrator.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]