Saints Row: The Third is not only a terrible sequel, but it is also a legitimately terrible game. I am not trying to be sarcastic or ironic with this review. Saints Row 3 is a lazy, incompetent mess that amounts to little more to a cynical cashgrab that panders to the hip internet crowd.

Let me begin by saying that Saints Row 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. Despite it's generic city setting, lack of polish and crass sense of humor, the game was clearly made with love. In addition to the 25 hour story mode, there were 14 different activities to be done.You could choose your own fighting style, your own walk, the kinds of cars your gang members drove and could pick from a variety of different themes for your gang. You could buy a variety of different cribs and upgrade them, turning even the smallest, cheapest safehouse into a fancy pad. The game map was actually quite large and housed an impressive number of easter eggs and fun things to do. Saints Row: The Third has very few of these things, and many of them are half baked and lazy.

Unlike Saints Row: The Third, Saints Row 2 never forced it's "wackiness" on players. You could, if you wanted, dress up in a hotdog suit and kill enemies with a katana, but the game didn't force you to. The story actually took itself relatively seriously while still remaining over the top and self-aware, and the fantastically animated cutscenes lent the game some cinematic flair. Saints Row: The Third, on the other hand, is constantly forcing you to play along with it's insipid "Family Guy" sense of humor. There is a segment where you enter a virtual reality system and your character is represented as a toilet. There is a character that speaks entirely in autotune. "What else did you expect from a Saints Row game?" you might ask? "Isn't the whole point to be as immature and over the top as possible?" No, it isn't. Neither of the previous games forced these unfunny jokes on the player. The tone of this game is nothing like it's predecessors. They had the capacity to be wacky, but only if you made them so. The games had a consistent world with consistent characters who served a thematic purpose. They weren't masterpieces of storytelling, but they were a far cry from having characters that speak entirely in autotune.

Saints Row: The Third seems extremely determined to pander to whatever was "in" with the internet crowd at the time. Dubstep plays on the menus and is directly referenced in the game. There is a mission with a tiger that is clearly a reference to the "Hangover" films. Tron: Legacy came out a year before this game, so they felt the need to put in a blue and orange virtual reality sequence that looks exactly like a set from Tron. Zombies were in way back in 2011, so the developers decided to throw in a segment with zombies, where every single hit from a zombie stunlocks you. This makes the game feel 10 years older than it really is.

Even with it's paltry 12-15 hour length (for a freeroam game,) the game is heavilly padded. Several activities are played off as actual missions or re-skinned to trick people into thinking that they are different. After completing the game, I went over to the wiki to count exactly how many missions are just recycled activities. I came up with 15 out of 48 missions, meaning 31% of the game amounts to nothing more than doing activities -- assuming you aren't also doing them outside of the main story. On top of this, there are 5 missions which are just short cutscenes that must be driven to. All of this adds up to very little substantial content.

To make matters worse, the game frequently recycles it's own missions. There are two occasions where the player falls from the sky with a parachute while fighting enemies. One of these encounters features a tank, and is admittedly quite fun, but it is still a repeat. There are two missions that take place at the same BDSM club, one where you have to free Zimos, the auto-tune speaking pimp as well as a stronghold mission that treads mostly the same ground. There are three missions which take place in the Saints Headquarters, one where the player has to take it from members of a rival gang, one nearly identical mission where the player has to defend it from invading ho's and ANOTHER where the player has to defend it from military forces attempting to take it back. There are two missions at the STAG headquarters/PR center -- one where the player must kidnap Nyteblade, STAG's PR boy, and another where the player must hack computers at the same headquarters.

Many of the enemies in the game are bullet sponges, taking almost an entire clip to kill, even with upgraded guns. The special enemies in this game become a chore to fight as they often take absurdly long to kill, causing every encounter to become nothing more than a drawn out game of peekaboo. The later weapons are mostly useless, as the fully upgraded starting weapons are often as strong, if not stronger, than the advanced futuristic weapons. The AI is often so stupid that their inability to get into a car will fail cause the player to fail the mission. This problem reaches dizzying heights in the final mission, which I failed several times solely because Pierce refused to get into the car Sometimes the AI would become locked in place and refuse to move or drive the vehicle or certain events would not trigger, forcing me to restart the mission. This happened so many times it made me seriously consider turning the game off and never playing it again.

It doesn't help Saints Row: The Third's case that the map is considerably smaller than it was in previous offerings. According to some quick online research, Saints Row: The Third clocks in at 10 square miles while Saints Row 2 adds up to a total of 14 square miles. This means that Steelport is not much larger than the Stillwater of Saints Row 1, a game that came out in 2006. The size of the map wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the fact that it feels so incredibly empty. Often there would only be 3-4 cars on the streets at any given time, causing the city to feel empty and lifeless. Most of the stores in the game are Planet Saints, and all of the stores that aren't Planet Saints carry many of the same clothes. This is pure laziness from Deep Silver: not only is the map small, it's empty too.

The game also offers considerably less freedom in the order players can compete missions. Saints Row 1&2 allowed the player to take on any of either games three gangs in any order they pleased. This means the player could choose to take on each gang one at a time, focusing on only that specific story, or to take all three on simultaneously. This allowed the writers to create a narritive that was unique to each gang. Saints Row: The Thirdgives you a selection of 3-4 missions at a time, which can each be completed in any order -- but all three gangs are fought in a linear progression that the player is unable to control. This means that in order to progress to the next set of missions, you often must do a mission where you fight the Deckers and also a mission where you fight the Morningstar or another gang. This results in a much smaller amount of freedom for the player and also greatly hurts the pacing of the campaign, which meanders for the majority of it's runtime. While each gang in SR1&2 had what was the equivalent of a 6 hour campaign with their own story arcs, none of the gangs in Saints Row: The Third have nearly that amount of screentime, and none of them have their own independent story arcs. This greatly hurts the overall quality of the game and the players connection to the world and story.


Saints Row: The Third is a terrible game.

Saints Row: The Third is not only a terrible sequel, but it is also a legitimately terrible game. I am not trying to be sarcastic or ironic with this review. Saints Row 3 is a lazy, incompetent mess that amounts to little more to a cynical cashgrab that panders to the hip internet crowd. Let me begin by saying that Saints Row 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. Despite it's generic city setting, lack of polish and crass sense of humor, the game was clearly made with love. In addition to the 25 hour story mode, there were 14 different activities to be done.You could choose your own fighting style, your own walk, the kinds of cars your gang members drove and could pick from a variety of different themes for your gang. You could buy a variety of different cribs and upgrade them, turning even the smallest, cheapest safehouse into a fancy pad. The game map was actually quite large and housed an impressive number of easter eggs and fun things to do. Saints Row: The Third has very few of these things, and many of them are half baked and lazy. Unlike Saints Row: The Third, Saints Row 2 never forced it's "wackiness" on players. You could, if you wanted, dress up in a hotdog suit and kill enemies with a katana, but the game didn't force you to. The story actually took itself relatively seriously while still remaining over the top and self-aware, and the fantastically animated cutscenes lent the game some cinematic flair. Saints Row: The Third, on the other hand, is constantly forcing you to play along with it's insipid "Family Guy" sense of humor. There is a segment where you enter a virtual reality system and your character is represented as a toilet. There is a character that speaks entirely in autotune. "What else did you expect from a Saints Row game?" you might ask? "Isn't the whole point to be as immature and over the top as possible?" No, it isn't. Neither of the previous games forced these unfunny jokes on the player. The tone of this game is nothing like it's predecessors. They had the capacity to be wacky, but only if you made them so. The games had a consistent world with consistent characters who served a thematic purpose. They weren't masterpieces of storytelling, but they were a far cry from having characters that speak entirely in autotune. Saints Row: The Third seems extremely determined to pander to whatever was "in" with the internet crowd at the time. Dubstep plays on the menus and is directly referenced in the game. There is a mission with a tiger that is clearly a reference to the "Hangover" films. Tron: Legacy came out a year before this game, so they felt the need to put in a blue and orange virtual reality sequence that looks exactly like a set from Tron. Zombies were in way back in 2011, so the developers decided to throw in a segment with zombies, where every single hit from a zombie stunlocks you. This makes the game feel 10 years older than it really is. Even with it's paltry 12-15 hour length (for a freeroam game,) the game is heavilly padded. Several activities are played off as actual missions or re-skinned to trick people into thinking that they are different. After completing the game, I went over to the wiki to count exactly how many missions are just recycled activities. I came up with 15 out of 48 missions, meaning 31% of the game amounts to nothing more than doing activities -- assuming you aren't also doing them outside of the main story. On top of this, there are 5 missions which are just short cutscenes that must be driven to. All of this adds up to very little substantial content. To make matters worse, the game frequently recycles it's own missions. There are two occasions where the player falls from the sky with a parachute while fighting enemies. One of these encounters features a tank, and is admittedly quite fun, but it is still a repeat. There are two missions that take place at the same BDSM club, one where you have to free Zimos, the auto-tune speaking pimp as well as a stronghold mission that treads mostly the same ground. There are three missions which take place in the Saints Headquarters, one where the player has to take it from members of a rival gang, one nearly identical mission where the player has to defend it from invading ho's and ANOTHER where the player has to defend it from military forces attempting to take it back. There are two missions at the STAG headquarters/PR center -- one where the player must kidnap Nyteblade, STAG's PR boy, and another where the player must hack computers at the same headquarters. Many of the enemies in the game are bullet sponges, taking almost an entire clip to kill, even with upgraded guns. The special enemies in this game become a chore to fight as they often take absurdly long to kill, causing every encounter to become nothing more than a drawn out game of peekaboo. The later weapons are mostly useless, as the fully upgraded starting weapons are often as strong, if not stronger, than the advanced futuristic weapons. The AI is often so stupid that their inability to get into a car will fail cause the player to fail the mission. This problem reaches dizzying heights in the final mission, which I failed several times solely because Pierce refused to get into the car Sometimes the AI would become locked in place and refuse to move or drive the vehicle or certain events would not trigger, forcing me to restart the mission. This happened so many times it made me seriously consider turning the game off and never playing it again. It doesn't help Saints Row: The Third's case that the map is considerably smaller than it was in previous offerings. According to some quick online research, Saints Row: The Third clocks in at 10 square miles while Saints Row 2 adds up to a total of 14 square miles. This means that Steelport is not much larger than the Stillwater of Saints Row 1, a game that came out in 2006. The size of the map wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the fact that it feels so incredibly empty. Often there would only be 3-4 cars on the streets at any given time, causing the city to feel empty and lifeless. Most of the stores in the game are Planet Saints, and all of the stores that aren't Planet Saints carry many of the same clothes. This is pure laziness from Deep Silver: not only is the map small, it's empty too. The game also offers considerably less freedom in the order players can compete missions. Saints Row 1&2 allowed the player to take on any of either games three gangs in any order they pleased. This means the player could choose to take on each gang one at a time, focusing on only that specific story, or to take all three on simultaneously. This allowed the writers to create a narritive that was unique to each gang. Saints Row: The Thirdgives you a selection of 3-4 missions at a time, which can each be completed in any order -- but all three gangs are fought in a linear progression that the player is unable to control. This means that in order to progress to the next set of missions, you often must do a mission where you fight the Deckers and also a mission where you fight the Morningstar or another gang. This results in a much smaller amount of freedom for the player and also greatly hurts the pacing of the campaign, which meanders for the majority of it's runtime. While each gang in SR1&2 had what was the equivalent of a 6 hour campaign with their own story arcs, none of the gangs in Saints Row: The Third have nearly that amount of screentime, and none of them have their own independent story arcs. This greatly hurts the overall quality of the game and the players connection to the world and story. Saints Row: The Third is a terrible game.