Saints Row: The Third marks a departure for the series from semi-serious to absurd, particularly with The Full Package edition. Don't go into it expecting the grittiness of the Grand Theft Auto franchise; just sit back, suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride. There are a myriad of missions, collectables, achievements, upgrades, buffs, and customizations galore. This is not a game for the squeamish, prudish, or easily offended; in fact, it goes out of its way, at times to offend! It is not for the kiddies.

The game begins with what is likely the most complete, versatile, and involved character avatar generation system of any game I had come across before. (Download and run the free Saints Row: The Third Initiation Station demo to see what I mean.) It then plunks you down into the game as the ostensible new leader of the "Third Street Saints" street gang, which had enjoyed success, celebrity and pop culture commercialization, but has been targeted and taken down some notches not only by the criminal "Syndicate" but also by rival gangs, the police, the military, aliens, and... zombies. The plot is to take back control of the city of Steelport from the various gang factions by doing missions and fulfilling contracts, or just robbing, to get the money to buy up businesses that grant you control, area by area. Gameplay involves a wild mix of outlandish activities that are accomplished on foot, in cars, trucks, streetsweepers, motorcycles, boats, jetskis, airplanes, helicopters, etc., with a goodly mix of upgradeable weapons ranging from clubs to guns to rocket launchers to tanks. There's also a built-in system to pimp your rides! As you progress, a variety of abilities and buffs become available to advance your player-character.

The game is a blast to play, its sandbox missions, contracts, and activities are varied and will keep one entertained for a long time -- as long as you can accept the absurdities of the game world and not be too offended. You can even play it, co-op, with a friend in multiplayer mode.

SR3 is not without its faults and bugs. While the game is pretty gorgeous (in Dx10 mode), its graphics are pretty demanding and there are many graphical glitches and problems. These are more numerous and serious with AMD or Intel graphics. All Saints Row games are console ports after all. I never experienced any game-breaking bugs, but then I'm still running Win 7 (64-bit) with an Nvidia card, and have no experience with the game on Win 10. Overall, I would rate the game at 8.5 out of 10. It remains one of my top ten favorite games.

UPDATE

The Volition "My Steelport" server has been shut down. The result is that any Player Character created and uploaded to the server is now lost and cannot be recalled for use in a new game. Additionally, all statistics for a user are likewise lost. One must now go through the process to generate a new Player Character for any new game or save newly generated Characters locally using the "My Steelport emulator" mod available for download at https://www.saintsrowmods.com/forum/threads/my-steelport-emulator.17361/ . Most of the foregoing also applies to Saints Row IV.

[i]Saints Row: The Third[/i] marks a departure for the series from semi-serious to absurd, particularly with [i]The Full Package[/i] edition. Don't go into it expecting the grittiness of the [i]Grand Theft Auto[/i] franchise; just sit back, suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride. There are a myriad of missions, collectables, achievements, upgrades, buffs, and customizations galore. This is not a game for the squeamish, prudish, or easily offended; in fact, it goes out of its way, at times [b]to offend[/b]! It is not for the kiddies. The game begins with what is likely the most complete, versatile, and involved character avatar generation system of any game I had come across before. (Download and run the free [i]Saints Row: The Third Initiation Station[/i] demo to see what I mean.) It then plunks you down into the game as the ostensible new leader of the "Third Street Saints" street gang, which had enjoyed success, celebrity and pop culture commercialization, but has been targeted and taken down some notches not only by the criminal "Syndicate" but also by rival gangs, the police, the military, aliens, and... zombies. The plot is to take back control of the city of Steelport from the various gang factions by doing missions and fulfilling contracts, or just robbing, to get the money to buy up businesses that grant you control, area by area. Gameplay involves a wild mix of outlandish activities that are accomplished on foot, in cars, trucks, streetsweepers, motorcycles, boats, jetskis, airplanes, helicopters, etc., with a goodly mix of upgradeable weapons ranging from clubs to guns to rocket launchers to tanks. There's also a built-in system to pimp your rides! As you progress, a variety of abilities and buffs become available to advance your player-character. The game is a blast to play, its sandbox missions, contracts, and activities are varied and will keep one entertained for a long time -- as long as you can accept the absurdities of the game world and not be too offended. You can even play it, co-op, with a friend in multiplayer mode. SR3 is not without its faults and bugs. While the game is pretty gorgeous (in Dx10 mode), its graphics are pretty demanding and there [i]are[/i] many graphical glitches and problems. These are more numerous and serious with AMD or Intel graphics. All [i]Saints Row[/i] games are console ports after all. I never experienced any game-breaking bugs, but then I'm still running Win 7 (64-bit) with an Nvidia card, and have no experience with the game on Win 10. Overall, I would rate the game at 8.5 out of 10. It remains one of my top ten favorite games. UPDATE The Volition "My Steelport" server has been shut down. The result is that any Player Character created and uploaded to the server is now lost and cannot be recalled for use in a new game. Additionally, all statistics for a user are likewise lost. One must now go through the process to generate a new Player Character for any new game or save newly generated Characters locally using the "My Steelport emulator" mod available for download at [url]https://www.saintsrowmods.com/forum/threads/my-steelport-emulator.17361/[/url] . Most of the foregoing also applies to [i]Saints Row IV[/i].