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Welcome to 'TickNSwisted Reviews', this time of Saints Row: The Third.
The game starts off with members of the Saints, which is a criminal organization
that you're the leader of, who are robbing a bank.
What would be a run-of-the-mill heist turns bad when a member of the crew sets
off an alarm that lands you in jail.
Now, the Saints are a popular and loved criminal organization. On the list of, like,
celebrities.
So they're expecting a usual slap on the wrist in exchange for a few
autographs.
They're surprised when they're bailed out by another criminal gang, who offers to
spare their destruction, in exchange for sixty-six percent of their monthly
income, very business-like.
The Saints refuse the offer and instead decide to fight their way out in an
action-packed sequence.
And so, as the leader of this gang,
you are then tasked in exacting revenge and securing the gang's dominance.
Now, that's a pretty in-depth story for a Grand Theft Auto style game, but then again every aspect
of this game is in depth.
You can customize your character right down to the size of the eyes, pick out clothing,
coloring it,
picking out cars, coloring and upgrading them,
using money you get your travels to buy sets of clothes, accessories,
all of which is completely optional to the gameplay.
Now, where do you get money?
Well, completing the game missions, or side missions, which are like GTA:San Andreas gang-area
takeovers, were you gain more money and influence in certain zones of the
city.
Unlike San Andreas, zones you take over aren't ripped out from under you.
Essentially, you're looking to invest money from missions into buying
businesses, GTA: Vice City style, as you play and enjoy your increased income.
Beyond that, your tasked with existing in the city where gangs and police are
roaming the streets. Occasionally you'll do something to anger a local gang which
will cause them to shoot at you.
If a cop missed the part where you killed some of their guys [then] he'll attack
them.
[That is] until he sees you shooting at them, which is more like defending yourself, and then
everybody involved is on the police's shoot-to-kill list.
For the most part though, cops will attack you and the gang you're fighting.
Both gangs and police will arrive from out of sight endlessly, until you remove
your notoriety, a.k.a. wanted level.
This can be done by going to remote areas or going into any building such as your
safe house or a business that you own.
In addition to customizing your clothes, looks, and music preferences, you can
customize the vehicles that you drive.
Choose the color, wheel size, trim,
and upgrades to how it performs as well.
You can customize the radio stations that play in cars, which is another
feature I liked.
I limited my choices of radio stations down to two, and wasn't constantly
changing the radio station every time I got in new car.
It seems like i was always doing that in GTA.
There are a number of different weapon upgrades to choose from as well, increasing
their performance.
Additional upgrades to your
person, such as how long you can run, ammo you can carry, the amount of gang
members you have,
uh... the health, what guns they carry, are also available
It mostly comes to money, though there are few level requirements for them,
as well.
Levels are gained through Respect. Respect is earned by completing missions,
buying clothes,
driving in the wrong lane, killing gang members, and pretty much everything you do.
Though, the bulk of it comes from missions.
Now, before I get in to the missions, I do want to cover that there are sub-missions
Assassinations, go here--kill a guy, Car Thefts, go here--steal a car and get
it back to a garage.
And achievements, all of which make you take a break from doing straight
missions
to net you some additional money and respect.
In getting money, the majority comes from an hourly income, which is based on the
amount of businesses you own or what those businesses are.
Some [businesses]
perform services, such as plastic surgery, in case you were happy with how your
face turned out after the initial customization,
you can pay money to have changed.
Or Garages, which will let you '***' and customize your ride.
Weapon shops, which let you upgrade weapons and by ammo.
Clothing Shops, which flight you buy new clothes and pick out a number of colors
and styles.
In addition, you can upgrade some of your safe houses, or cribs,
to allow more money from the local gang area,
as well as respect bonuses, and so on.
Again, this is where you'll want to buy as many businesses as possible so that you
make a lot of money every hour, and then you can do whatever the hell you want
with your money.
There's also a many, what are called diversions, such is taking hostages
streaking,
robberies,
assassinations.
Though, you might want to do these early in the game as some of them require you
to *** off local gang members to draw out a target, those gang members might be
replaced by your own gang members after you've taken areas over.
Other than that though,
these are done any time and will likely end in a police chase, but will give you
respect and money.
Activities are unlocked through progression but are ultimately
repeatable and very in difficulty. Such as the Escort,
which is where you drive a *** and her client around while avoiding
news vans, which attempting to swarm you.
Guardian Angel, which is where you ride in a helicopter and shoot anyone
threatens a target on the ground.
Mayhem, which is where you get infinite ammo on a time to run to do as much damage as
possible to reach a certain dollar amount.
Then there's Tank Mayhem, which is similar, but you do it in a tank.
Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax, which is where your character
goes on a game show and announcers discuss your performances as you shoot
people in bunny costumes and get cash prizes. That was fun.
My personal favorite would be the Insurance Fraud, where you reach a dollar amount
by lunging into traffic and attempting to get cars to hit you.
Often times I was laughing at how ridiculous it was
that I was hurling my body towards cars, as well as the look of my character who's
flopping around from one hood to the next,
which is the opposite of your normal instinct to avoid cars when you're on
foot.
And then there's Tiger Escort, which is where there's a tiger in your passenger
seat,
and you have to keep them happy by going fast. The challenge is that he'll occasionally
gnaw on you, causing you to turn and veer into oncoming traffic,
which will then leave them bored as you attempt to get
going again.
This was hysterical, as I think I skipped a cut scene where it was
explaining what's gonna happen: I was expecting a *** my car --
How many times can you say that -- but it unexplainably
had a tiger there instead.
I literally had to pause the game to laugh,
Obviously, the game doesn't take itself too serious, there's *** weapons
Tiger Escorts, game shows, where you actually kill the contestants,
but it doesn't seem to be crazy just for the sake of being crazy. If you walk
around the streets it would look similar to any other big city game.
Nothing is
forced on you as far as the insanity is concerned.
For example, you can wear all sorts of weird crazy close but you also have the
option of playing as a normal looking person. That's me.
Also, there's collectibles which include pallets of money, sex dolls, and drugs.
Finding them will net you cash and make you a better person.
Some are easy to find, with very few, well hidden ones.
I found it easier to use an airplane to hunt them down once I'd bought the perk
to let you see their whereabouts on a mini map.
Some of the missions will offer you a choice, usually deciding one upgrade over
another.
There's also another component which
makes the gameplay unique:
Do you detonate a bomb, destroying a building, or make [the building] a base for your gang?
I usually picked the one that had long-term benefits over the short term
gains,
just because that's how I am.
Either way, eventually you'll get choices that are a bit more tricky.
Voice acting for this was on par. Characters were well thought-out.
The controls of the game felt _very_ nice,
Cars handle very well, unlike the recent GTA's, it's not like the cars waiting
to just flip over.
Here the turning radius and the braking system are excellently implemented so
that you'd be able to cruise around at top speed and
not worry about the car careening out of control when you need to make a turn.
The graphics in the game were also very smooth, unusually smooth.
I hate to keep drawing comparisons to Grand Theft Auto, but really, GTA IV runs
pretty slow compared to this,
on what is largely a mid-upper range computer.
Likewise, this game runs great. There's no hangups or oddities going
into airplanes and helicopters
and looking at the whole city.
Everything looks like you would expect, there's no huge chug when you go from
one part of the city to the next as the computer loads in additional information.
The engine is very solid.
Unlike GTA, you can't pick up prostitutes, though, again the *** weapon and
references might make this a no go for some younger gamers. My teenage daughter
and I played a side-by-side, which she advance a little further than I did and
found some of the more adult references.
Still, it wasn't something that was ever forced down your throat -- [hehe] --
but it is something to watch out for.
It's weird where a game is this good. There's nothing wrong with it, there's
no feeling of being cheated after purchasing it.
The co-op gameplay is fun, the single-player is fun, cars handle great,
the customization is insanely detailed and made this game so much more
fun than a run, drive, and gun game.
The radio station music was also pretty good.
Really though, I haven't played a game this thought-out and unique to the user's
style of game play in a long time.
This game gets a ten out of ten.