This is a great installment in the series, not as good as it could have been but worth playing.
After two installments, Volition went really out of their way to try to make the third game of the franchise memorable, but falls a little short, because it is less or more of the same the previous games offered, nevertheless, it is still a strong competitor in the sandbox genre.
From the game-play perspective, it's reminiscent of other sandbox titles. You control your own custom built character in third person, mowing down NPC's with various weapons, a standard HUD with a health bar, a minimap, a weapon and ammo gauge, nothing gamers aren't already familiar with. You have access to your smartphone, which is used to contact your allies and keep track of your in-game status, current objectives, and information that helps you explore the vast city of Steelport.
From the start, you are given a huge playground with vehicles and weapons, there is a drop-in-drop-out coop mode and military surplus is unlocked very early on in the game, which is how the game encourages players to cause all sorts of chaos.
In the first mission, the protagonist, an initiate to the gang, with two of top gang members from the gang of 3rd Street Saints, Johnny Gat and Shaundi, you're on a bank heist disguised as life-sized bobble-heads of Johnny Gat, that means you rob a bank disguised as yourself. Things don't go so smoothly, you end up having to take the entire vault for a helicopter ride out through the roof while starstruck SWAT teams request that you autograph your weapons before laying them down. The running joke of the game is that The Saints are now celebrities, which is played out well to make fun of the modern celebrity obsessed culture that is in full swing in our society.
Even though the game is full of cheap humor, like using a 3 foot long **** for melee combat, there is silver lining, the game is full of clever dialogue, genuine humor, and overall good writing, it's a shame that all that gets overshadowed by over the top vulgarity and tries too hard with immature humor, which is not necessarily a game breaker. Compared to majority of gritty, brown-gray-ish triple A titles that the industry offers, this is a welcome change in the atmosphere. Sadly, the novelty of dick jokes wears out too fast.
Like every open world large scale game on the xbox 360, Saint's Row: The Third does suffer from minor glitches, like pop ups and draw in of textures, but I didn't notice any frame rate drops even while I was causing as much havoc as possible. Luckily the game does a good job distracting us from that with it's good style, level of customization and moderate attention to detail. The game knows what it is and it represents itself in the right way.
Pros:
• Good fun
• Great design
• Bizarre Humor that contains underlying intelligent writing
• Light-hearted
Cons:
• Minor glitches
• Immature humor quickly gets stale
Overall, Saint's Row: The Third is a good game, it doesn't take itself seriously, there are other creative titles out there, but I doubt that any of those can deliver that zany thrill that this game delivers.
Rating: 8.5
-Petar
GameNTrade Ltd.